Last night, Cedar Hills Mayor Gary Gygi, and eight current and previous Cedar Hills Councilmembers attended the Preserve and Protect American Fork Canyon public meeting at American Fork H.S., moderated by Mark Allen and County Commissioner Bill Lee.

Former Council members Joel Wright, Ken Cromar and Marisa Wright made comment and asked questions.  Sitting Council members Daniel Zappala, Trent Augustus, and Rob Crawley also commented.  Former Council member Darin Lowder and current Council member Jenney Rees were also in attendance, but did not speak.  (see separate post today with those details)

The following was posted by Cedar Hills Councilman Trent Augustus this morning on Cedar Hills Chat Room and at the Preserve and Protect American Fork Canyon Fackbook at https://www.facebook.com/ProtectAmericanForkCanyon/posts/1613417608943951  regarding their public meeting:

Cedar Hills Councilman Trent Augustus:

For the past several weeks residents across Utah County have asked for open and transparent communication when it comes to the issues facing American Fork Canyon. During the meeting held last night at American Fork High School I, again, publicly stated that I would be presenting a resolution this coming Tuesday to the Cedar Hills city council supporting the environmental stewardship of American Fork Canyon. The resolution I will be presenting is very closely modeled after the one recently approved by the American Fork city council.

Directly following last night’s meeting, I had several people immediately approach me and say hey if you’re presenting a resolution you need to know what your mayor did today. So, yesterday July 1st at 3:15pm Mayor Gary Gygi sent the following email to 27 various mayors and city council members in Utah County.

It is very disconcerting that our mayor is so adamantly trying to protect Snowbird that he would go out and send an email such as this. Since Snowbird is very clearly a private property owner in American Fork Canyon, if this type of language was added to a resolution it would very clearly dictate that a city would be supporting Snowbird in whatever use they decided to come up with in AF Canyon.

Mayor Gygi below says that the residents drive his marching orders. The residents of Cedar Hills, American Fork and Utah County have very clearly said that they do not want American Fork Canyon commercialized and for Snowbird to control a large portion of the canyon. However, Mayor Gygi isn’t heeding his own advice and listening to the residents. He continues to ignore the Cedar Hills City Council, the residents of Cedar Hills, the residents of American Fork and the residents of Utah County.

I am again saddened and utterly disappointed in Cedar Hills Mayor Gary Gygi for again willfully taking an action such as this.

CH Mayor Gygi email:

From: Gary Gygi <ggygi@cedarhills.org>
Date: July 1, 2015 at 3:15:47 PM MDT
To: ***email addresses removed to protect the various parties and addresses***

Mayors, there is a lot of excitement and much misinformation lately about American Fork Canyon and Snowbird so I want to give you information directly. I do like the Snowbird idea but I have never advocated for Snowbird in any of our American Fork Canyon steering committee meetings. BTW, I have also not advocated for Save our Canyons either, I have said that the residents will drive my marching orders and my residents don’t like it so I will respect that despite my personal feelings about it. I see that American Fork City and other cities are looking at making resolutions of various types supporting the canyon as it is. I would just like to encourage you to not forget the property rights of anyone who owns real property, be it private or public land. I would also encourage you if you choose to make a resolution to not forget that we all enjoy 1st amendment rights which extend to individuals and corporations. I have been advocating for all parties to be heard and I fear our freedoms and liberties are being trampled on if forget the property rights and 1st amendment rights aspect of our resolutions.
Thanks for you time.
-Gary

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