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Jury finds against city, former mayor in lawsuit July 7, 2018, 3:24 pmPatterson filed suit against the city and Watson in March 2014. The lawsuit claimed the city had breached the terms of a March 2011 settlement and a previous 1992 settlement regarding a 54-lot subdivision known as the Box Elder subdivision that Patterson was trying to develop, in the northeast section of the city, along with Box Elder South an adjacent 42-acre parcel in the county owned by Patterson. (The county subsequently approved the development application for the parcel in January 2014). Patterson specifically named Watkins in the suit. Watkins served as mayor of Alpine from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2014 to 2016, resigning partway through his term when he took a position at Dixie State University. The suit filed by Patterson claimed that prior to becoming mayor in 2014, Watkins published false defamatory statements against the company and its principals. While Watkins was highly vocal in his opposition to their hillside development, he remained silent about The Falls development which it said was owned by Watkins' "business partner Will Jones"… "even though it raises many of the same issues that have been the focus of Watkins‟ public outcry against development of the Box Elder South Property," the suit said. "After he completed his prior service as the City's mayor and a member of the City Council, Watkins led an effort in 2006 to ensure that the City refused to annex the Box Elder South Property unless it was annexed as a public park or open space," it said. Watkins, it said, sought but failed to have the city purchase the property as a park. It said he solicited city employees and officials to oppose the development agreement after winning the election but prior to being sworn into office. On about January 4, 2014, Watkins sent a letter to Alpine residents entitled "Letter of Concern By Mayor Don Watkins" (Watkins was not actually sworn in as mayor until two days later), in which the plaintiffs said he made several false or misleading statements about the company and its developments. These actions, the suit said, interfered with Patterson's ability to develop the Box Elder subdivisions. According to the terms of the previous settlements, the city was to provide municipal services including water to the developments. Patterson also constructed a secondary access road, which under the 1992 settlement, the city said it would allow as access to the Box Elder Subdivision for emergency vehicles, and connected it to Moyle Drive per the settlement agreement. The city has refused to maintain this road. Instead, the city appealed the county's decision to the Board of Adjustments (which subsequently rejected the appeal). That move and Watkins' actions cost Patterson Construction almost a year in delays, Ross Welch Patterson Construction's vice president of development said. "We had contractors lined up that we had to push back," he said. On June 12 with its award of damages, the jury concluded that the city violated the terms of the previous settlements where it had agreed to accept the secondary access road as an approved roadway and to maintain it and to accept the county's approval of Box Elder South. The jury also found that Watson had published and made several defamatory statements against the Pattersons and the development, some of them with malice. Patterson had initially sought $10 million in damages when it filed the lawsuit but reduced that amount to $3.1 million at trial. "We were pleased with the jury's findings," Welch said. "We sought to address the bad behavior by the city and the false light the mayor put the Pattersons in." "Our expectation is for the city to live up to its commitments," he said. "The frustrating part was that we sent letters asking them to explain what their concerns were so that we could address them but they never did." Watkins could not be reached for comment for this story. The community news source for Eagle Mountain Utah, Saratoga Springs Utah, Lehi Utah, American Fork Utah, Highland Utah, Alpine Utah, and The Cedar Valley, including Cedar Fort Utah and Fairfield Utah. Copyright 2024 The Crossroads Journal LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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