UEP subdivision meeting is Friday
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
 
Plans to subdivide property in the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. — and how to pay for it — will be brought to the people who live there in a town meeting scheduled Friday.

The court-appointed special fiduciary of the United Effort Plan Trust, the former real estate arm of the Fundamentalist LDS Church, has planned a meeting at 6 p.m. at Hildale's city hall.

"I don't think this is going to be a happy, friendly meeting," fiduciary Bruce Wisan told the Deseret Morning News today. "They're going to be unhappy that this is not proceeding more quickly, and that they personally are going to have to make some payments, and the FLDS are going to have to make some payments."

Since the UEP Trust was reformed by a judge in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court, plans have been under way to subdivide the communal property. The UEP Trust was founded on the early-Mormon concept of a "united order," where community members gave to the church, which doled things out to members according to just wants and needs. (The FLDS Church is a breakaway sect from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

In 2005, the courts took control of the UEP Trust after allegations surfaced that FLDS leader Warren Jeffs and other church leaders had mismanaged it. The UEP has an estimated $100 million in assets, mostly in real estate within the border towns.

Both the Hildale and Colorado City councils have given the fiduciary a list of requirements in order to subdivide, and there are infrastructure upgrades in the communities that could be costly.

"The trust is looking at some different ways to shortcut this and circumvent this," Wisan said, adding he will be seeking input from people living in the communities.

If assessments need to be levied, Wisan is also trying to figure out how to get that money from the FLDS members living on trust land, who mostly refuse to cooperate with property tax payments.

"If they won't pay taxes to the fiduciary, how will they pay assessments to the fiduciary?" he wondered.

Jeffs, 51, recently was convicted of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice stemming from a 14-year-old girl's marriage to her 19-year-old cousin. He faces up to life in prison when he's scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 20.

Lawyers for the UEP Trust recently subpoenaed Washington County Sheriff Kirk Smith and Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap, seeking tapes and transcripts of Jeffs' jailhouse conversations. A judge in St. George's 5th District Court has ordered them to be sealed, claiming that the contents of the tapes could prejudice future criminal cases pending against the polygamous sect leader.

The judge has scheduled a Nov. 6 hearing to discuss requests by news media outlets and a private detective to have the tapes and papers unsealed.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published October 18, 2007
 
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