Pleasant Grove sued over new road fee

PLEASANT GROVE — Pleasant Grove is being sued over its new transportation utility fee. The president of the Libertas Institute, Connor Boyack, says the Utah constitution says such a fee should be a tax instead.

“Cities that are adopting fees are doing it the wrong way. So we are trying to hold Pleasant Grove, and later other cities, accountable,” he said, and called the fee “underhanded.”

Boyack said fees under the Utah Constitution are for a service, and something you can measure. You cannot measure road use, and that’s why it falls under taxes.

“It’s a little more politically difficult to raise taxes. There’s a process, a truth-in-taxation process, where you have to go through that. But with fees, you don’t have to.”

Boyack says there is precedent around the country for their lawsuit. Pleasant Grove has not commented but officials have said in the past they need to pay for road upkeep and repairs.

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