Froerer’s partial stake in Nordic Valley Land Associates prompted him to recuse himself from county commission votes last December on the development agreement outlining the ski village plans and the rezone needed for the project to move forward. At the time, Nordic Valley Land Associates, or NVLA, owned 50.5 acres of land that’s key in the ski village project — which calls for up to 565 housing units — and a Froerer family trust held 16% interest in NVLA.

Skyline Mountain Base, owner of the land where the Nordic Valley ski resort sits and much of the land involved in the expansion proposal, initiated the plans and has been a big force in pushing them.

Now, though, an update to the disclosure Froerer filed with the Weber County Human Resources office as an elected official per state requirements indicates that he no longer owns a portion of NVLA. The Weber County Human Resources Office, headed by Sarah Swan, supplied an updated copy of the form to the Standard-Examiner on Monday.

The listing indicating the family trust has a 16% stake in NVLA now has a handwritten line through it, crossing it out. A handwritten note in the space abutting the crossed-out line that’s signed by Swan and dated March 20 reads, “Disclosed no longer owner as of February 2023.”

Image supplied, Weber County Human Resources Office

Indeed, online property records show that the 50.5 acres previously owned by NVLA are now owned by an entity called Nordic Valley Venture LLC, which is managed by Brandon Hale of Orem. A golf course used to sit on part of the former NVLA land.

Froerer didn’t immediately respond to a query seeking comment on the ownership change. However, the critic who had clamored the loudest about Froerer’s stake in NVLA ahead of the Dec. 19 votes on the Nordic Valley plans, James O’Brien, wants more answers.

O’Brien, an Ogden Valley resident who publicly decried Froerer’s involvement in the ski village proceedings given Froerer’s stake in NVLA, had said last December that his participation “calls into question the validity of the commission’s actions” on the project. Froerer and other county officials had rejected the criticism, saying Froerer complied with state law by filing the disclosure and went above and beyond the requirements by recusing himself from the ski village votes, actually not required by state law.

Nevertheless, O’Brien hasn’t stopped banging the drum on the issue, pushing for a closer look at how Froerer handled his disclosure. And in a March 23 letter to Weber County Clerk/Auditor Ricky Hatch, tasked with handling the probe O’Brien seeks, he asked Hatch to also delve further into the question over ownership of the 50.5 acres formerly controlled by NVLA.

The former NVLA land “will be developed as the project’s South Village and (is) potentially worth millions of dollars,” O’Brien wrote in his letter, which he supplied to the Standard-Examiner.

A retired attorney, he asserts the Froerer family trust or NVLA may have transferred the former NVLA land interests to Nordic Valley Venture, or NVV, “in exchange for equity interests in NVV.” NVV, according to O’Brien, is identified in the December development agreement as “the master planner” in the project.

If such a restructuring occurred, O’Brien maintains, “Froerer continues to own interests both in the entity doing business with the county (i.e., NVV) and the underlying golf course properties, albeit via a new [limited liability company] structure,” he said in his letter. “Under those circumstances and despite Froerer’s assertion on March 6th that the project ‘doesn’t include me any longer,’ the conflict remains and his continuing recusal required.”

Froerer indicated at a March 6 Weber County Commission work session that he no longer holds a stake in the land involved in the Nordic Valley ski village plans.

In related news, Weber County’s two planning commissions have changed policies governing potential conflicts of interest in the wake of the debate last year involving Froerer and the Nordic Valley ski resort plans.

The changes make the policies of the Western Weber Planning Commission and the Ogden Valley Planning Commission more in line with guidelines governing the Weber County Commission, according to Christopher Crockett, an attorney in the Weber County Attorney’s Office.

Previously on the two planning commissions, a commission member suspecting another has a conflict of interest on an issue up for debate could ask for a vote on the conflict question. If a majority of commission members voted favorably, the member with the suspected conflict would not be able to take part in deliberations on the particular question.

Crockett says officials were concerned about potential abuse of that authority in seeking a tweak in the planning commission guidelines to mainly require written disclosure of a potential conflict instead.

State law, Crockett said, contains “nothing that requires that an individual actually recuse themselves from participation. It’s all about disclosure,” he said.