This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
After James Royle bought a house from Ivory Homes in the Valley Fields Subdivision, he says he was frustrated when trying to get the builder to correct some problems.
So he put a sign in his window that said, "I would not buy an Ivory Home again," and learned firsthand that freedom of expression has its limits.
Royle got a letter from Benson Hathaway, an attorney representing Ivory Homes, ordering him to "cease and desist" displaying the sign.
Such a display, Hathaway wrote, violates Section 17 (i) of the subdivision's "Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions [CC&Rs]," which forbids displaying signs, billboards or ads, except to sell or rent the house.
Royle, who has taken down the sign because he can't afford a legal fight, says other advertising signs have been displayed in the subdivision for months without consequence.
But Hathaway says if the other signs attract the notice of the homeowners association, they too will be dealt with and he has sent similar letters in the past.
"This is not a unique situation," he said. "They have these rules to maintain the value of the homes."
What would Holmes deduce? First, Republican legislative candidate Becky Edwards was accused by party leaders of being a Democrat.
Then, on Friday, the number of state delegates in her voting precinct was cut from three to one, while all the other precincts in her Legislative District 20 either gained delegates or remained the same.
But Davis County Republican Chairman Ben Horsley says supporters of the North Salt Lake challenger to GOP incumbent Paul Neuenschwander are misinformed if they see a conspiracy.
Horsley said state party officials made the delegate allocations based on a complicated formula that determines "Republican strength" in each precinct by counting the percentage of Republican votes for statewide races in the previous election, then factors in the number of registered Republicans. The formula was applied incorrectly before, so it was fixed last week before the caucuses.
It was just unfortunate timing, apparently, that the slashing of the delegates in Edwards' district came on the heels of "rumors on the street" that she was of that blasphemous party.
Democrats need not apply: Rick Koerber, of the Free Capitalist Project in Alpine, sent a wide-ranging e-mail Tuesday encouraging folks to attend their neighborhood caucuses and run to become a delegate.
He provided a link to the Lt. Gov.'s Office to find precinct numbers and a link to the Utah Republican Party to find the precinct location.
Notice something missing?
Similarly, Paul Ahlstrom, of vSpring Capital, sent an e-mail to Utah's "techies" network encouraging all the nerds to participate in their caucuses. His links, too, were to the Lt. Gov.'s Office and the Utah Republican Party, but not to the Democratic Party.