The Ute Indian Tribe filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against the Utah School and Institutional Trust Administration SITLA regarding a bid for land on Tabby Mountain. The Ute Tribe alleges they were the highest bidder on the land but that SITLA allowed the Utah Department of Natural Resources to submit a new bid after receiving theirs. The lawsuit claims that the original DNR bid was $41 million dollars and the Tribe submitted a bid of approximately $46.9 million, after which the DNR was allowed to submit a new bid of $50 million dollars. According to a press release from the Tribe, SITLA then suspended the sale “to review questions about marketing and appraisal. It did so even though it had been aware of, and had rejected, those concerns until it learned that the Tribe was the high bidder…The Tribe alleges that SITLA’s claimed reason for ‘suspending’ the sale was transparent pretext, to attempt to hide from the Tribe and the public the fact that SITLA was refusing to sell to the Tribe…”
