State officials have filed a Motion to Dismiss a federal lawsuit filed in May by the Ute Indian Tribe against the Utah School and Institutional Trust Land 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. SITLA eventually suspended the auction which the Tribe claims in the lawsuit was racial discrimination. The Motion To Dismiss filed by Utah officials denies the claims and shares the following: “Attempting to overcome School and Institutional Trust Land Administration’s statutory right to suspend the bidding process, the tribe offers unfounded allegations of racial animus and asks the court to force School and Institutional Trust Land Administration to sell the tribe the land that the tribe desires. The tribe cannot be allowed to usurp School and Institutional Trust Land Administration’s broad discretion in managing lands for the benefit of its beneficiaries — Utah’s schoolchildren and schools — particularly when the tribe already has access to the land and already owns the mineral rights.”
