Email sent to LDS Church regarding a statement they made in an article put out by KSL in which I tell them their statement is false and basically a lie

From: billhytek@hotmail.com
To: newsmedia@ldschurch.org
Subject: False statement
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 13:47:15 -0600

This email is being written to the Public Relations Department of the LDS Church and is also being distributed to several news outlets.

Here is a statement made in a recent KSL article by a Church representative
 

Statement from Church spokesman Eric Hawkins

The property at Thanksgiving Point was purchased by the Church with a small portion donated by the Ashton family.

People will want to know what this small portion is.  Most are already saying that the Ashton's donated the whole parcel to the Church.  The public will begin to clamor for exactly, what does a small portion mean?  The general public will be incensed if the Church in anyway secured this piece of land for less than market or at fair market price.  Most people will know that if Trump came and offered money to the Ashton's that they would turn them down.  People don't want to believe that the Church in this case has benefited from a gift of land for a for profit arm of the LDS Church. This will not play well worldwide when people find out the property was donated, the course was altered, traffic was increased and the safety of the residents who live, work and play in the area was put in harm because the for profit arm of the Church wanted to build another office building.

Plans for the site have been submitted to the City of Lehi, as required, and meet all zoning  and land use requirements.

This is factually incorrect and there are a number of legal arguments that will be made that what you just stated may not be a fact as you represent it in your statement, this is merely a statement of your opinion as this time.  Has your legal department reviewed the proposed concept plan and given you a go ahead on asserting that the office buildings have indeed met ALL zoning and land use requirements, I would venture to guess they have not and therefore you have made a misrepresentation to the public, some would call a lie.

The proposed site plan allows the Church to construct a two-building campus (four stories each) on the property. One will be used as a key facility of FamilySearch International, the Church's family history subsidiary. Included in this building will be a Family Search and Discovery Center, which provides a highly interactive experience for the public to explore their family history. The other would be initially used as commercial office property and later as possible expansion space for FamilySearch.

The landscaping and architecture of the buildings has been designed to complement the surrounding golf course, residential properties and other Thanksgiving Point venues. 

Have you seen the plan and have you driven to the area to be assured that the statement you made is 100% accurate and correct? All those who have seen the plan would say that the buildings as they are designed DO NOT come even remotely close to complementing the surrounding golf course, residential properties and other Thanksgiving Point venues.  Before you make a statement as you have you better acquaint yourself with the community and your architectural design.  This is another misrepresentation made by the Church which is a bold face misrepresentation and one that will easily be seen by anyone to be factually untrue.

I don't think the Church wants to be seen by the LDS community, the residents in the State of Utah and around the world as being less than honest.  It will be very easy to prove that the statements made by the Church representative are not true and were made to misrepresent the public.  This will give the Church a huge black eye and give those that oppose the Church for whatever reason an opportunity to say, see, the Church is not always truthful and if you can't believe them on something as simple as this, what other misrepresentations are they making?

Best to always tell the truth and the statement the representative of the Church made is certainly not truthful and can easily be proven to be false.

If the Church believes the statements made by the representative are indeed true, I would highly suggest you make public your architectural plans and detailed pictures of the surrounding neighborhoods, the club house at Thanksgiving Point golf course and the other commercial buildings in the Thanksgiving Point area and point out exactly how what you intend to build is in fact similar to the surrounding landscape of buildings and residences.

I would also like to point out that the architect at the Lehi City Council meeting was unable to clearly delineate a landscape plan which represented 10% of the overall design.  I highly suggest you read Chapter 28 of the Lehi building code defining what can and can't be built in a resort community. 

Attorneys are reviewing the code written in chapter 28 and I can assure you, they probably will find some discrepancies in your proposed plan and what is allowed in a resort community.  This very well may become a legal issue regarding the definition of terms and I believe the surrounding communities are banded together to challenge any proposed office site on the driving range site and will look for anything and everything to stop or delay its construction.

You might want your representative make another statement, because if the architectural plan goes through as proposed, it will be easy to see the Church has misled the public and this WILL create an uproar world wide. 

The world is watching.  Honesty is the best policy and this statement in my opinion is dishonest at its core!

Bill Conley