NORTH SALT LAKE -- City officials say they have rejected a proposal from the Trust for Public Land, because it offered no new solution to the city's disconnection dispute with Salt Lake City. Jenny Parks, director for the conservation group, met with the council during a closed-door executive session Tuesday in an attempt to negotiate purchase of the 80-acre property.

Parks declined to comment following the meeting, but according to NSL City Manager Collin Wood, her proposal didn't find council approval.

"She made a proposal, but it wasn't significantly different from what Salt Lake has proposed all along," Wood said. "The proposal wasn't acceptable to our council."

Wood said his city's original request for a boundary adjustment was made in October 2002, but he said Salt Lake has done little since to move the issue forward.

"We're just tired of this whole thing," Wood said. "Our council has just lost their patience with the whole proposal."

Salt Lake has attempted to protect the land along the shoreline of ancient Lake Bonneville, because Mayor Rocky Anderson and several conservation groups consider it an important "geo-antiquity" and a viable route for the increasingly popular Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

NSL Mayor Kay Briggs and the council have continued to offer what they believe is a workable balance between development and open space.

But although the property is owned by NSL, it's still within Salt Lake boundaries and officials there have moved to preserve the zoning as natural open space .

The Salt Lake planning commission has strongly recommended that Anderson and Salt Lake seek to purchase the property from NSL. But so far there's been heavy disagreement between the two entities on how much the property is actually worth.

Briggs has set a deadline for Salt Lake to approve the disconnection or to purchase the property, but so far Salt Lake has sought more time for negotiation.

Still, NSL has grown weary of delay, and Wood feels the city may be left with litigation as the only option.

"NSL has to decide whether it wants to push the issue of disconnection through the courts," he said.

Wood added that he didn't see any change in the latest proposal. He said officials are now looking ahead to a public hearing on the dispute Dec. 14 before the Salt Lake City Council.

Wood said he and other city officials will be at the hearing to give comment and to see what Salt Lake officials plan to do in light of the impasse.

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