Sen. Jerry Stevenson is Vice Chair of the Military Installation Development Authority. In 2025 he personally sponsored the bill that expanded MIDA's own powers — including letting MIDA review the environmental impact of its own projects. Thirteen months later, his board used that power to approve Stratos. The same year, on a second state development authority, he personally moved financing for a different developer's project — and had to vote on it twice after his own committee initially said no.
| MIDAMilitary Installation Development Authority — a state agency created in 2007 to help Hill Air Force Base, now operating statewide project areas with tax-diversion power. | SB 3162025 bill, chief-sponsored by Sen. Stevenson, expanding MIDA's own taxing and environmental-review authority. | Lead agencyThe entity legally responsible for a project's environmental review. SB 316 let MIDA name itself lead agency for its own projects. | Vice ChairStevenson's seat on MIDA's board — the body that later used SB 316's new power to approve Stratos, with Stevenson voting yes. | StratosThe Box Elder County data-center/gas-power project MIDA's board approved April 24, 2026, roughly 13 months after SB 316 was signed. |
Sen. Jerry W. Stevenson (SD-6) is MIDA's sitting Vice Chair — confirmed on the record in the board's own June 24, 2025 minutes, alongside Chair Stuart Adams, Mark Shepherd, Gary Harter, Mike Ostermiller, and Gage Froerer.
Stevenson isn't a passive appointee. Until his retirement from the Senate, he chaired Executive Appropriations — the Senate's top budget committee, a seat now passing to Tami Tran (see Movement V). He also sits on the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority board, a separate state development authority, where a prior investigation found him voting on his own "cleanup bill" for that same authority — a pattern of sponsoring legislation that touches boards he personally sits on.
Stevenson is also a sitting UIPA board member, and he personally motioned the PCC LAND LLC development agreement at UIPA's May 20, 2024 meeting — the agreement at the center of this newsroom's Little Mountain Service Area investigation.
UIPA and MIDA run on the same basic mechanism — tax differential, board-adopted project areas, minimal outside review. Stevenson sits on both boards. What follows is what happens when he also writes the law for one of them.
Full title: "Military Installation Development Authority and Other Development Zone Amendments." Chief Sponsor: Sen. Jerry W. Stevenson. House Sponsor: Rep. Val L. Peterson.
The bill did three things to MIDA's taxing power, and one thing to its regulatory power:
That last change is the one that matters most for what happened thirteen months later. Before SB 316, MIDA's projects were subject to environmental review by an outside authority. After it, MIDA can review itself.
MIDA's own staff personally lobbied for the bill at both chambers of the Legislature.
MIDA didn't just benefit from SB 316. Its own leadership showed up and argued for it — while its Vice Chair carried it as the bill's sponsor.
SB 316 didn't sail through on a voice vote. At nearly every stage, it drew real opposition — including from within the majority party.
| Stage | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Introduced | 2/21/2025 | — |
| Senate Econ Dev & Workforce Cmte (substituted) | 2/26/2025 | 5-0-1 (Adams absent) |
| Senate floor, 2nd reading | — | 23-3-3 |
| Senate floor, 3rd reading | — | 19-5-5 |
| House Econ Dev & Workforce Cmte (1st→3rd Sub) | 3/4/2025 | 6-1-3 Rep. Doug Owens voting no |
| House Econ Dev & Workforce Cmte (favorable) | 3/4/2025 | 4-3-3 |
| House floor, 2nd/3rd reading | 3/7/2025 | 38-27-10 |
| Senate concurrence | — | 22-5-2 |
| Signed by the Governor | 3/27/2025 | — |
The House votes in particular — 6-1-3, then 4-3-3, then 38-27-10 — are not the margins of a routine technical bill. This was contested at every House stage, and it passed anyway.
SB 316 was signed March 27, 2025. On April 24, 2026 — roughly thirteen months later — MIDA's board used the new "lead agency" environmental-review authority to approve the Stratos Project Area Plan. Stevenson voted yes.
This is the through-line of the whole bill: a sitting board member sponsors the law that lets his own agency skip outside environmental review, his agency's staff personally lobby the Legislature for it, and just over a year later that same board — with him voting — uses the power on a live project.
Stevenson personally donated to Tami Tran — the Kaysville mayor and SD-6 nominee inheriting both his Senate seat and, per the established pattern, his Executive Appropriations chairmanship. He didn't donate alone, and he didn't donate once.
Fellow MIDA board member Stuart Adams — MIDA's Chair — also donated to Tran's campaign in the same window. Two members of the same board that approved Stratos are funding the succession of the seat that oversees the state's budget, including the appropriations that touch MIDA's own projects.
The same June 22 date, a "Jed D. Stevenson" of Kaysville gave Tran $4,000 — eight times what the senator himself gave. Whether that's a family connection to Jerry Stevenson isn't confirmed; the two list different city addresses.
MIDA isn't the only development authority Stevenson sits on. He's also a voting member of the Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA) board — the agency behind Weber County's West Weber project area, covered in this newsroom's Little Mountain Service Area investigation. In 2025, the pattern repeated: Stevenson personally moved financing for a private developer, then had to vote on it again after his own committee initially rejected it.
"Board Member Stevenson moved that the Utah Inland Port Authority Board approves an infrastructure loan from the Inland Port Authority Revolving Loan Fund of $5 million to PCC Land, LLC."
The same three principals from the West Weber land assembly — Daniel Stephens, Brad Margetts, and Dallin Curriden — were personally in the room at both the loan committee's approval and the full board vote. This is the identical structure documented at MIDA: a board member with a network of overlapping seats personally advances financing that benefits people who show up, in person, at every stage of the approval.
| Vote | Result |
|---|---|
| EAC, first vote to approve execution | FAILED 9-8-3 Stevenson voted yes |
| EAC, motion to reconsider (Cullimore) | 19-0-1 |
| EAC, final vote on reconsideration | APPROVED |
The no-vote coalition that first blocked the loan wasn't a party-line split — it included both Republicans and Democrats. What changed on reconsideration isn't in the public minutes; only the outcome is.