Wendell Gibby is back in court, challenging the Mapleton Board of Adjustment's rulings that block him from developing a environmentally sensitive area on Maple Mountain in Utah County. This time around, Gibby claims that two board members are biased against his development plan.

Wendell, a rich Republican, has to be running low on powerful friends. The war of attrition with Mapleton cost him quite a few in the last legislative session after Gibby talked his pal Sen. Chris Buttars to write a scathing letter to a state judge who had had the audacity to rule against Gibby. Buttars, who was chairman of the judicial confirmation committee, ripped the judge a new one — on Senate stationery.

That smooth move brought the Utah Bar Association down on Buttars' neck. Gibby then helpfully told news media that Senate President John Valentine, a lawyer, had vetted and approved of the ethically challenged letter.

While no one was particularly shocked that Buttars had written the letter, Gibby made Valentine, who wants to be governor someday, also look like a jackass. In large part* because of the letter, Buttars lost his chairmanship, ended the session in disgrace and now has a tough fight ahead to hold his Senate seat.

Wendell, at the very least, owes Buttars a big campaign contribution.

*It didn't help that while speechifying, Buttars ad-libbed an unfortunate metaphor linking "babies" and "ugly" and "black."