Public, private car use murky

Dayton also took a trip to Moab in his county vehicle that he characterizes as mostly for fun, but he also attended meetings addressing wilderness and road issues that he believes justified the trip.

Chief financial officer Randy Allen and mayor counsel Greg Curtis have lost their county jobs over vehicle usage, though those situations are arguably more egregious than what has come to light since then. The exception, of course, is former auditor Craig Sorensen's theft of gasoline, which is a different matter from vehicle usage.

Allen used his county vehicle to tow his boat to Lake Powell twice, having to install a ball on the back of his county SUV to do it, and Curtis received money from the state for mileage that had already been paid by the county. He has since repaid the county.

Where do you draw the line, firing one person but not another? Does that mean Salt Lake District Attorney David Yocom shouldn't have driven his Ford Crown Victoria to Snowmass, Colo., last year for the annual meeting of the National District Attorney Association, saying it's not directly related to county business?

Two separate investigations are striving to answer the question of where the line should be drawn. Yocom is conducting an investigation into past vehicle use, reportedly looking at records going back nine years, and an independent committee commissioned by Mayor Nancy Workman is looking at how policies can be improved.

The committee is currently holding meetings, but one action that's quite possible is eliminating non-emergency personal vehicle use altogether. The County Council has passed a resolution to that effect, and people who have taken cars instead of a $400 to $600 monthly car allowance are almost unanimous in regretting their decision. Full-time vehicle use is a messy business, with drivers having to make near-constant decisions on what is and isn't appropriate.

"I wish I had taken the car allowance," Dayton told the Deseret Morning News. "If I had, I would have four years of equity in a pretty nice car, and I wouldn't be sitting here having this very unpleasant conversation."

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E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com