Legislator gives up Granite police bill

The legislator pushing to abolish the controversial Granite School District Police Department is backing off — after the Deseret Morning News learned that Granite police arrested his son last year, and some suggested he sought political payback.

Meanwhile, Rep. Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville, is furious that information from legally confidential reports about his juvenile son was leaked to the newspaper by a woman who initially misrepresented who she was. The newspaper later found out she is the wife of a Granite officer.

Holdaway also said several women, who would give him only their first names, called him on his cell phone to accuse him of "ulterior motives" in pushing the bill, which he says were veiled threats to release information about his son. He suspects they obtained that number, which he gives to few, from the police report on his son.

Granite district officials said Wednesday they are reviewing how information about Holdaway's son was handled and whether any disciplinary action for officers is warranted.

Holdaway said: "I am going to back away from this idea. I don't want this to be clouded by what happened to my son." He said he worried focus would now be on whether he was seeking political payback over the arrest of his son instead of on the worth, cost and risks of school districts running their own police departments.

"I hope someone else will pick up the bill, " he said. "In retrospect, I should have had someone else run it. . . . I had no idea that they would try to bring up privileged information about a juvenile in order to justify their existence."

Holdaway, who is a teacher at Granite district's Taylorsville High School, acknowledged a son was arrested last year after a fight. "But I have no ulterior motive in pushing the bill at all. My concern is whether we have the best approach. . . . Frankly, we should contract with other police agencies."

Holdaway had said he had decided only last week to push the bill — after Granite Lt. Todd Rasmussen was charged with armed assault in the October shooting of an unarmed burglary suspect after a high-speed chase in Salt Lake City, which is outside district boundaries (although officers have statewide jurisdiction).

Holdaway said managers of state insurance pools told him that the likelihood of lawsuits over that incident and other heavy-duty police work could lead them to increase rates for Granite, possibly erasing savings the district says it achieves by discouraging vandalism and theft with extra police presence.