"We have a mayor who's done a fantastic job," said Vincent Liddiard, an Eagle Mountain councilman and mayor pro-tem. "I think the world of Kelvin Bailey. He's laid a strong foundation for our city."

But not everyone agrees with that view of Bailey's administration. Brigham Morgan, one of the council members who asked Bailey to resign, said some of the former mayor's actions have seriously harmed the city.

"Because of that (faked kidnapping), the success and image of Eagle Mountain suffered," Morgan said. "The city became a joke and a laughingstock."

Morgan said Bailey's campaign to make the mayor position a full-time job with benefits — a proposal that was approved in June — has set a bad example for residents, who he says are now less willing to donate their time as volunteers.

Morgan says Bailey is a good communicator and got a lot done for the city — but said the city would have been better off in terms of growth and image had Bailey resigned when asked.

"Overall, the things he's accomplished probably would have been accomplished without him," Morgan said. "The plans and the money were already in place."

Bailey maintains his administration was a success.

"I would call it a very successful season," Bailey said. "We were able to obviously turn the financial situation of the city around."

When Bailey took office in January 2002, he inherited a city with a $481,000 deficit. The city also faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and interest for not filing its audit reports with the state for the previous two years.

"I wouldn't run my household that way, let alone a multimillion-dollar corporation," Bailey said.

By last December, the city had a $1.1 million surplus and filed its state audit report on time for the first time in city history.

Things seemed to be back on track for Bailey after two rocky years. The budget was booming, Eagle Mountain had a beautiful new City Hall, and public outcry had finally begun to fade. The city council even approved a full-time salary and benefits for the mayor just two days before he resigned.

So why stop now?

"It was just an issue of it being the right time for me to move forward," Bailey said.

Bailey said he felt it was time to focus on his two professions. He is a land-development consultant and an inventor. He owns provisional patents for two inventions: the "Can 'O' Mizer," a sorting and storage device for canned goods, and the "Doorknob Receiver," a wall insert that prevents doorknobs from damaging the wall when a door is forcefully opened.