The mayor's activities on behalf of the city have at least twice put him in close contact to the real estate he owns through the blind trust. His holdings are split into four pieces, three of which are adjacent to land owned either by a company he has praised in his role as mayor or with which the city is negotiating a major deal.

None of Billings' parcels is considered prime. The two largest are land-locked, with no road access planned. Further review at the Utah County Recorder's Office showed that those two parcels are next to land owned by Novatek.

Novatek is preparing to develop land it owns in the business park, said Dixon Holmes, assistant director of the city's Economic Development Department. Novatek owns at least five parcels, according to the newspaper's review of land records. All are adjacent or near land owned by Billings. Holmes stridently defended the mayor, reporting that Billings has stayed out of the Action Target negotiations and left Mountain Vista development plans to the economic development team, but Holmes acknowledged that bundling Billings' and Novatek's land together could increase the value of Billings' land by linking it to road access.

There's no evidence that has ever been discussed or envisioned, but in his role as mayor, Billings has repeatedly praised Novatek, like he has other companies, and founder and president David Hall for the company's success and creation of jobs in Provo. The mayor singled out Novatek in his state-of-the-city address this year.

Hortin declined to say whether Novatek has approached him about purchasing any of Billings' properties and said he can't discuss potential offers with Billings. Messages left for Hall on Wednesday afternoon were not immediately returned.

Another example is a thin strip measuring .07 of an acre owned by Billings. The strip is likely worth little, but it does connect to a large parcel controlled by John Curtis, the owner of Action Target. The city is negotiating a $3.3 million deal to buy Action Target's property in downtown Provo and pay to move the company to Mountain Vista, where the company would receive incentives from the city to buy land, become the first tenant and help set property values.

Billings did not outline how he reached the figure of nearly $2 million in unrealized profit potential personally lost in Ironton. Clearly, he might have made more on the sale of 139 acres to the city. Instead, he said he did what was best for Provo — make a deal that could lead to development of the largest tract of undeveloped land in the city and creation of new jobs.

The 10 acres he donated to Provo eight years ago could have fetched $600,000 to $1 million, Hill estimated.

"When all is said and done," Billings wrote in his memo, "I have personally walked away from more than $1.8 million at Ironton. I have sought to be honest and generous with Provo City at every turn. I have made full disclosure. I have repeatedly set aside my own personal interests in order to avoid even the appearance of impropriety."

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com