Services to Rocky's effort draw probe

The Salt Lake City elections clerk said Tuesday she will contact the City Attorney's Office to see if Mayor Rocky Anderson's campaign broke the city's campaign-finance disclosure laws last week.

The inquiry comes after Frank Pignanelli's campaign manager, Dallis Nordstrom, sent a letter to elections clerk Sonya Skyles asking whether Anderson broke the law by not reporting contributions from Yellow Cab and Gastronomy in last week's final campaign-finance disclosure form.

During the Oct. 7 primary election, some Yellow Cab drivers offered their services to Anderson's campaign.

When people would call Anderson's headquarters and say they needed a ride to the polls, the campaign would then refer them to Yellow Cab, which would give voters a free ride to their voting precinct, Anderson's campaign manager Sheryl Ivey said.

The drivers who provided the free rides were then given a free meal at a Gastronomy restaurant in Salt Lake City, Ivey said.

Both Gastronomy and Yellow Cab are financial supporters of Anderson's re-election bid, with Gastronomy giving more than $3,600 and the Yellow Cab Drivers Association giving $500. Many of the cab drivers also have adorned their taxis with Anderson advertisements.

But neither of those contribution totals include services Gastronomy and Yellow Cab provided for the Oct. 7 primary.

Ivey said the free meals were offered by Gastronomy and the campaign was not involved and therefore doesn't have to claim the meals as an in-kind contribution. The cab drivers offered the free rides as a service to voters, not to the Anderson campaign, Ivey argued. The cab rides, then, don't need to be claimed as a donation either, she said.

"The service wasn't to us, it was to the voters," Ivey said.

Some of the confusion came from inaccurate media reports on Oct. 7 that said Anderson's campaign would claim the free cab rides as a donation on its disclosure form.

"That was wrong," Ivey said. "It wasn't a contribution to us, it was a contribution to the voters."

Skyles said she will take up the issue with the City Attorney's Office to find out if Anderson's campaign is breaking the law by not reporting the potential contributions.

"I am aware of the situation," she said. "This is something we're not going to make a rush decision on."

It is a misdemeanor to violate the city's campaign disclosure code.

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