Workman donations motivate opponents

Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars more than any of her fellow candidates, and her challengers couldn't be happier.

Instead of being intimidated or disheartened by the $511,599 Workman has raised during her time in office, her opponents characterized the money as a motivation and a significant negative. Nor did the money, or its many ties to developers, surprise them.

All of the campaign finance disclosure forms were due Monday by 5 p.m. for any candidate or elected official who has raised money this year.

"Our strategy is going to be to get her to choke on her money, especially all of the money from developers," said independent candidate Merrill Cook, who has raised only enough money to pay for his filing fee and had radio time donated to him. "If I hadn't been told months ago about the developers who were giving her money, I probably would have never run."

Workman, for her part, is "honored" by the amount of money she has raised, as well as the number of donors who have contributed. As for the developers, she said that she sees the donations as a compliment to her management of the county.

"I have to assume they donate to my campaign because of the job I'm doing in keeping taxes low and the county budget flat," she said.

While she is currently well ahead of other candidates, she did not expect that to last, especially with both a Democrat and Cook in the race.

"We're going to work real hard," she said. "This is an election year, when the fund-raising will really start."

Workman's list of contributors runs into the hundreds of names, and ranges from banks and credit unions to alcohol distributors to KSL Radio. But her opponents were especially focused on those who have done business — some of it quite controversial — with the county. Those include:

• $5,000 from Wasatch Pacific, owned by developer Terry Diehl, which had a steep hillside road at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon approved for access to a planned luxury home development.

• $13,000 from The Boyer Company, which owns The Gateway shopping mall, where the county-funded Clark Planetarium and Children's Museum have been located.

• $6,500 from CW Management, owned by developer Chris McCandless, who traded 76 acres of wetlands within a planned housing development on the Jordan River to the county for four developable plots of land.