Checks, balances working in Salt Lake County

Once again, the Salt Lake County government center has become a place of quiet contemplation; of long faces and whispers by the water cooler.

County officials are fond of saying they run a government that, for the most part, is invisible. As long as the golf courses get watered, the elderly and infirm get their "meals on wheels" and the libraries remain stocked with books, no one seems to notice they even have a county.

So why is it that the invisible government is seldom quiet? Why is it that the folks who administer the meals on wheels seem to regularly get caught up in the greasy spokes of their own deals?

On the day last week when the county district attorney, a Democrat, announced he was appointing a special prosecutor to go after County Mayor Nancy Workman, a Republican, a friend who works for the county reminded me that I was one of the principle proponents six years ago behind changing the county's form of government. After years of acrimonious fighting between the county attorney and the three-member county commission, voters agreed in 1998 and set up a nine-member council and mayor.

"So," my friend asked in his best Dr. Phil voice, "How's that working out for you?"

The answer is it's working well, thank you.

Workman's troubles — she has admitted authorizing the transfer of about $17,000 in county funds to help the Boys and Girls' Club — come on the heels of a scandal involving the misuse of county vehicles and reimbursements for gasoline, which cost the jobs of two of her top aides. From a political standpoint, these have devastated Workman's chances for re-election. But from the public's point of view, the scandals should not, even for a moment, make them rethink the type of government they chose for the county.

A form of government doesn't create scandals any more than a hurricane spawns looters. If someone in power wants to abuse a privilege, he or she can find numberless ways to do so under virtually any form of government. It is true, however, that some forms of government lend themselves more toward the opportunity to do things wrong than do others. In this case, however, even the most ardent cynic would have trouble making a convincing case about the council-mayor form of government. The best argument against them would be simply that these scandals didn't stay hidden.

But the second best argument is that Workman did nothing that wasn't done regularly under the old commission form of government.