Salt Lake County mired in scandals

The seemingly endless stream of scandals in Salt Lake County has made an already political atmosphere there divisive to the point of bitterness.

Reports that a notice of claim has been filed against the county for alleged sexual harassment in the clerk's office — and Republican charges that District Attorney David Yocom soft-pedaled the matter because of political and personal connections — had county Democrats fighting back Tuesday.

Add to that the fact that charges in the "guzzle-gate" scandal were filed against former chief financial officer Randy Allen Tuesday, and you have plenty of ammunition for a political battle.

"It's crap," County Councilman Joe Hatch said of the Yocom controversy. "There were good legal reasons for not going public with (the sexual harassment) story. . . . It was handled in a completely professional manner."

The pressurized rancor has squirted out through various channels this week, manifesting itself in private, and occasionally public, rantings against political opponents, wranglings over whether the council ought to take up the sexual harassment allegations against a former county clerk and acrid arguments over a proposed ethics ordinance.

In the council's weekly meeting Tuesday, Hatch said Chairman Steve Harmsen's ethics ordinance proposal is purely political, an attempt by Republicans to help rehabilitate their image amid Republican Mayor Nancy Workman's legal woes. Republicans responded with sufficient vigor that Councilman Cort Ashton requested a five-minute recess for everybody to cool down.

And support for Councilman Russell Skousen's proposal that the council look into the alleged sexual harassment matter, perhaps appointing its own independent attorney to look into it, appears to be dividing along party lines.

"Why would we do that?" Democrat Jim Bradley said. "You look at the record of the district attorney, by and large he's got a pretty damn good record. I don't see any red flags there. Clearly the council has partisan members, and clearly Yocom has been under fire by the Republican mayor. This is vindictive action by Republicans to scandalize Yocom."

Republican Mike Jensen, however, said such an action may be appropriate.

"I don't want to go necessarily into a political witch hunt, but if the basis is there, we need to make sure (allegedly harassed) employees are heard," he said.

Republican David Wilde added: "For us to sit on our hands and do nothing with all the allegations that are swirling around wouldn't be consistent with our oversight function."

Observers say that with Workman charged with two felonies and on a forced leave of absence, and with new controversies seemingly coming out of the woodwork, the partisanship and grandstanding aren't likely to end soon — at least not until the Nov. 2 general election.

In the meantime, Councilman Randy Horiuchi may have made the definitive, albeit tongue-in-cheek, statement on the situation when tempers were particularly high during Tuesday's meeting.

"I just want everybody to be happy in this mayor-council form of government," he said.

Horiuchi, a former county commissioner, favors the old commission form.

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E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com