Salt Lake County keeps lid on harassment report

A Salt Lake County ad hoc appeals board Monday refused to release an investigative report into alleged sexual harassment in the clerk's office.

The board held a hearing last week in which county attorney Valerie Wilde argued to keep the report private and Deseret Morning News attorney Jeffrey Hunt argued for its release.

The three board members — parks and recreation analyst Glenn Cox, County Recorder Gary Ott and April Townsend of county human services — unanimously sided with Wilde.

"(Privacy) was the most compelling reason," board chairman Glenn Cox said. "We want to make sure that employees of Salt Lake County feel confident in reporting" alleged harassment.

In this case, however, Hunt argued that the alleged victim, former clerk's office employee Marcia Rice, had already waived any expectation of privacy by filing a public lawsuit in federal court and that the name of her alleged harasser, former chief deputy clerk Nick Floros, has long been public.

"I have a hard time understanding what the basis of the denial was," Hunt said.

Hunt had argued that the names of any other witnesses in the report could have been redacted to protect their privacy. Cox said in an interview Monday that redaction "could possibly be an option," but the board did not address the possibility in its written decision.

Cox added that the board did not consider or discuss Hunt's argument that state law classifies the report as a public document. As a matter of law, Hunt said, state law trumps county policy.

"We tried to address all their issues, and unfortunately the decision doesn't address those issues," Hunt said.

Hunt said the decision was "disappointing but not unexpected," since any appeals board made up of county employees isn't likely to vacate county policy in favor of state law.

Deseret Morning News managing editor Rick Hall said the paper is still considering whether to appeal the decision to the County Council. The next step after that would be to take the case to court.