Is county emerging from its abyss?

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." — Winston Churchill

That's the phrase Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon repeated during his presentation of a county fleet task force report Wednesday — and, in fact, county government, troubled by controversy and scandal over the past year, appears to be entering a new phase.

"It's a terrific start," said Glen Watkins, member of a citizens panel that conducted an in-depth review of county fleet operations last year. "County leadership had lost focus of what was going on. There were significant things wrong. But this seems to be a great turnaround."

Watkins was speaking of the fleet in particular, but his comments echo those of other observers. Corroon's administration (together with a County Council with two new members) experienced a rough start a few months ago, inheriting existing problems and dealing with controversies and whistle-blowers seemingly coming out of the woodwork, but the new mayor has dealt with them as they have come, promising that they will be ultimately settled.

"When I was sworn in to this office, I promised a fresh start in Salt Lake County government," he said Wednesday. "First, I said, we must restore trust and confidence in Salt Lake County government by making it more transparent and accessible to the people. We are doing that. . . . We are producing tangible results.

It's not just that the mayor and most of his top officials are new, with none of the labyrinthine ties and connections that so many county officials have built up over the years and decades. With Salt Lake County having been under the media microscope for many months now, decisionmakers at the state and city level, as well as the general public, are much more attuned to what's happening at the county.

The pressure is on to improve.

A case in point is the composition of the citizens panel. When then-Mayor Nancy Workman selected the panel's members last summer, requesting them to review county vehicle policy and practice in the wake of the "guzzle-gate" affair, she lauded them as leaders in the local business scene — lawyers, businesspeople and accountants who were widely known among the movers and shakers. And so they are.

A resulting side benefit of the panel's work has been that, even though its members completed their charge last December with the release of a comprehensive report, the exercise got them interested and involved in the county, and they have kept an eye on it ever since.

"It's almost like a board-of-directors kind of feeling," panel member Vern Della-Piana said. "(County officials) know somebody is watching."