Provo gets deadline of Friday in 911 case

PROVO — Relatives of the Provo man who died after his 911 call was mishandled by a city dispatcher are asking the city to respond to the family's settlement proposal by Friday.

Scott Aston's family directed their attorney Tuesday to move ahead with a lawsuit against the city next week if Provo officials don't reach a decision or don't provide a date when they'll have a response. The family made the proposal several weeks ago and has also waited 65 days since filing a notice of claim with the city.

"We're getting antsy to know which direction this is going to take," said Aston's sister, Carol Davis, who lives in Kearns. "It's not meant to be a threat. We're stuck in limbo, and we just need to move forward."

Meanwhile, the City Council spent three hours in a closed session Tuesday evening, much of the time apparently devoted to the Aston case. While the council conducted its regular meeting, city staff worked behind the scenes on a proposed joint statement, but it was not completed before press deadlines.

City spokeswoman Raylene Ireland said she could not comment on the closed session or draft statements.

"We expect the discussion with the family to resume in the next handful of days," Ireland said. "The family's attorneys were out of town for some time, and then our mayor and chief administrative officer were out of town."

The family's decision to set a deadline came nine months to the day after Aston was found dead in his apartment and five days after what would have been his 31st birthday.

Friends and family placed balloons and gifts on his grave Thursday.

The attorney representing the family, Justin Heideman, said he has had a productive session with a city attorney and exchanged several letters with city officials. He also said the Fourth of July holiday delayed progress on settlement talks and that he hadn't expected a response from the city until the end of this week.

"The city produced every single item they have given to anyone," Heideman said. "I was very encouraged, but I was surprised because the media had more documents than we did."

The Deseret Morning News secured dozens of pages of documents from the city through the Government Records Access Management Act. However, the city's GRAMA official, Ryan Wood, declined to release copies of two reports about the dispatch center. One report was prepared by the city and the other by Ogden city dispatch experts. Mayor Lewis Billings denied an appeal filed by the paper.