Provo mayor race gets ugly

Bailey, who says the leak of Billings' academic records from BYU did not come from him, said Stewart is not part of his campaign. In fact, Stewart told the Deseret Morning News he tried to recruit another person to run for mayor.

"I think he needs to answer to his constituents," Bailey said of Billings. "If he's been misleading the public, he needs to answer to his constituents. If he's misled the people of Provo, he needs to provide answers."

Billings told the Deseret Morning News Tuesday night he could see how someone could question a statement in the biography on his campaign Web site and in campaign literature. Both say Billings took engineering and business classes at BYU. The academic summary shows he enrolled in engineering courses but there is no indication he enrolled in business classes.

"We'll have to change it so people can have the specific details," Billings said. "There is misinformation being put out there."

He added: "If it's not clear, we certainly will clarify that. In the official documents put out by the city, my resumes are clear. This is not trying to take credit for something that isn't true. . . . That summarization, it got a little too unclear."

In response to a Government Records Access and Management Act request filed Tuesday by the Deseret Morning News, Provo released the resume and application Billings submitted in 1994 when then-Mayor George Stewart recruited him for a city job. The resumes do not claim Billings studied business at BYU.

George Stewart is running for a seat on the City Council and said this week that he hired Billings to be Provo's community affairs director and lobbyist to the Republican-dominated state Legislature because Billings had connections as chairman of the Republican Party in Utah County.

George Stewart said Billings told him he was close to completing a college degree when he promoted Billings from his first Provo city job, director of community and government relations, to the city's chief administrative officer in 1996. The City Council confirmed the appointment.

"I never asked for a transcript," Stewart said. "I hired him in a job where I didn't think he needed (a degree). His work experience was enough. And then with his job performance I gave him some responsibilities of and the title of chief administrative officer. . . . His educational background was never a big deal for me."

Billings believes he is within two semesters of a degree because of classes he took at the University of Phoenix, the University of Utah and Utah Valley State College. He said that until 1996 he took at least one course per year after completing a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the mid-1970s.