CLEARFIELD — Dan Phelps says a grand total of about two hours of looking at pornography on a city-owned computer led to his resignation as mayor of Clearfield five months ago.

According to city records, Phelps' city computer contained images and videos downloaded from pornographic Web sites.

The information became public after the Standard-Examiner of Ogden filed a request for any data from Phelps' city computer "showing inappropriate use for the purpose of viewing pornography." The newspaper's initial request to the city through the Government Records Access and Management Act was denied, until the newspaper said it would appeal to the Clearfield City Council. The city then released a copy of the hard drive, which the newspaper reported had "hundreds of pornographic images."

The incident has prompted the city to consider updating its open-records ordinance to be more in line with state law.

"Porn, in and of itself, is a terrible thing," Phelps said Monday. "What happened here, in the grand scheme of things, is not huge. It's high-profile, especially as a stake president, seminary teacher, mayor. You live in a fish bowl. You just gotta make sure you're just careful with everything you do."

Phelps, who was elected in November over incumbent Tom Waggoner, was in office about six weeks when he tendered his resignation prior to a council meeting Feb. 21. His resignation sparked a game of municipal musical chairs.

On March 22, the City Council unanimously appointed one of its own, Don Wood, who had been serving as acting mayor, to the permanent job. On April 17, the council appointed Mike LeBaron to fill Wood's seat on the council.

Phelps said he was using an Internet search engine to look up matters relating to the office of mayor when he noticed a link to a pornographic Web site, which he followed. He spent about 10 minutes at the site, he said. The next day, it was 15 minutes. And the third day was about 90 minutes.

By that time, Phelps said, he knew he was having a problem. "I got pulled in."

Phelps was serving then as president of the Clearfield North Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church forbids the viewing of pornography. So Phelps said he met with his ecclesiastical leader to make a confession. Phelps also met with Clearfield's information-technology manager, Mark Peacock, to tell him what had been going on.

Phelps said he also had meetings with the city attorney and members of the City Council, and everyone eventually agreed Phelps should resign.

He did so, and also quit a teaching job at an LDS seminary at Central Davis Junior High School. He was released as stake president.