Rocky-Hansen hallway skirmish investigated

The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office is looking into whether charges are justified in developer Dell Loy Hansen's hallway confrontation with Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson.

Sheriff's investigators have begun speaking with witnesses, including newspaper reporters, and reviewing the security-camera video showing Anderson and Hansen as they faced off June 12 at the City-County Building following a tense Redevelopment Agency meeting.

Anderson's office has asked for the investigation to determine whether Hansen should be prosecuted on accusations of assaulting an elected official.

"The city has decided that it's not good for them to look at it because he (Anderson) is their boss," sheriff's Lt. Don Hudson said. "So they contacted the sheriff."

Anderson said the request for an investigation was made in the spirit of applying the law equally to everyone.

"The more I thought about it, it seems really important to me that we treat Dell Loy Hansen like anybody else — that rich, out-of-control developers should not get favored treatment under the law," the mayor said. "We wouldn't put up with this with an angry parent at a soccer game who grabbed a referee."

Anderson said he believes "this was clearly assault."

Hansen's newly hired spokesman, Tim Brown, said Hansen "will fully cooperate with any and all inquiries. He feels nothing will come of it."

The skirmish broke out in the hallway outside an RDA meeting where Anderson had asked the City Council, acting as the RDA's board of directors, to reconsider the latest of two loans totaling $6 million to Hansen's Wasatch Property Management, for a 21-story office tower at 222 S. Main.

Anderson accused Wasatch of refinancing an older RDA loan for the Wells Fargo Center but not paying off half the loan at the time, as was required by the agreement.

He also said Wasatch misreported the number of new employees the Wells Fargo building had brought into the city. Those new employees helped Wasatch earn credit toward the loan's interest.

The RDA declined to reconsider the loan because Hansen announced at the meeting that Wasatch had pulled out of the 222 S. Main project, and Hansen and Anderson each left the meeting as the council moved on to other agenda items.

In the hallway, Hansen yelled at Anderson, "You got the guts to look me in the face and talk about it?"