Commission will pay Demo to drop wrongful-firing claim
Reberg also agrees not to take any court action

The all-Republican Salt Lake County Commission has settled its dispute with prominent Democrat Mike Reberg, who says he was laid off from his county position for political reasons.

The county will pay Reberg $55,000 to abandon his claim of wrongful termination before the county's Career Service Council, as well as any possible court action."It's just a number that I thought seemed reasonable," Reberg said. "I didn't want to be excessive, but at the same time I didn't want my family to be hurt by what I felt to be an illegal job action by Mary Callaghan."

Callaghan is chairwoman of the County Commission and the commissioner in charge of the Public Works Department. She says she engineered the removal of Reberg as associate director of public works and fellow Democrat Jim Gonzales to streamline the department and eliminate overhead.

Reberg says it was simple political housecleaning. That would have been an illegal action given that both jobs were merit positions, meaning that the employees could not be removed without job-related cause.

Taking a leave from his county position, Reberg ran for county commissioner last year and was defeated by Republican Mark Shurtleff. Gonzales was Reberg's campaign manager.

Callaghan declined comment on the settlement until all the documents are signed making it final.

Callaghan's position on the layoff was weakened, and Reberg's strengthened, when it was discovered that Reberg's position is mandated by ordinance. Last week Callaghan tried to change the ordinance to make the position voluntary but pulled the item from Wednesday's commission meeting agenda when it became clear that neither Shurtleff nor Commissioner Brent Overson supported her.

"I felt like changing the ordinance for that purpose was not appropriate," Overson said Monday.

The commission will likely revisit the ordinance and make the change, Overson said, now that the Reberg situation is resolved and the situation is different.

"When commissioners Overson and Shurtleff chose not to support Mary Callaghan on (the ordinance change) the handwriting was on the wall," Reberg said. "I've got to commend the other two commissioners for saying, 'This is not right and we're not going to do it.' "

The Gonzales case is still pending. His position, director of alternative transportation, was not mandated by ordinance.

"I'm still meeting with an attorney to see how to proceed," Gonzales said. "I wanted to see how things went with Mike."