The reason for the discount was soil contamination. In his memo, Billings said it was clear a government entity had the best chance of bringing together all the parties necessary to clean up the site of a former steel mill.

Billings gave the city an additional 10 acres. He kept 10.85 acres, which he placed in a blind trust in 1998. Using a blind trust is common for politicians with a potential conflict of interest. Hill contended that because the City Council must approve every expenditure on the business park, and Billings cannot influence the trustee, Steve Hortin, he is shielded from any accusations of conflict.

Hortin has sole power to decide to hold on to the land or sell it. If he sold the land, he would not inform Billings, Hortin said.

In his memo, Billings contended that after he set up the blind trust, "what the trustee did or did not do with the assets in trust was no longer within my control and as such it was no longer possible for me to specifically say whether the trust owned or had sold any given property at any given time."

Billings criticized Stewart for not remembering Billings' earliest disclosure, checking his latest disclosure or checking with Hortin to see what interest Billings still has in Ironton.

His latest disclosure, forms that Stewart said the council didn't see, was signed on July 10. In it, Billings didn't state that he owns land in Ironton through the blind trust. Instead, he said that "I am not aware of what assets are actually within the trust at any given time."

The mayor, the council and anyone else could find the information another way. The Deseret Morning News, following a story published four years ago, confirmed Friday that Billings still owned the land by reviewing public land records on the Utah County Web site.

Hortin said that so far, the best way to manage Billings' land has been to hold on to it.

"At the time I took over the trust, there were a number of things that needed to be clarified before I did anything," Hortin said. "I've fielded a few offers, but I thought some things needed to be done to maximize the value. I need to see what this is really going to develop into."

The picture is getting clearer after a couple of parcels in the business park changed hands in the past few years and because of the pending sale to Action Target, which Hortin said he learned about from a newspaper story after returning from Florida on Tuesday.

"It's getting easier to peg a value," Hortin said.

In his efforts to avoid the appearance of a conflict, Billings stepped out of meetings in 1997 and '98 when the subject of Ironton arose. Then the 1999 City Council approved his inclusion in the development of Ironton/Mountain Vista.