Republican mailer magnate accuses Hinckley director of co-opting donation

SALT LAKE CITY — A political fight has broke out between the owner of a multimillion-dollar national Republican direct-mailing business and Hinckley Institute of Politics Director Kirk Jowers.

Political insiders tell the Deseret News the timing of the controversy may be meant as a warning to Jowers and others to lay off their attempts to shake up rules within the Utah GOP — and could signal a larger battle among officials inside the party.

The tension is over a $200,000 anonymous donation Peter Valcarce made to the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics in 2008. In a thank you letter sent to Valcarce, signed by then U. president Michael Young, he was notified that $75,000 of his anonymous donation was put in the Kirk and Kristen Jowers International Scholarship for the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

"It was a shock," Valcarce said, adding he felt that Jowers had used his money to "parade it around for his own credit."

The event that Valcarce said pushed him over the edge was when Jowers went on KSL's Doug Wright Show to offer a $25,000 matching donation to raise funds for a memorial scholarship for Wright's son, Eric Wright, who died while serving a Washington, D.C., internship for the Hinckley Institute. Those funds would come out of Jowers' scholarship fund.

Jowers said that while Valcarce's money was a "sizable minority" of his total $166,000 fund, not a penny of Valcarce's money went toward the Wright scholarship effort.

Valcarce said he sent a letter to the U.'s office of the president, demanding that the $75,000 be removed from Jowers' fund and placed in a fund honoring Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

To date, over two years later, Valcarce claims he has never received a letter from the U. president, or Jowers, acknowledging that the funds have been moved.

"Peter and I certainly had a falling out since he made the generous donation," Jowers said. "We tried to address what should be done with it and honor his intentions."

While Valcarce had requested the donation be anonymous, he admits that he did not give specific immediate instructions, but indicated that instructions would come later.

Jowers said that during an Oct. 9, 2010, meeting with Valcarce, the two agreed that $40,000 would be removed from the Jowers fund and placed in the Bishop fund with an additional $35,000 moved once the endowment generated additional cash to move.