Reader comments
Conflict sidelines Curtis on loan talks

We are going to hear the normal "part-time legislature" defense.

Since they are a part-time legislature they file a disclosure form in which they state all of their potential conflicts. That has been the case for decades. Can we guess at what our fore-fathers would have considered a conflict?

Interesting FACT, up until about 1986 our fore-fathers would not even allow city and state employees to serve in the legislature because they had a conflict of interest. Think about that, for the first 90 years of Utah's existence that is how tight they were about the subject.

Now, legislator gets into business of building charter schools, runs legislation to increase funding for buildings, makes dramatic profits from his own legislation; Legislator tries to get business with health care firm for ten years, no luck. Appointed to health care task force, gets coveted contract following month; Two legislators sitting on committee that overseas Nuc power issues, start nuc power business; Current Senator, struggling CPA - elected Majority Leader and suddenly gets several high profile "consulting" contracts with firms being regulated by the State.

Curtis is no different. And we expect them to regulate themselves. We voted'em in, vote'em out!

Thank you Speaker Curtis for setting a high standard on this issue. The public is appreciative of your efforts.

I admire Curtis for being so ethical in such a hard situation. We need more leaders who work hard like him and, as this article states, go to great lengths to avoid huge conflicts of interest.

Kudos, Speaker Curtis, for managing a tough situation with class and wisdom. This story isn't really a story thanks to the way you respected both your role as attorney for Anderson, and as a public servant. Keep up the good work, and know some folks actually appreciate the way you handled this potentially difficult situation.

A bridge loan is interim financing for an individual or business until permanent or the next stage of financing can be obtained. Money from the new financing is generally used to "take out" (i.e. to pay back) the bridge loan, as well as other capitalization needs.

The bridge loan is for St. George not Anderson Development. The City of St. George needs the money to construct it's airport. Anderson doesn't need a dime from the State.

Yes, there is a good explanation for every conflict of interest in this state. All our righteous leaders are pure and moral, so God lets them profit as a reward for high morality. We should all support our righteous legislators and their high morals and ethics against anyone who claims otherwise.

Anybody else think all the soundalike "kudo" comments are written by the same person (someone from Curtis's office)?

So, if I understand correctly, the state will give a $40+ million loan to St. George which it will pay back when they get the $44 million from Anderson in four or five years. With an airport that costs $200 million, will St. George have the funds to pay the interest on the loan as well or will the burden of interest fall back on the state like it did for the flood loans? Let's think about the details and appropriate use of public funds.

That's the problem with the way the D News handles posts. Anyone can log on as different names, or use someone else's.

Sen Curtis took a clear ethical stand, and neglected to mention that giving this loan puts Utah taxpayers on the hook for up to $50 million dollars in environmental cleanup costs on the airport land before it can be transferred to the developer. Yahoo! Let's raise the sales tax again to cover it!

For those who can't resist to make negative and accusatory comments about this loan, I'd suggest you research the facts before spouting off.

The City of St. George needs a bridge loan. The State loan isn't the only way this can be done, but it's certainly an easier and an appropriate way. The City of St. George and southern Utah is a good little economic engine for the State of Utah, and the new airport will be huge for the local economy. So it's appropriate for the state to help.

Also, there is little to no risk to the state. If Anderson failed to pay for the land, the State becomes the owner and can sell or develop it.

Finally, there will be no gaps in funding. Between Federal, City, and the old airport sale, the project will be funded. If critics did there homework, they would know this. The Legislature has done their homework.

Now all of you critics can move onto whining about another issue you no nothing about.

the issue is good old boy net work serving corporate
interests in ways that are, or appear to be of questionable ethics, by a one party system, that plys on public trust by using the dominate church as another good old boy network alleging pure religious thinking in all matters, yet often only serves their own and their buddies long term business interests.
thus the public "whines" which by the way is the right of the public when something rotten is about.

all i have to say is "HUH?" i agree with JON!

The problem with the Legislature in general, and Mr. Curtis in particular is that they've affected so many shady, unethical, self-serving deals already that we the people are overly sensitive to the slightest whiff of impropriety. I wonder if Mr. Curtis has ever been admonished to avoid the very appearance of evil? Of course, he IS a lawyer, so I'd suspect not.

I wonder, would people vote for me if I ran for the state house, on the platform of getting a bill that gets tough on conflict of interest house and senate members, and forces them to choose--legislator or current occupation!? To me, that is the number one problem with our state government....It feeds all the other stupid dilemnas that the legislators have been pulling and it needs to stop.

No, I wasn't posting multiple times. This is only my second post on the subject, as can be confirmed by the moderator by my IP address.

You may not like that some people actually understand why and how the Speaker (not Sen Curtis, as one ignorant poster put it) did what he did, but apparently I'm not the only one. Ethics required Curtis to avoid disclosing his client's bid, while as soon as the bid became public, immediately recusing himself. He did exactly as he should have.

And some people just don't get the bridge loan. But I suppose that's what you get when Bob Bernick writes the story. Check the Tribune for a much more easily understood description of what all of this means.

the tribune story alludes to an over all questionable pattern by mr curtis if you read
the entire article

It appears to me that the bid price for the St George airport by Anderson is peanuts compared to what the city of St. George should get for this prime property. I would really like to see what the appraisal for this property is for the citizens of St George to judge . This smells of collusion with some of the affected parties. I doubt 44M is for the best use of the land especially the taxes derived from it.

And I'm sure Curtis doesn't have other lawmakers doing his dirty work for him. I'll help you get that seat you want on that committee if you help push this bill that will make my friends and me a lot of cash.

Is there any way voters in Utah could start electing officials who have some good ethics?

Part time or full time legislating is not the issue and is totally irrelevant to the issue and problem.

Fact is all elected officials are servants of the public, not the other way around. This is also in issue about trust, confidence and integrity of not only the individuals being elected, but of the very institutions themselves, again, part time of full time not withstanding!

Right now people like Curtis, and he's not the only one in this kind of mess with the residents of Utah who elected him and he represents, need to understand that they can't have their cake and eat it to. If they're so interested in campaigning and running for an elected office, they also can't claim to be part-timers about conflict-of-interest issues. Either they're in or they're out... to which it looks like we can't expect our elected officials to comply by the force of their own integrity (or lack thereof), so we probably should put the issue on the ballot, since the 'part-timer' legislatures seem ambivalent towards making it law from their end.

Sad, sad, sad.