The mayor reportedly wanted to fire his absent top cop several times. But after canning so many office staffers, drop-kicking a police chief wouldn't have looked good. So, with gritted teeth, he allowed Dinse, who spent much of his time at conferences and at his home in Los Angeles, to stay on for six quietly uneasy years.

Anderson's relationship with young workaholic Chief Chris Burbank is considerably warmer.

Perhaps that explains the mystifyingly single-minded campaign to identify the anarchist who confirmed for The Salt Lake Tribune the results of a civilian police oversight panel's findings in the case of a military veteran allegedly roughed up at Liberty Park.

The mayor simply is backing his chief. But that loyalty has reduced one of Rocky's legacies - the Civilian Review Board - to wreckage.

The 14-member panel is cut to five and hanging on by a warm body. Anyone else leaves and everything shuts down. The mayor is resorting to soliciting for applicants on the radio.

It's easy to understand why. Who would want the job?

The chief reviews every decision you make. In several instances, he says, you're just plain wrong. But in this case, a claim of excessive force, he takes second-guessing one step further and a city private investigator asks to see phone records. Guilt is the starting premise of the whole Orwellian exercise.

I'd quit, too.

Last week, four board members, including the chairman and vice chairwoman, resigned.

"To remain under these circumstances would be to perpetuate the illusion that we still can function," attorney Antje Curry wrote in her resignation e-mail. "The purported 'leak' has prevailed in dismantling what seemed so successful."

Apparently, even Rocky has some doubts about the process, asking for a criminal investigation in the case of Police Association President Tom Gallegos, chief cheerleader for the leak investigation. Gallegos allegedly was caught repeatedly sending pornographic e-mails on his city e-mail over two years - a third-degree felony. Burbank slapped the union president on the wrist with a letter of reprimand. When he learned of the case months later, the mayor decided it merited a little more thought.

But in the case of Miles Lund, the 74-year-old Korean War vet who was left with bleeding on the brain after his meeting with city police, the mayor and chief are joined at the hip in moral outrage. They still defend their decision to go after the board members.

Burbank argues the "leak" undermined the due-process rights of the officers involved - although the board's findings could be divined from the police department's own quarterly report released just two days later. The chief still has not announced his conclusions in the case.

Motivated by his own hostility for the news media and micromanaging tendencies, the mayor resorts to blaming the messenger, The Tribune.

"It's exactly the kind of process we intended," Rocky said in an interview last week on KCPW. "Except for this leak, everything's going beautifully."

So beautifully, he now has a police-watchdog group that is reduced to a shell of its former self - barely better than former Chief Ruben Ortega's hapless board, a small panel of police officers and apologists that Rocky was quick to disband.

Acting Chairman Scott McCoy, a state senator and attorney, remains optimistic the board can continue its work. "We'll get our feet back beneath us," he said.

So if you're still interested, send your résumé to the mayor's office.

walsh@sltrib.com