The Provo Republican, who is implicated in the scandal involving Mountainland Applied Technology Center's illegal construction of a Republican Party parade float, approached Orem Mayor Jerry Washburn about selling a public solid-waste transfer facility to Allied Waste.

Washburn said Bramble made it clear that he was not speaking as a state senator, but as "a consultant for Allied."

Washburn passed Bramble's request on to officials of the North Point Special Service District, which runs the transfer facility, but they declined the offer. Washburn said Bramble told him that Allied owns land adjacent to the facility and may build its own transfer station to compete with North Point. Bramble, however, said he wasn't sure whether Allied owned that land. He said questions about their business decisions should be taken up with Allied.

Bramble's conflict of interest statement, filed on the Senate's Web site, does not identify Allied or solid-waste management as potential conflicts. The four areas of potential conflict he does list are "CPA/consulting, commercial real estate, aviation and health care." Bramble said he would declare a conflict if he becomes involved in any legislation affecting Allied.

Bramble was the Senate sponsor of a House bill in 2005 that would have benefited Allied by imposing new state fees on its competitors - municipalities that run their own garbage pick-ups and a firm that uses a landfill on an Indian reservation. He was co-sponsor of a similar bill in 2006, which passed. But that was before he became a paid consultant for Allied, which he says began about nine months ago.

Republican upset in SLC: Salt Lake City mayoral candidates Jenny Wilson and Ralph Becker might feel pretty confident, being strong Democrats in a city that leans Democratic.

But they got their respective butts whipped Saturday by the Republicans. The scene of the carnage was the Ferragosto-Italian Festival at the Italian Center for the West in Salt Lake City where an all-woman team from the Republican (an Irish pub in Salt Lake) beat Becker's team in the first round and bested Wilson's in the second round of the bocce tournament. The victorious four-member Republican team consisted of Becca Shaw, Kerrie Betts, Dawn Betts and Sarah Nickelsen.

Monkeys messin' with Web? On the Hogle Zoo's Web page is an event on Sept. 6 called "American Express Zoo Rendezvous." Viewers are invited to enjoy "spectacular local cuisine from Utah's finest restaurants and brew pubs, live music, up-close animal presentations and a silent auction" with proceeds going to the zoo. It then gives you a Web site for more detailed information, but when you click it, you get a message saying that site doesn't exist. After a few more tries, you realize the link has rendezvous spelled "rendesvous." If you try the link spelling "rendezvous" correctly, you get there.

prolly@sltrib.com