While Yocom's desire to remain pure as Caesar's wife is understandable, even laudable, it does not best serve the interests of Salt Lake County taxpayers, who now must foot the bill for the special prosecutor. Yocom heads the largest office of criminal prosecutors in the state. They are career professionals, not political hacks. Arguably, they are the best qualified attorneys to represent the people's interest in the case against Mayor Workman, and they should have done the job.

The mayor can prattle all she wants about how the felony charges against her are a political vendetta, but Yocom already has put that issue to rest for anyone who cares to know the facts. He appointed a bipartisan panel of four career prosecutors from outside Salt Lake County - two Republicans and two Democrats - to screen the evidence against Mayor Workman. They concluded not only that there was “sufficient credible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt” to sustain two felony counts of misusing public money, but that “the evidence is entirely consistent with Nancy Workman's guilt.”

That does not mean that she is guilty. That is a matter for a jury to decide after she has had a chance to confront the witnesses and evidence against her.

What it does mean, though, is that there is substantial evidence that Workman committed a serious crime and that Yocom, who had been alerted to the possibility by a whistle-blower, was well within his duty and discretion to file charges against her, particularly when the evidence had been screened by other professional prosecutors with no political ax to grind.

The mayor is charged with using $17,000 in public funds to hire two bookkeepers, in succession, to work for the South Valley Boys and Girls Club under the supervision of her daughter. The mayor has conceded that she did not follow the proper procedure when she hired the workers, but that neither she nor her daughter benefited, and that the filing of criminal charges is politically motivated. Her current campaign ads on television attribute the charges to politics.

There is little doubt that Yocom's appointee as special prosecutor, Mike Martinez, is himself well qualified to press this case on the public's behalf. He is a former Salt Lake County prosecutor.

But the current professionals in that office were up to the job, regardless of the mayor's claims of political bias, and the taxpayers would have been spared the added expense of $150 an hour for Martinez's services.