This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert is following the State Records Committee's recommendation and nominating Marie Cornwall as the committee's second public member.
Herbert has sent Cornwall's name to the Utah State Senate, which will have a confirmation vote when it meets on Sept. 18. However, that is six days after the committee's regular meeting, leaving the committee one member short for another month.
Cornwall is an emeritus sociology professor at Brigham Young University and lives in Bountiful. The committee gave her a "soft recommendation" in June, due to only seeing her resume.
Cornwall was one of five people who applied for the newly created position. The others were Sarra McGillis, a corrections specialist with the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office; James Weightman, director of internal audits at the Salt Lake County Auditor's Office; and Sheri Bernard, a consultant who had works in health-care information management.
The position was created as part of SB94, Sen. Curt Bramble's bill that amended the Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA). The bill also removed the state auditor's seat on the body that hears GRAMA appeals and replaced it with a second slot for a member of the public.
Bramble said the change was made at the request of State Auditor John Dougall, who wanted to avoid any conflicts of interest if his office were to audit the committee. Dougall who as a legislator authored HB477, the bill that gutted GRAMA and was repealed after public outcry in 2011 fired the auditor's representative on the committee, Betsy Ross.
Herbert's previous appointment to the board was Holly Richardson, a conservative blogger and former legislator who supported HB477, as a public member.