Arguing the organization is funded with taxpayer money to carry out the public's business, The Salt Lake Tribune is suing to get the Utah Association of Counties to open its books.

The complaint, filed this week in 3rd District Court, follows a November denial of the newspaper's request to see UAC's operating budget.

Tribune Editor Nancy Conway says the organization is clearly public.

"They are an agency that uses public money and needs to be accountable to the public," Conway said Friday.

But Brent Gardner, UAC executive director, insists the organization is private since it has no ability to tax or condemn property.

"We build no roads, we collect no taxes," he said. "It was never intended to be a public organization."

UAC attorney Bill Thomas Peters, who did not return phone calls Friday, has said the association does not fit the legal definition of a "government entity" in the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA), the states's open-records law.

Salt Lake County Councilman Joe Hatch, who long has criticized the organization's secrecy and "extreme anti-wilderness position," thinks otherwise.

"For them to hide behind the idea they are a private entity, even if technically correct, is morally indefensible," he said.

Utah County Commissioner Gary Herbert, a UAC executive committee member who was president until November, considers the complaint a "friendly lawsuit." After years of debate, the lieutenant governor-elect expects the legal action will determine whether UAC is private or public.

"Let's find out," Herbert said. "I think that can only be healthy."

GRAMA defines a governmental entity as one "funded or established by the government to carry out the public's business."

A Tribune analysis of the Utah Code found at least 14 statutes giving UAC authority to directly affect public policy and governmental operations.

UAC has the statutory authority to:

* Appoint three members to the 12-person Quality Growth Commission, which administers open-space funding and guides open-space-protection efforts.

* Help plan the state's strategy for wresting control of dirt roads from the federal government.

* Appoint one member to the 11-member state Board of Education nominating committee.

* Receive reports thrice annually from the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which oversees 3,500 acres for the benefit of Utah schools.

According to the organization's Web site, UAC was formed in 1924 to "help counties provide effective county governance." Its programs "protect the tax base of counties, defend counties against legal suits, offer centrally assessed appraisals and appeals services, and sponsor cash-flow borrowing programs."

UAC also spent nearly $200,000 in a failed lawsuit challenging President Clinton's 1996 creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Lamar Guymon, Emery County sheriff and UAC's immediate past president, says he doesn't see any reason to conceal the financial records.

"I don't know personally that there's anything we have to hide," Guymon said. "Sometimes it's confusing to me that we don't just release them."

Last month, UAC's associate director, Mark Walsh, stepped down after a two-year probe into financial practices -- including allegations of cashing out unearned vacation and sick time -- by UAC's executive committee.

Walsh, who has threatened to sue for wrongful termination and defamation, says his dismissal resulted from a power struggle between him and Gardner.

djensen@sltrib.com