Editor’s note • The following is a synopsis of the Tribune’s reporting on renewed controversy San Juan County commissioners’ reliance on advice from an outside attorney.
San Juan County’s recently departed county attorney, Kendall Laws, is demanding the Utah Attorney General investigate two sitting county commissioners’ relationship with an outside lawyer, Steve Boos of Bayfield, Colorado, claiming to have evidence of corrupt lobbying by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).
[Related: Is SUWA too cozy with county commissions?]
Since their election in 2018 to the San Juan County Commission, Navajo tribal members Kenneth Maryboy and Willie Grayeyes have sought advice from Boos, who has provided counsel pro bono, that is without compensation, as they settled into new roles as commissioners in a county government that was roiling with conflict.
The unusual arrangement, which kept Laws out of the loop on many discussions important to the county, was necessary because of then County Clerk John David Nielson’s move to remove Grayeyes from the ballot and other actions aimed at undermining his effectiveness as an elected leader, according to Boos.
The big picture: Boos’s involvement has been an ongoing source of controversy among some conservative members of the community who claim the county’s business is being conducted in secret. Now hundreds of emails have surfaced, less than two months ahead of the Nov. 8 election, suggesting left-leaning groups have covered the costs of those legal services, valued at $250,000.
Boos says those services were provided without compensation from anyone, but that hasn’t deterred the Utah Legislative Auditor General from opening a “government compliance review” into San Juan and Grand counties.
Why it matters: Laws contends the emails he has obtained through records request potentially demonstrate undue influence by left-leaning groups that should be investigated.
• “There is solid and accurate evidence that the San Juan County Commission is being run by Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Rural Utah Project [RUP] and that they have paid 250k towards controlling the majority vote of the commission and have committed numerous crimes,” Laws wrote in a Sept. 26 Facebook post.
• The case illustrates the ongoing friction in San Juan County in the years since a federal judge ordered new voting districts be drawn that are more fair to Native Americans, who comprise about half the county’s population. Boos was the Navajo Nation’s lead lawyer on the case.
• The revised voting districts helped cement the first-ever Navajo majority on southeast Utah county’s three-member commission. Now Grayeyes and Maryboy face reelection next week against Republican challengers Sylvia Stubbs and Jamie Harvey, respectively.
• While SUWA and RUP did consider covering the cost of Boos’s services to the commissioners, they ultimately declined and Boos terminated his representation of Grayeyes and Maryboy in 2019 at the request of his firm, which could no longer afford to absorb these costs.
• After going into solo practice in 2020, Boos resumed his work for the commissioners, which he says he is doing to fulfill his pro bono obligations expected of all lawyers practicing in Utah. He is absorbing those costs out of his own pocket.
Follow @brianmaffly