When I read of Mayor Ben McAdams’ recommendation to Gov. Gary Herbert of Laynee Jones and Mayor Troy Walker for the new UTA board, I was immediately suspicious.
I was still processing McAdams’ recent appointment of past Mayor Ralph Becker (prior boss of McAdams) as the director of the Central Wasatch Commission (Mountain Accord). Becker was of course voted out of office, in part because of his involvement with Mountain Accord. He now gets a sweetheart salary, bonuses and travel allowance to direct the product of the very entity that he helped send off the rails.
So McAdams’ recommendations for a fresh start at UTA — an organization plagued with overpaid executives, meetings conducted behind closed doors and suspicious land trades — are two people directly linked to overpaid executives, closed-door meetings and suspicious land deals. A quick Google search shows that Jones and Walker both served on the executive board of Mountain Accord. Mountain Accord finances show that LJ Consulting (Laynee Jones) was paid over $500,000 for two years for her involvement with Mountain Accord, over four times the average family annual household income in Salt Lake County and nearly twice the annual salary of Herbert.
Many newspaper articles show that Mountain Accord is being sued due to violations of the Open and Public Meetings Act and that the judge has ruled in favor of the private citizens and against Mountain Accord. It looks like Jones and Walker not only violated the open meetings law, but also did it month after month, year after year, while spending our taxpayer dollars.
Now, the details of Jones’ and Walker’s proposed land trades in the canyons are raising serious questions about trading our public lands to private parties to expand the ski resorts for future development. And your next guess is correct: Campaign contribution reports show that the very ski resorts receiving property for future development have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to McAdams and Becker.
This does not sound like a fresh start for UTA. This sounds like the same violation of public trust. Herbert needs to deny McAdams’ recommendation and request new faces that do not have a history of violations.
G. Mike Edwards Jr., West Valley City