This is the first in a series of postings of secret City Council emails that were illegally withheld from the public record.  We believe that as you read the Series installment, you will understand why city leaders tried to keep the exchanges secret.

First an explanation:  Utah State law does not allow for more than two Cedar Hills public official from the City Council (the mayor and five Council) to communicate with each other in person, over the phone, etc., unless the time and date of the meeting is a publicly noticed in advanced.  Doing so creates an “illegal meeting”.

In other words, if two Council members were talking at the grocery store, and a third Councilman walked up, that could be considered an illegal meeting that requires advance public notice.  Why is this the law?  To keep the public’s business out in the open, and avoid secret meetings and decisions without the voters knowing the actions of their elected “servant” employees.

This law was designed to not only protect the citizens from their government, but also to help elected officials and city employees avoid the temptation toward questionable actions and decisions that may occur when done in secret.

Keeping the public’s business “on the record” and available to Cedar Hills voters was at the heart of Cedar Hills Citizens for Responsible Government’s much reported March 5, 2012 GRAMA request.  (GRAMA law is a freedom of information law)

This GRAMA request asked for all emails between then Mayor Eric Richardson, then City Manager Konrad Hildebrandt, and between the rest of the Council.  We had learned that official may have been illegally doing some select city business using their personal email accounts, without providing the email record back to the City Recorder’s office as required by State Code.  This is by definition a “conspiracy”.  Please look it up.

We were right.  What should have taken 10-days, was delayed by the city to over 200+ days.  Finally, on September 12, the night before the second Hearing before the Utah State Records Committee, the City surrendered the last of thousands of pages of previously unavailable emails between the Council, — some of it highly questionable.  Our series “Secret Emails Exposed” — will let you decide.

Here is the first:  Secret Emails Exposed — #1, a November 24, 2011 email we titled, “Throw existing Council under the bus”.  Their words, not ours.

Please read all three PDFs.  The first is an “Email #1 Introduction” by Cedar Hills Citizens for Responsible Government, and two PDFs for pages 1 and 2 of this interesting City email. Click here:   Introduction to Secret Email Exposed #1

&  Email #1 – Rees, Gygi, Augustus email to outgoing Council.page1of2

&  Email #1 – Rees, Gygi, Augustus email to outgoing Council.page 2of2