Mayor Gygi and Cedar Hills Council,
The many recent changes in City leadership and employees have unexpectedly thrust some of you into unique new positions of service of Cedar Hills residents.
With these changes comes a wonderful opportunity to restore the public trust in Cedar Hills’ government. This can be accomplished by a consistent demonstration of support of truth, transparency and respect. Each of you is critical to this process. We want you to be successful for the sake of all Cedar Hills families. The City’s recent admission in the July Newsletter that the golf course has never been profitable was a huge step in the right direction. Amazing! This required considerable courage. Thank you.
A key to establishing and maintaining the public’s trust is providing easy access to the truth that is the public record. Yesterday’s Deseret News published an article called “Release Public Records”. The article reminds government that records of “legitimate public interest” should be provided for free. (see In Our Opinion http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765598669/Utah-Legislature-needs-to-release-public-records.html )
In the spirit of rebuilding the public trust, we desire to share with you a few concerns we invite you and the Council to review and consider:
1. Our March 5, 2012 GRAMA request for emails between Council members, etc., has not been completed. The July 26th deadline imposed by the Utah State Records Committee’s ORDER on the City to provide those records has passed.
2. The GRAMA request was for all city business related email including email between Council members using personal accounts. (Utah Code 63G-2-201(3)(b) ) We do not understand why personal email accounts were used, a behavior which promotes suspicion, but we hope this has been corrected.
3. As a result of the personal email use, the City agreed it did not have in its possession all public email records as required by law. (Utah Code 10-3-603)
For complete letter see PDF… OPEN LETTER to new CH Mayor & Council