Politics » Gary Gygi promises to report on golf-course finances.

By Nick Mathews | The Salt Lake Tribune |   Jul 20 2012

The Cedar Hills City Council appointed one of its own as mayor in a special meeting Thursday night.

After publicly interviewing nine candidates, the council chose Gary Gygi, a member since January, to replace Eric Richardson, who resigned June 25 amid federal fraud charges and accusations of misappropriation of civil funds.

…A bright future may require a solution to one of Cedar Hills’ most controversial issues: the city golf course. The mayor said he hopes to get to the bottom of its finances. Some critics, chief among them the Cedar Hills Citizens for Responsible Government, have argued that officials misappropriated city funds to build a club house and misled the public about the true state of golf course finances.

To resolve those concerns, Gygi and the other seven members of the ad hoc Golf Course Financial Advisory Committee are examining the course’s financial history.

…Gygi said Friday that the newsletter statement [Sept 2011] was “accurate but not complete” because it told only part of the story. It didn’t account for debt service, for example, or the annual subsidy from tax dollars.

Just this month, the city issued a clarification, acknowledging the statement didn’t reflect the overall financial condition of the golf course.  Gygi said the clarification came at his suggestion.

For complete story see... http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54527344-78/gygi-course-cedar-golf.html.csp

NOTE: The Tribune reported, “Gygi said the clarification came at his suggestion.”  Really?  Representatives from Cedar Hills Citizens for Responsible Government have asking and “suggesting” the City Council make this correction for over 10 months.  Nevertheless, we congratulate him for helping it happen, albeit lost in small print on page 3.

We hope the “clarification” will find its way to the front page of the next Newsletter where the original error was published, along with a simple table clarifying the year by year golf losses and taxpayer dollar contributions.

“Fresh start”?  We sure hope so.  Public trust will be rebuilt with each example of open, honest, clear communication of facts, so citizens are not mislead and can vote intelligently in the future. We hope the Council will continue this positive trend.