Stuart Reid -- SLC Reject -- Back in the Spotlight Once Again

Although I took a day off from blogging yesterday, I can't fail to belatedly offer a little something about a couple of articles that popped up over the past two days in the local print media, while I was away from the computer.

The Salt Lake Tribune's Kristen Moulton filed this informative story on Friday; and John Wright's story made the Standard-Examiner's front page yesterday morning.

Once again, public attention focuses on Stuart Reid, who's been re-hired under his new Limited Liability Company (LLC) "alter ego," to manage Ogden's Business Depot Ogden (BDO) business park.

As you'll recall, Mr. Reid first arrived on the Ogden scene in 2000, upon being hired by Mayor Godfrey to serve as Ogden city's economic development director. He'd headed north to Ogden, fresh from a failed Salt Lake City mayoral election run, where he'd been soundly trounced, in a come-from-behind finish, by Ogden home-boy Rocky Anderson. Never being a man to accept defeat gracefully, he took the Ogden economic development reins firmly in his fists, and then proceeded to wreak revenge on the citizens of Anderson's boyhood home town for the next 5-1/2 years. During this time he concocted many grand plans and schemes, among them the "Wal-mart Superstore Landgrab," the "Union Square Taj Mahal on 25th Street Bankruptcy," and my own personal favorite, the "Downtown Toxic Theme Park and Recreation Center." As goes the old axiom though, all good things must come to an end. And so it seemed with Mr. Reid's tenure in Ogden, as he "retired" as Ogden City's economic development Department CEO on July 15 of this year. Mr. Reid had served his mission in Ogden, he said. It was time to follow the private sector's siren song, and find a job more suitable to his prodigious talents. There were private jobs available "out there" at three times his meager $100,000+ annual Ogden salary, he explained; and the time had come for him to land one of those.

Mr. Reid's departure was not entirely without incident however, for there were murmurings of "improproprieties" even as Mr. Reid voluntarily walked out the City Hall door. Mr. Reid, it was reported, had departed Ogden city with a little bon voyage present -- in the form of a $43,000 severance package, we learned, under circumstances that might not be entirely "kosher" under the City Code. Although there was plenty of grumbling from some townsfolk at the time, discussion of this little possible indiscretion never caught the media's attention, and soon faded into silence.

It might have remained that way too, except for what I'll gently label "retirement remorse." Once out in the private sector job market, it somehow became clear to Mr. Reid that he hadn't "given" enough of himself to Ogden city. Within a month of his departure, he was right back on the public dole again, with a freshly-inked $78,000/yr pact, putting him in charge of the Ogden BDO.

This of course breathed new life into the issue of Mr. Reid's "questionable" severance package; and at some point, the city council finally got around to formally asking the mayor's office "What the heck is up?"

We got part of that answer last week -- maybe. "Somebody" from the mayor's office delivered a hand-written response to the city council's query last week, adopting the legal position that Mr. Reid's July departure had actually been involuntary -- Mr Reid had been asked to resign. Both Mayor Godfrey and Mr. Reid were quick to refute this, though; both of them even now maintain that Mr. Reid left entirely of his own volition. In this connection, Mr. Godfrey takes the further position that the granting of Mr. Reid's severence bonus was entirely right and proper -- that he has the legal power to grant such rewards for voluntarily departing department heads, presumably with authority originating somewhere in the Ogden city code.

Just out of curiosity, I located the Ogden Ordinance defining the Mayor's authority for the granting of severance benefits. It doesn't seem all that complicated to me. I certainly see no support in the ordinance for the Mayor's position. It's pretty obvious, in fact, that the applicable ordinance has been drafted to generally permit the negotiation of severance benefits only in cases of involuntary termination.

In this connection, Paragraph F of the ordinance provides: "Severance pay will not be made to otherwise eligible employees who:... 3. Voluntarily terminate employment with the city." In the same connection, the next sub-paragraph specifies that a "...requested resignation shall not be considered a voluntary resignation and will entitle the eligible employee to severance pay benefits..."

There is another paragraph in the ordinance that "grandfathers" severance agreements made prior to the enactment Of Ogden City Code Section 2-6-9: "If prior to the effective date hereof, employment agreements exist with different severance terms, then the eligible employee will be entitled to the benefit of the more advantageous terms." Perhaps this is the provision upon which Mayor Godfrey "hangs his hat." Section 2-6-9 has been revised at least four times since Mr. Reid's originally hiring in the year 2000.

What's also interesting, is that Mr. Reid's asserted "severance bonus" is predicated upon an alleged earlier "verbal agreement" with Mayor Godfrey. There seems to be nothing in writing, thus raising an obvious "statute of frauds" problem. Neither Mr. Reid nor Mayor Godfrey however deny the existence of such a purported agreement, and it's doubtful, under the circumstances, that Mayor Godfrey would or could assert the Utah statute against Mr. Reid defensively, especially now that Mr. Reid has already received his entire compensation.

Another unanswered question is whether any written employment agreement that did exist between Mr. Reid and Ogden city contained an "integration clause", declaring it to be the complete and final agreement between the parties. The presence of such a clause would negate the argument that Mr Reid's employment arrangement was founded in part on prior oral agreements.

I'm also going to note in passing that there appears to be a whole separate plot-twist involved in the "handwritten response to the council" situation. As to that, here's an interesting tidbit from Kristen Knowlton's story:

In a handwritten answer to the council under the heading "Administration's Response" this week, Mark Johnson, the city's management services director, said Reid had been asked to resign.
"After discussion with the mayor about his leaving, the mayor, as required and appropriate, asked Stuart for his resignation," was the administration's response.
Godfrey said Friday afternoon that he did not authorize that answer to the council's question and that it is not true.
Johnson did not return telephone calls seeking comment. However, he told the executive director of the council, Bill Cook, that he had not written the answer that appeared above his name, Cook said Friday night.
The answer, Johnson told Cook, was written by Godfrey's right-hand man, chief administrative officer John Patterson, after Johnson had signed the paper. Patterson did not return a call Friday night.

Perhaps I'll be writing a bit more on this odd element as this interesting story evolves. Was it all a "big mistake," or were Mr. Johnson and Mr. Patterson merely trying to "cover for the boss?" And I will further remark how truly odd it seems that a high-level Ogden city employee such as Mr. Johnson would deem it appropriate to affix his signature upon a blank page, without first having at least dictated his intended comments. One would hope that this doesn't reflect the normal customs and practices in our beloved Ogden city government.

So many questions...; so few answers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll surely be sitting on the edge of my seat, awaiting the opinion of the Ogden Council's newly-retained and hopefully learned independent lawyer.

For those who'd like to apply their own legal brainpower to the problem, here's a link to the applicable Ogden city code section, which I've copied to the WCF archives. And for the truly diligent among us, I'm linking an online version of the entire Ogden city code right here.

And what about our gentle readers? Comments, anyone?