The Std-Ex editors have apparently had their ears to the ground, and are aware of the continuing murmurings of the Ogden townsfolk. This morning's editorial meekly addresses the Stuart Reid severance issue; something that has rest of the town all abuzz.
I'm not going to go into an elaborate re-hash of the presumed facts of the situation. The Std-Ex editorial does a good job of that, at least through the first five or six paragraphs. For those readers who need more information, there's plenty of it here.
In a nutshell though, these are the undisputed essentials, as reported by the various print media:
- Mayor Godfrey hired Stuart Reid in 2000 to serve as Ogden City's economic development director;
- At some point before or during Mr. Reid's employment, Mr. Reid and the Mayor purportedly entered into a verbal agreement, providing a severance bonus to Mr. Reid upon the eventual voluntary termination of his employment;
- Mr. Reid worked in his capacity as economic development director for some 5-1/2 years, until his voluntary departure on July 15, 2005, at which point he received a $43,000 severance package, predicated not upon involuntary termination, but upon "good" performance;
- The current Ogden city code provides for severance benefits only in the event of involuntary termination; there is no authority in the ordinance for severance bonuses.
- Neither Mr. Reid nor Mayor Godfrey have cited any other authority for the award of Mr. Reid's severance bonus, other than vague references to instances where similar extra-legal severance bonuses have been awarded in the past.
And then today's editorial adds this interesting tidbit: "The city's own attorneys have advised Godfrey he should have simply e-mailed Reid, thanked him for his service and asked for a letter of resignation. That would have met the ordinance's rules for an involuntary termination." Is there anyone here who doesn't understand what this means?
I'll tell you what it means. It means that even people like Ogden City Attorney Norm Ashton understand that Mr. Reid's severance bonus finds no support in the Ogden City Code. It's illegal, folks, unless it can be supported by other legal authority.
And this is where we Ogden townsfolk thus find ourselves -- in a place where the city administration, being unable to legally justify its action under the Ogden City Code, resorts to a highly legalistic "waiver" argument. And here's how that waiver argument boils down:
What they're now telling us is that similar extra-legal bonuses have been previously awarded in other circumstances. Nobody complained about the code violation before, so how can anybody complain about Mr. Reid's bonus now? We've had a good-old-boy system operating extra-legally for quite a long time, so everybody should just shut up about it. We've had a compliant city council giving these arrangements a "wink and a nod" for so many years that it's too late for anybody to do anything about it.
The trouble is, waiver is a doctrine well-recognized in American jurisprudence. The administration's position may well be supportable here. That would depend of course upon the answer to that old lawyer question: What did the council know, and when did they know it?" If the city council has knowingly condoned this sort of behavior in the past, Mayor Godfrey's position may be entirely supportable and legally justifiable.
It ain't a pretty picture.
Before closing, I'm going to briefly hit another couple of points that were mentioned in the Std-Ex editorial.
First, the editorial refers to some kind of Utah Attorney General's Office opinion, and says, "But according to the Utah Attorney General's Office, the verbal agreement between Godfrey and Reid is binding, and Godfrey was right to pay it since he agreed he would."
As to this assertion, I'll just venture to say that it's somewhat doubtful that the state AG's office has issued any opinion specific to the instant facts. The city council hasn't yet completed its own formal investigation of this matter, as far as we've been told, and an AG opinion as to this particular transaction would be thus entirely premature. What the AG's office probably did, was to confirm to one of the Std-Ex editors that oral agreements can be valid, under particular circumstances, which is indeed true under Utah law. And remember, a proper investigation into the waiver argument will require the examination of documents in prior employment terminations. It's doubtful that this has been accomplished by now. I suspect the Std-ex "fudged" a little bit on the facts here, saying that the AG's office has given the whole transaction its "thumbs up."
And finally, there are moral and ethical issues at work here, just as Don Porter says: "Godfrey and all other mayors and city officials throughout the Top of Utah should remember that they are dealing with precious taxpayer dollars. They should be absolutely tightfisted with those funds."
While not exactly a brave "shot over the bow" of the Ogden ship of state, the Standard-Examiner is essentially right about this. This whole situation involves the public's money and the public trust -- it's all about right versus wrong. It's also quite inelegant, I think, for administration officials to take hyper-technical and peculiar legalistic positions adverse to the citizens whom they're sworn to serve. I think Mr. Reid should take a short "time-out" with his conscience, and simply give the $43,000 back -- before the S--- hits the fan.
I think it boils down to a simple question of what's right; versus what's wrong.
What say you, gentle readers.
