When the City Council voted by secret ballot to elect Councilwoman Marilyn Peterson as mayor last week, it circumvented the state's open-meetings law, said a Salt Lake media attorney.
In addition, two councilmen named to fill vacancies last November and in July were approved by illegal secret balloting, noted City Councilwoman Rea Bleggi."The open and public meetings act clearly provides that applicants for an elected office must be interviewed in public, and the vote to appoint a successor to an elected official must be taken in public," said Jeff Hunt, counsel for the Utah Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. "The statute requires open votes and open meetings on these issues," he said Friday.
Any resident could challenge and void the votes, Hunt said. But unless someone does that, the votes won't be voided and nothing further can be done, he said.
City attorney Jim Brady said he wasn't aware that the voting was illegal. He said it was obvious who was voting for whom when Peterson was elected, because it was a unanimous vote.
But the first vote was split 2-2, so residents were kept in the dark about how the council members voted that time.
Peterson said the candidates were not interviewed in secret, although as a candidate she wasn't involved in that. Rather, they were each allowed to speak in an open City Council meeting and tell residents why they wanted to replace the late Mayor Richard Maxfield.
Maxfield died in a horse riding accident in August.
Other candidates were Greg Tobler, an attorney, and Richard Young, an accountant and out-of-county developer. The first secret ballot was held on Sept. 9 and the second was held Sept. 16, when the first vote ended in a 2-2 tie between Peterson and Tobler. Young, who received no votes the first time, has since been nominated to run for mayor in the November election.
Tobler said he wanted to run but couldn't because he is about 10 days shy of the state's residency law. There is no residency law for appointed officials.
Tobler said he wasn't called in and interviewed in secret by the council, but he called every councilperson except Lyle Wasden to discuss the post. "I initiated it for the most part because I wasn't sure they knew me well enough to determine whether I was qualified to fill the position," he said. Tobler said he wasn't aware the vote was illegal, but "I doubt I'll do anything about it," he said.
"I wasn't aware we couldn't do it that way," Peterson told the Deseret News. "We'll have to take it up and do it by an open vote in another meeting," she said. The council is receiving applications to fill Peterson's council post and will vote on that issue Oct. 7.
Last November the council voted secretly to replace then-Councilman Boyd Adams with Lyle Wasden. And in July it replaced resigning Councilman Jim Baird with Chuck Rawlings, also by secret ballot, said Bleggi. She, too, said she was unaware that secret ballots are illegal.