Like a bad movie that people keep trying to remake, the scandal called "gift-gate" keeps plaguing the people of Salt Lake City. Always, in spite of different actors, the ending is the same. Always, people are left wondering, why can't the city move on to something else?
The announcement this week by Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom that the previous investigation was thorough, professional and complete, and that he would not unseal the evidence or the testimony, taught the public only one thing: There often is a stark difference between election-year rhetoric and level-headed reality.Yocom was elected last fall in large part because voters believed his predecessor, Neal Gunnarson, had willfully botched the gift-gate investigation in order to protect certain prominent people. Yocom came into office promising another thorough investigation into Mayor Deedee Corradini's solicitation of $231,000 in gifts and loans to cover her legal debts from an earlier scandal, better known simply by the name of the bankrupt company for which she used to work, Bonneville Pacific.
Yocom wasn't the only one who wanted another probe. The City Council hired its own investigator, a Rhode Island attorney named Martin Healey, to do his own thorough search for wrongdoing. It was a good old-fashioned dog pile on a bone that didn't have much meat.
All three investigations now have come to the same conclusion. The mayor broke no laws because, at the time, no laws prohibited her from asking prominent residents for money -- even if those prominent residents often did business with the city. Most people agree this kind of behavior is unethical, but at the time it was not illegal.
That has since changed. The City Council last year passed a new ethics ordinance that makes it illegal for an elected official to receive or solicit gifts valued at more than $50 for matters not involving official city business.
Certainly, the public's obsession with gift-gate is understandable, particularly because so much of the evidence gathered in the main investigation was kept secret. But enough of that information leaked in various ways to make it clear that the only remedy was to pass a new ordinance. Meanwhile, other people clearly had much to gain politically by keeping the scandal alive.
Gift-gate undoubtedly influenced Corradini's decision not to seek re-election this year. It most certainly cost Gunnarson his job. It was a sordid chapter in the city's history and was, without question, a case of bad judgment on the part of the mayor.
But city residents should feel confident that the new ordinance would keep anyone from doing such a thing again. Perhaps now, finally, Salt Lake City can leave the scandal behind and move on.