You'll find the critics of Brent Overson outspoken and his fans scattered everywhere.
He crafted a controversial career in Salt Lake County politics for eight years as a commissioner and continued to influence the machinery of the county when he stayed on to work as a policy analyst for Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman.
Friday was his last day on the county payrolls after it was announced in March he was leaving to pursue business interests in real estate.
Whether he left on his own or was quietly asked to leave is up for debate, but Workman insists it was Overson's choice to part ways.
"I would have kept him longer. He's been invaluable to me."
Overson, in an uncharacteristically quiet way, isn't saying much except that life will go on, and he's learned there is a time when goodbyes are overdue.
"I've learned you can stay in office too long, and you can wear out your welcome."
The often-brash Nephi native spent the past three months watching many on the new Salt Lake County Council second-guessing or trying to unravel some of the decisions he made as a commissioner.
It was a strange, he admits, to gear down from being part of a trio that stomached the shotgun blasts filled with public venom to being out of the glare and watching others take the hits.
At times he'd step in and explain the reasoning of a past decision, and in other instances it was clear he was too frustrated to say much of anything at all, rare for Overson.
Like the big, flashy Black Hills gold rings he wears, Overson cuts a big swath with his audacious verbal acrobatics, from taking on County Attorney Doug Short to UTA battles to blithely denying his real-estate background had him in the pockets of developers.
He counterattacks with a plain-spoken style he readily concedes some find offensive.
"I'm not always tactful," he said. "I say what I think and let the chips fall where they may."
He comes by it naturally.
The son of a railroad worker who frequently moved his family to various towns in southern and central Utah, Overson grew up in a family with four brothers and one sister.
His mother, Elda Overson, lost her husband when Brent was 17. The death was violent and unexpected, a construction accident.
Her youngest child was just 5 months old.
In 1977, there was another violent and unexpected death in the family.
This time, Elda buried a son who died in a motorcycle accident.
Asked if she's tough, Overson just laughs.
"She's 5'2" and packed with dynamite. She's very tough. That's where I get my say-what-I-think style. She says exactly what is on her mind. There's never any doubt how she feels."
He has an obvious devotion to her.
On this day, he takes a call from her on his cell phone and he's smiling.
She's making him wait, and he's trying to get her attention, but she has chosen to converse with her dogs first, then her son.
The call ends a few minutes later, with Overson ready to return to the current topic: lessons learned, biggest regrets and most cherished accomplishments during an often tumultuous tenure.
As he looks back on his stint as county commissioner, Overson likened his former job to being a granite boulder, one that unflinchingly allowed someone each day to attack it with a hammer, breaking it into chunks.
"By the time your term is up, you're nothing but a pile of rubble."
But he has a theory about why people decide to run for elected office, why they subject themselves to public scrutiny, commit themselves to the often monotonous minutiae of government business and hold themselves out for vicious personal attacks.
"It's a bizarre theory: We have a defective gene, one that allows us to place ourselves in a position where we are criticized, one that enables us to take the beatings regardless of what's said, or how hard it will be. You endure criticism, ridicule and even slanderous comments about your character because you know, you simply know the end, the good of what you're doing, far outweighs the beatings you have to take."
Overson and the other commissioners are continuing to smart from the public whipping the trio received when they stung residents with a hefty property tax increase during their final month in office.
Overson defends the action, saying the county was hit with twin fiscal blows of funding a new jail and losing precious revenue to the double-taxation issue.
"You can't have a jail expense that goes from $21 million in 1996 to $47 million today and not expect to pay for it. "
While Overson agrees the legacy of higher taxes that he leaves is unpalatable, he points to achievements he says will endure for generations to come.
The ones that leave him with the most pride are the $134 million allocated in the past six years for county recreation centers and the golf courses that as a whole don't rely on any tax subsidies to operate.
Many of his fans spring from his legacy of recreation programs, employees in the county who nurture those centers and mayors from other cities who have worked with Overson through the years.
Murray Mayor Daniel Snarr said Overson had an incredible impact on his city.
Ground adjacent to the county's ice rink was transformed into rugby and soccer fields because of the former commissioner's influence.
"I told him we had this property that 51 weeks out of the year is dirt, dust and mud and weeds, and one week we have a fair. The rest of the time the property sits there idle. I wanted to know what we could do."
Overson came up with the county dollars to put in the field, helped Murray get a Babe Ruth baseball field and made possible the donation of property for a community-civic center in Murray for all county residents to enjoy.
That Overson has enemies is part and parcel of the game of politics, Snarr said.
"Perception, reality and politics are miles apart. And sometimes the perception people had of Brent was not a reflection of the reality of how good he was."
Jim Braden, a spokesman for the Salt Lake County Mayor's Office, worked with Overson as a spokesman for the County Commission for five years. He also worked in the recreation department for two years.
"I believe Brent was very, very good for Salt Lake County. He was somewhat of a visionary as far as developing our parks and recreation to the point where it is now: Countywide, state-of-the-art facilities and a professional staff."
His critics, however, are just as adamant about Overson's shortcomings.
"I think elected officials have to be ultimately judged on their style, substance and record in protecting the public good," said Jim Bradley, who served on the County Commission with Overson. " Unfortunately, my belief is that Brent could have scored higher in all three categories. He and I have a radically different perspective on how the public good should be served."
Over time, Overson's head-to-head battles with Salt Lake District Attorney David Yocom and former county attorney Short have been colorfully dramatic, rivaling the animosity that plays out in soap operas.
The years, he says, have taught him to tame his temper, and taught him other lessons as well.
He jokes about the biggest lesson politics has taught him.
"What else have I learned? That if I ever run for public office again, I should have a thorough psychiatric examination."
E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com