SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Department of Transportation is refusing to release a dozen or so exchanges of "a deep personal nature" between a female employee and the contractor who has acknowledged having a relationship with her.
In response to a government records request by the Deseret News and KSL, the agency did release 31 pages of e-mails and other correspondence between the agency and the contractor, Guy Wadsworth.
Wadsworth is among the successful bidders for the record $1.7 billion reconstruction of I-15 through Utah County that's at the center of the controversy over the influence of campaign contributions to Gov. Gary Herbert. Herbert received $87,500 from members of the winning bid team for the massive project, including $50,000 from Wadsworth. Wadsworth later admitted to an affair with a UDOT senior staffer.
That staffer, identified by UDOT as Shana Lindsey, exchanged a number of e-mails and text messages with Wadsworth. But UDOT, citing advice from Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's office, declined to make most of those public.
The most notable exchange released by the agency between the pair was a text about the I-15 contract that UDOT spokesman Nile Easton said was sent by Wadsworth to Lindsey.
The text read: "Flatiron got CORE, we were 3rd," a reference to the second-place bid team that ended up with a quietly negotiated $13 million settlement payment from UDOT.
The relationship was discovered by UDOT during an internal investigation into erroneous rumors that the bid team led by Flatiron was actually the winner of the so-called CORE contract.
UDOT has said Lindsey had no involvement in the awarding of the contract. Herbert has ordered an audit of the bid process as well as how the agency uses e-mail and other technology and its human resources policy.
Easton said Lindsey, who had been a director of research and bridge operations for UDOT, was demoted and had her pay cut for violating the agency's ethics policy.
He described the e-mails and texts not released as having "absolutely" nothing to do with the contract.
"Most of those communications are personal. We have released everything that was work related," Easton said.
The communications held back "were very personal information, conversations back and forth," Easton said. "We feel basically we cannot release the other information because we would be violating state law at that point."
But media attorney Jeff Hunt said even though the law does allow an exemption for personal communications using taxpayer-funded equipment, the records can be released if the public interest trumps the right to privacy.
Hunt cited "the dollars at stake. The significance of the project. All the different revelations that have come out. I think you can make a compelling case for erring on the side of public disclosure."
The documents released by UDOT involve planning for a trip to China last November that included Lindsey, Wadsworth and other agency employees and contractors.
The trip, which UDOT said was paid for by the Chinese hosts and was focused on bridge construction, took place just before the controversial contract was awarded.
Easton said the information released covered 2010, but UDOT is still collecting communications from 2009. UDOT's decision to withhold some of the e-mails and texts is expected to be appealed by news organizations.
e-mail: lisa@desnews.com; jdaley@desnews.com