The Park City Republican challenging Democratic County Clerk Kent Jones in November claims the incumbent has limited the access to public records in the County Courthouse by not maintaining the office’s website.
Challenger Rich Motto made the accusations in a Park Record interview on Tuesday.
“You go in there with a bunch of dusty records and we don’t want that Make it easy for people to search and easy for people to find,” Motto said. “We have ways of making this stuff highly organized, highly searchable.”
The clerk is responsible for coordinating elections and maintaining the county’s voter-registration system. The clerk also issues business licenses, marriage licenses and passports.
But one of the most important duties of the office is recording meeting minutes for the Summit County Council and keeping track of ordinances, contracts and other public records, Motto said.
“I look for stuff that is supposed to be available online and it’s not there,” he said. “Stuff is very disorganized and it’s not very user friendly.”
Jones, a Henefer resident, was a Republican when he served as Summit County clerk from 1993 until 2003. Democrat Sue Follett defeated Jones in the 2002 election.
Motto criticized Jones for switching political parties before retaking the office after the 2006 election.
“[Jones] used to be a Republican,” Motto said. “You shouldn’t switch parties to be elected.”
Motto said he is campaigning to be the clerk because he is “a strong believer that we should have good candidates for each position.”
Motto is a self-employed architect who lives in the Aerie.
“We need an open, transparent, nonpartisan government,” Motto said. “[Jones] is not reaching out to people in the county and getting them involved.”
Motto’s criticism is uncharacteristic of some clerk races in the past that have drawn little attention from the public.
“I believe I can use my skills to bring this office up to speed,” Motto said. “[Jones] keeps saying he’ll do it. But it’s not done.”
Meanwhile, Jones countered that the public has probably never had better access to county records than they have today.
“We constantly have to be updating and finding new ways of providing the services,” Jones said. “Our office is very much public oriented. Every time somebody walks in the door they need our help somehow We’ll have people who will register to vote or ask about who are their representatives and how they contact them. They might come in and want County Commission minutes and information from the past.”
Jones said he challenges “anyone out there to dispute our record, our history or our staff.”
“It’s a lot of little things that make the difference to people when we deal with the public,” Jones said. “We’re able to tap into the Internet. We’re able to provide information online. We direct people to our website for forms and instructions. A lot of the things that we do in our office are available on the Web.”
But Jones insists his most important duty is overseeing elections in Summit County.
“There is no second place here. We don’t get a chance to do things over. On Election Day, we don’t go out hoping that we’ll have a successful election. We put so many hours in ahead of time,” Jones said. “We’re out there to prove that we have already been able to evaluate the situation and think of what the potential issues may be and eliminate them or reduce them. We have one goal in mind and that is to know that the outcome is going to be a positive outcome.”
Losing the election in 2002 gave him a new perspective on the position, Jones said.
“When you are in the job, you become focused on what you do day to day and you do get into some kind of routine. I think you tend to block out some of the criticisms that go on,” Jones said. “We were doing our job, but I think it gave me a new perspective to come in and look at the different ways we could streamline, update and come up with new ideas I’m a different clerk now than what I was.”