Part of the holdup in renewing Heber City Manager Matt Brower’s employment contract in recent weeks was an anonymous complaint filed with the Office of the Utah State Auditor, which confirmed the existence of an investigation into the complaint but declined to comment further.
The complaint revolves around the City Council’s Jan. 20 approval of a contract hiring CAMS Executive Director Rachel Kahler to organize a minimum of 50 days of events downtown annually for three years.
In return, the city pays Kahler, who is also a former Heber City councilor and current Wasatch County Council candidate, an annual salary of $39,900 with no benefits. Event organizing was previously the responsibility of city employee Jody Summers, who resigned in October.
Funding for the events themselves comes from vendor fees, business sponsorships and grants, especially those funded by Heber City and Wasatch County’s Trails, Art and Park (TAP) taxes.
The complaint alleged that Brower had not disclosed his status as a CAMS board member when the City Council approved the contract, despite the fact that the names of all board members were listed in the agenda materials.
“Beyond people not reading the material that’s put in front of them, I don’t know how much more clear we need to be (about) who is serving on this board,” Kahler said.
CAMS board members are volunteers, meaning there was no financial gain for Brower in the City Council’s approval of the contract with CAMS.
However, City Councilor Yvonne Barney still had reservations. She argued that as city manager, Brower may have had “undue influence in procuring … certain funding for CAMS,” even if unintentionally.
Barney was not comfortable renewing Brower’s employment contract while he was under investigation by the Office of the Utah State Auditor and voted against doing so on April 14. Brower’s contract was renewed that night by 4-2 vote, with Mayor Heidi Franco as the other “no” vote.
The complainant also argued that the city did not follow its procurement process in its approval of the CAMS contract, which requires competitive bidding before the purchase of a good or service. An exception is made for sole-source purchases, when there is only one viable vendor of a good or service.
City Attorney Jeremy Cook proposed ratifying the agreement as a sole-source purchase on Tuesday. The city considered CAMS a sole source because of its connections with local businesses and knowledge of downtown, as well as the time and costs that would be incurred by the city if it changed vendors.
City Councilors Barney and Morgan Murdock argued that the issue needed further discussion, but they were outvoted when the ratification of the contract was approved 3-2.
A few public commenters spoke against ratifying the CAMS contract as a sole-source purchase.
Charleston resident and former mayoral candidate Shawn Taylor, who owns an audio production company, asked that Heber City go through the competitive bidding process. He said he believed local vendors would step up to provide the same event planning services CAMS would.
“Those larger contracts, at least, should be selected in a public, transparent process to allow local companies to participate,” he said.
Agenda materials show that Heber City staff contacted two organizations, the Park Silly Sunday Market and Historic Park City Alliance, to see if they were interested in providing event programming before approving the CAMS contract. Both indicated they were, but the cost would be “significantly more” than $39,900.
The agenda materials also state that the city had received no complaints from local event planners after the contract with CAMS was approved.
Kahler later said that Heber City is simply following the example of municipalities like Ogden and Vernal, which have similarly partnered with downtown revitalization organizations.
“So many people are getting caught up in the sole (source purchase) instead of realizing the reason why Heber is looking at this relationship is because they looked at other communities and saw the success that was happening,” she said. “They saw downtown organizations that cared about what was happening and wanted to raise the bar.”
Beyond event programming, CAMS also advocates for local businesses, historic preservation and downtown beautification separately from its contract with Heber City.
Downtown events organized by CAMS will begin this year with a Cinco de Mayo party at Main Street Park on May 5. Other events this summer include Heber Market on Main, Dogs Day in the Park and free yoga and concerts at the park.
Next steps will become clear when the Office of the Utah State Auditor releases a report on its investigation.
If the investigation finds anything untoward, the CAMS contract could be terminated, which would require 60 days’ notice to Kahler by the city.
Additionally, the City Council could terminate Brower’s employment contract by majority vote. If Brower were fired for cause, the City Council and city attorney would be required to gather evidence against Brower and give him 10 days to provide a verbal defense in a closed session. In that case, he would not be paid severance.