New developments in Workman saga

• Mayor Nancy Workman, now on administrative leave and free to campaign full time, is hitting back against her accusers with a new television ad in which people on the street express their support for her.

  "It's just politics," says one person.

  "She's just trying to do a good thing," says another.

  "It's taking it way too far," was another comment in the ads that began airing Thursday.

  To date, Workman's media spots have gone the more traditional route of an incumbent: Talk about the good things you have accomplished in your administration, try to relegate your opponents to bystander status.

  The latest spot — her first television campaign ad broadcast on local network affiliates (she ran a previous one on cable in certain parts of the valley) — implicitly acknowledges her legal troubles and responds to them, an unusual tactic for an incumbent unless it's an unconventional race. It's probably safe to say this race is unconventional.

  Workman is paying about $75,000 to run the spots.

• Two days after being sworn in and a day after putting Workman's chief operating officer Geraldine Shaw on administrative leave, acting Mayor Alan Dayton continued his shake-up of county staffers on Friday, transferring Shaw's assistant to the Clark Planetarium and making legislative analyst Kara Trevino his second in command. He also reassigned communications director Ted Phillips and mayoral spokesman Jim Braden to other marketing duties, making Rob Jeppson his primary spokesman.
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  "I'm OK with it," Phillips said. "He's just shuffling things around, making it more comfortable for how he does things."

• The Workman-appointed panel investigating the vehicle scandal continues to plow ahead, interviewing county officials and employees and going through reams of records. The panel met Friday to coordinate data and start thinking about the drafting of recommendations. The final report will likely come out some time in October.

• Workman, Democrat Peter Corroon and independent Merrill Cook debated at the Holladay Chamber of Commerce on Friday. Much of the conversation revolved around economic development and streamlining county operations, but Workman's trouble was the elephant in the middle of the room that everyone tried to ignore.

  Corroon and Cook referred to the matter obliquely — "I will restore integrity to the mayor's office" — but at the debate's beginning Workman did briefly address being charged with two felonies.

  "You elect somebody and you feel bad when things go wrong," she said.

• The county's Republican Central Committee is scheduled to meet today, a date set well before Workman was charged. The mayor's legal troubles and campaign are not on the agenda, but "I think people will be talking about it," county party chairwoman Tiani Coleman said.
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