Public, private car use murky
Kanab, Wellsville, St. George, Nephi, Salina, Moab, Fillmore, Beaver, Cedar City, Roosevelt, Manti — the man who is now Utah's attorney general took a lot of trips.
Campaigning for attorney general at the time, Shurtleff readily admits that he took advantage of his out-of-county trips to do some campaigning. But he also maintains he was conducting county business, either meetings for the Utah Association of Counties, or — more often — meetings for the state Constitutional Defense Committee, of which he was a member. Or it may have been simply going to a location to meet with local officials to, as he puts it, "get in on the ground and find things out."
The committee was an advisory board to the governor and Legislature for wilderness, roads and other state and local issues.
With the county's "guzzle-gate" scandal, several such situations have come to light. Was it personal use? If so, was it permissible? Is a county official allowed to have fun or do other things when he's on a trip in his county car conducting county business?
The scandal has county officials checking up on each other's vehicle use — as well as checking up on themselves. Even Shurtleff, four years removed from his county job, has asked his secretary to compare his vehicle usage in 1999 and 2000 with his schedule to make sure he didn't use it for any solely political trips.
"We didn't take any family trips in it or anything like that, but I can't remember if there was anything purely for the campaign," he said.
When Shurtleff mixed campaign and county business, he says, he would compensate by filling up the car at his own expense. The records bear him out — otherwise, his Explorer had amazingly good gas mileage based solely on his county gas card purchases.
Dayton took a purely personal trip in his county vehicle to Garden City, where his parents have a cabin. He was in Logan at the time for meetings and decided that since he was so close he would pop up to Bear Lake.
"It's a question of how much personal use you have," he said. He noted that he could have driven back to Salt Lake City, picked up his personal car and driven to Bear Lake and back, but he thought that would be silly.
Dayton also took a trip to Moab in his county vehicle that he characterizes as mostly for fun, but he also attended meetings addressing wilderness and road issues that he believes justified the trip.
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