This is Mayor Harbertson's reply to a letter sent to him regarding inappropriate political discussions by City staff. See the original letter here: Letter to Mayor - Politics at the Fire Department?

Dave,

I appreciate you bringing this situation to my attention. I have attempted to contact Larry 2 twice this morning already to get his side of the story. If what you say is what happened, then yes, I agree that Larry overstepped his bounds to express his personal feelings and choice to the firemen at the last drill. I will say this Dave, about 2 months ago when all of the candidates filed for office, I asked Max and Margy what the procedure and recommendations where to city staff members concerning their personal opinions and preferences on candidates for office. I was told that they instruct and encourage all city personnel to remain neutral when asked about their choice of council or mayor candidates. And of coarse the reason being that they have no idea who is going to take office and who they will be working for in the coming months and years. I told them that I agreed with that policy or recommendation and that is what I felt they needed to support.

I agree that the candidates that have run and that were successful in the primaries are ALL concerned about Farmington as a whole, I believe that they are are dedicated and concerned about all the issues facing Farmington. I mentioned to them all that as representatives of Farmington on the council that there would be a million different issues that they would have to face and deal with. And I encouraged them to think about this and if there was a single reason that they were running for office......well then......they should reconsider because they would find the job very boring and time consuming after their single issue was dealt with. I personally feel that the 3 candidates that are running from the West side of Farmington are not single issue candidates and that any one of them would be a great asset to the council. I have repeatedly said that it is extremely important that we have representation from all areas of our city. And right now we do not have that from your area.

I hope I have defused your concern about " back door" politics and know that there has never been any direction from the Mayor or anyone else as I know of to push the staff to support a certain candidate for office.

As far as the decision on the Legacy connection, I have always made it perfectly clear from the beginning of this second round of UDOT's request, that it was the responsibility of the current council members to be ones that will be making this decision before the end of the year and possibly before the gen. elections. I also told the current council that this is to be a decision that is based on what is best for Farmington as a whole and that it may come down to a very tough decision. But I felt that they were elected to perform their duties and not to be pushing it off to another council in the future. I also told them that this could possibly be very detrimental to their campaign, but that it was their decision to make.

Dave, I hope I have answered your questions, but if not or you would like more explanation. Please call me on my cell number. I am headed out of town this afternoon for the next week (Lake Powell) so I may not have very good reception. But I will call you back if I need to when I return.

Thanks Dave,

Scott C. Harbertson
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