Should elected officials/city councilmembers be responsible for their own conflicts of interest or should other elected officials/city councilmembers be calling out potential known conflicts of interest? This question was at the heart of a discussion among the Cottonwood Heights City Council on Aug. 5. 

The origin of this discussion came from a councilmember questioning another about the need to recuse themselves from a vote on Jul. 15. 

The traffic and road design of the Highland/Ft. Union intersection was the topic. City engineers were beginning to move forward with a traffic study and 30% road design to redevelop the intersection. 

Councilmember Suzanne Hyland was expressing the need to look at the overall area and not just one single area in terms of solving the traffic problems along the main thoroughfares of the city. 

Councilmember Matt Holton began describing how he had reached out to the business owners surrounding the intersection with the intention of discussing potential impacts to their businesses and revenues. 

“When I went and met with the franchise owner of that McDonalds, which I believe is a decent contributor to our general fund….” he started. 

“Is this the same owner that is a friend and client of yours?” asked Councilmember Ellen Birrell. 

“Friend and client?... No. The first time I ever met him was in the lobby of McDonalds. Where….? Anyway, we are going to move on from that, please,” Holton responded. 

“I think in this council we rarely recuse ourselves when there is business associations, etc. It’s a fair question to ask if anyone needs to recuse themselves,” Birrell said. 

“To be clear, there is an owner of McDonalds that lives down by Crestwood that is a resident of Cottonwood Heights. I asked if he knew the owner of this one on Highland because I’d love to ask him what the impact of traffic would be. I went down and met in the lobby. Haven’t talked to him since,” Holton said. 

Both Hyland and Holton continued the conversation about looking into a bigger scope of the overall area surrounding the the Highland/Ft. Union intersection when considering re-designing any of the roads. 

On Aug. 5., Mayor Mike Weichers opened a discussion focusing on Conflict of Interest statements and noted the city’s Planning Commission will ask before every vote if there’s any conflict of interest statements that need to be reported. After looking into a few different cities, the city council reported that Cottonwood Heights is the only city to have that practice. 

“This is great in the spirit of transparency,” Hyland said. 

“We need to be transparent with the conflicts that are out there,” Holton said. 

Birrell said she’d been thinking about how the council needs an overall Code of Ethics, which would address how to handle conflicts of interest among other things. 

City Attorney Shane Topham referenced the Utah Legislature’s Municipal Officers’ and Employees’ Ethics Act. He advised the obligation of verbal disclosure to the council if something comes up on the agenda.

“Raising the question in every meeting isn’t required,” he said. 

Cottonwood Heights city councilmembers and mayor (middle) debate the necessity of frequency for discussion conflict of interest disclosures. (Photo courtesy Cottonwood Heights)