Salt Lake County Council to discuss new rules regarding official mail following incident with recorder

SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake County Council is set to discuss new ordinances that would clarify and specify how official government mail is to be sent near an election.

 

This comes following concern over a flyer sent by current Salt Lake County Recorder — and active candidate — Rashelle Hobbs.

Earlier this month, Hobbs partnered with the Salt Lake County Treasurer’s office to include a flyer advertising Property Watch with the yearly property tax notices. The flyer featured Hobbs’ name in large letters, as well as the county logo and a campaign photo of Hobbs. The reverse side of the flyer described Property Watch and how residents could sign up for the free service.

Concerns raised

The design and timing of the flyer sparked immediate concern from Republican Councilwoman Aimee Winder Newton. She received one with her property tax notice via email. 

“It looks like a campaign flyer [and is] showing up at homes — most of them landed the same day as ballots — so it’s incredibly concerning,” Winder Newton told KSL NewsRadio. “The unethical nature of an elected official in their own election year deciding that was when they were going to do something like that is very concerning to us.” 

In the Salt Lake County Council meeting held on Tuesday, Oct. 15th, Winder Newton said she’s never dealt with something like this before.

“In the 10 years I’ve been on the council, I’ve never had to ask an attorney if this is considered electioneering until now.” 

Utah Code defines electioneering as “any oral, printed, or written attempt to persuade persons to refrain from voting or to vote for or vote against any candidate or issue.” State code prohibits electioneering within 150 feet of a polling place. Federal law prohibits incumbent candidates from using public funds in their re-election campaigns. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act also forbids congressional representatives and senators from sending Franked Mail within 60 days of a general election.

No law like this exists for state or local leaders.

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Democratic council member Ann Granato says her constituents are concerned about the appearance of tax dollars being used in a potential campaign.

“Within one hour of our meeting last week, I had two texts from the League of Women Voters asking why we were changing and allowing electioneering to go out in a public notice,” she said.

Hobbs herself says she went through the proper channels. 

“This insert was vetted by the District Attorney’s office, by the Salt Lake County Council’s legal counsel, and by the Utah State Tax Commission,” she said.

When councilmembers brought up the photo of Hobbs used in the flyer, Councilwoman Suzanne Harris voiced her support.

“One thing that I’m hearing from residents is the concern about crimes and fraud… I think letting folks know who this is coming from is helpful,” Harris said. “So I think having the face of an elected official that’s trusted… There’s actually validity to that helping overcome some of the fraud and the scams that we’re seeing that are harming some of our most vulnerable residents.”

Other concerns brought up by the Salt Lake County Council dealt with the flyers’ cost and where the production money came from.

Hobbs told the council the total price was $9,640 and came from her operational budget. Hobbs also told KSL NewsRadio that the cost of creating and sending the flyers would not put her over budget this year. 

Senate Bill 165

Individuals on social media and in the Salt Lake County Council meeting questioned the need for a double-sided, fully color insert in the first place.

However, the reason for sending the notice is a newer legislative mandate from the 2024 General Legislative Session, Senate Bill 165.

This bill set forth a few protections for property owners in the state:

• “Requires that a county maintain a system for a property owner to elect to receive
  electronic notification when the county recorder records a deed or a mortgage on the owner’s
  property;
• describes the method by which a property owner may elect to receive the electronic
  notice; and
• requires that a county treasurer provide instructions notice in the tax describing how an
  owner can elect to receive the electronic notice.”

The decision to print a separate flyer, Hobbs said, was to make sure residents would actually see it.

“The intention behind doing the insert is [that] there was no room on the tax notice itself. It would have been buried at the bottom of the fourth paragraph in a font size of 1.2,” Hobbs explained. “You would not have been able to see it. Certainly our senior citizens and our vulnerable population would never have been able to see it.”

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Utah Senator Wayne Harper, who was the chief sponsor of SB165, discussed the motivation for the bill. He told the council that his intent “is to go through and make sure that people’s property rights are preserved… And that they have the ability to know if something if fraudulently recorded on their property.”

He provided the council an example of the notice from Uintah County. It was a single paragraph in black-and-white under the property tax notice.

Hobbs’ opponent in the race for Salt Lake County Recorder is former Salt Lake County Council Member Richard Snelgrove. When asked about the situation, he said he has the same concerns that county residents have.

“This is campaigning at taxpayers’ expense. She needs to reread Sen. Harper’s [bill] which says the county treasurer — doesn’t say anything about the recorder — that the county treasurer needs to disseminate that information.” 

Snelgrove also referenced the federal laws in place, saying local and state leaders should do something similar.

Next steps

Winder Newton says this isn’t the only concerning piece of mail from a government official she’s seen in recent weeks.

“In the same piece that went out, the treasurer put his deputy treasurer on the tax notices,” she explained. “Well, the deputy treasurer is running for office this year as well… So those types of things are concerning to us.”

She and Granato will be working to create a new ordinance. It would clarify the rules regarding this kind of mail from elected officials running for re-election.

“There’s things that we’re going to be looking at. [Such as] ‘can you include a deputy on pieces that are mailed out? Is there a certain timeframe before elections that we won’t allow that to happen unless it’s statutory in nature?'” Winder Newton clarified.

She expects to introduce ordinance proposal language to the full council in the coming weeks.

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