This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Walk into Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman's office and the first thing you see - can't miss actually - is her name and title in big block letters, accompanied by a mayoral seal the size of a gladiator's shield adorning a wall in the lobby. Amble over to the Salt Palace Convention Center, Capital Theatre or any county-run facility and you'll run into the Workman moniker again and again and again - albeit on a more modest scale.
Workman freely acknowledges trying to raise her profile during her inaugural term as the county's first chief executive, citing a desire to clear the haze that often shrouds the public's view of what county government is and does.
The good news for the mayor is that, less than four months from Election Day, she has largely succeeded in her quest. Many, if not most, county residents now know who Workman is.
The bad news? It hasn't worked out quite the way she intended.
A series of perceived missteps and flat-out scandals - from generously paid staffers to vehicle abuses to a criminal investigation into Workman's use of Health Department funds for a bookkeeping position at the South Valley Boys and Girls Club, where her daughter is the fiscal manager - has rocketed the Republican mayor to prominence. Workman's reputation and her seemingly invincible re-election aura have been dented.
"She wants her name plastered everywhere," complains Millcreek resident Ken Randle, a Republican. "She's surrounded herself with all this high-paid help. I think she's just gone too far in some of the things she's done. She may be a fairly good mayor, but with guzzle-gate and now helping out her daughter, she sure doesn't have a very good image."
Workman has not helped that image by operating in what University of Utah political scientist Tim Chambless calls an atmosphere of "ostentatiousness" - whether it be tooling around in a luxury county-owned SUV complete with lights and siren, or spending thousands of dollars to redecorate her office or doling out $100,000 salaries to members of her inner circle.
"If there's been mismanagement in certain parts of [county] government, maybe there's much more below the surface that voters have not yet seen," says Chambless, a one-time speechwriter for former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson.
What constituents are seeing, says former Republican County Commissioner Bart Barker, is that Workman may have a tin ear when it comes to politics.
"Naivet may be part of it," Barker says. "Your intentions may be good - you're trying to do the right thing. But you don't realize how it's perceived. A politician has to be astute about that and needs to have people who can point out how things are being perceived."
Workman's backers are alternately angry and alarmed over the recent derailments - particularly about the district attorney's investigation. If charged with a felony for misuse of county funds, the mayor could be forced at least temporarily to the sidelines, dealing a potentially fatal blow to her re-election hopes and endangering the prospects of other GOP county candidates.
Republicans staged a recent counterattack, lashing out at Democratic District Attorney David Yocom for conducting what they call a partisan, election-year witch hunt. But there is nervousness in the ranks.
"I'm not worried - yet. But I am concerned because it seems to be one thing after another," says Republican County Councilman Michael Jensen, up for re-election in District 2 on the county's west side. "If we can get past this investigation, if she's exonerated, then we win and move on. If it comes out the other way, it's obviously a different story."
Even if the status quo remains, Salt Lake County Democrats now see an opening. Workman's campaign amassed a $600,000 war chest, far outstripping that of Democratic challenger Peter Corroon, independent Merrill Cook and Green Party nominee Diana Lee Hirschi. Workman leads her chief opponent by more than 20 percentage points in the most recent poll.
But Democratic County Councilman Randy Horiuchi says Workman's recent problems will change the dynamic of the race.
"She is definitely in duress politically," Horiuchi says. "No one is going to be able to just close their eyes and make this go away. It has very much shaken the core, the foundation of her candidacy."
Workman dismisses that as wishful partisan thinking. While acknowledging "glitches" along the way, she is confident the investigation will clear her of wrongdoing - a "paperwork" problem, she calls it - and earn her another four years in office.
"I don't think things have gone south," Workman says. "We've got a new form of government, and we've brought in some great people who have done great things. There have been some glitches, but we've cleaned up a lot of things, too."
Even Workman's detractors acknowledge she has done a generally commendable job of managing the county's $700 million budget. Inheriting a tax increase from the outgoing County Commission and forecasts of more red ink to come, Workman halved the tax hike, implemented a hiring freeze, cut department budgets, held the line on employee compensation and worked with the cities to create a Unified Fire Authority.
"When you look at the bottom line, we haven't had a tax increase, the government hasn't grown and we've improved our services," says Republican County Councilman Russell Skousen. "We've done a pretty good job, under the mayor's leadership, of turning the ship around. When we took over, there was a very negative view of county government and all of its inside shenanigans. We've improved that image - at least until the last few months."
That would be about the time the county car scandal erupted. Before it was over, Workman's chief financial officer, Randy Allen, resigned after admitting he used his county SUV to tow his boat to Lake Powell. Longtime County Auditor Craig Sorensen stepped down after admitting he stole fuel with his county gas card. Sorensen, an independently elected official, faces a second-degree felony for allegedly misusing public funds. Finally, the mayor's counsel, House Majority Leader Greg Curtis, resigned after paying back the state for reimbursements he received while driving his county vehicle to and from the Capitol.
Workman earned some points by ending the vehicle program and requiring employees - including herself - to turn their cars in. But that gesture was soon followed by the hiring scandal. The mayor insists she authorized the help for the Murray-based Boys and Girls Club for all the right reasons - even if the execution left something to be desired.
"Their budget has been cut by tens of thousands of dollars," Workman says. "And once this is cleared up, I'll do it again. But I'll fix the paperwork."
Former GOP County Commissioner Brent Overson says most of the mayor's troubles can be traced to the political calendar. He also maintains that Workman has been held to a double standard.
"I know she's been portrayed as Queen Nancy, and maybe there is some reason for that - the lights and siren were regrettable," Overson says. "But I don't know that she would have gotten the grief she has if she were a man."
Overson - no stranger to rough-and-tumble county politics - downplays Workman's predicament and predicts she will ride out the storm.
"You have to put this all in the perspective of an election year," he says. "Nancy's fortunate that this stuff has happened early and in the summer, when people aren't so focused on Election Day. If it was after Labor Day, she'd be in real trouble. This is nothing. She'll be fine."
But Horiuchi, who has been about as friendly a Democrat to the mayor as there is, says alarm bells ought to be going off in the Workman camp.
"We're on top of our game as far as the county goes. We've never been in better shape. Yet no one cares because of all these scandals," he says. "The county, in terms of its public image, is the worst I've seen in my career. As an elected official, this is about the worst possible thing that can happen."