This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
For years, on the fourth floor of the Salt Lake Hardware Building, inside the offices of the accounting firm WSRP, hung a map of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.
Most of the property in the two towns is owned by the United Effort Plan — the trust established by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And since the state of Utah took control of the trust in 2005, the trust has effectively been managed out of the WSRP offices.
The "W" in the firm's name stands for Bruce Wisan. He retired from the firm in August, cleared out his office, and took the map with him.
With a judge's decision last month to keep Wisan as the trust's fiduciary, Wisan will have more time to spend on UEP business and to continue the course he has taken for almost a decade.
Giving Hildale homes to people with legitimate claims to them — and at relatively low cost — will continue in 2015.
Also, another auction of commercial and agricultural property and some unfinished homes is planned for Jan. 20.
A less popular policy will continue, too. The UEP intends to continue pursuing evictions against people who have failed to pay the $100 a month residency fee to live in a Hildale or Colorado City home.
Wisan will continue keeping the residents of Hildale and Colorado City apprised of what's happening, hoping that people loyal to FLDS President Warren Jeffs will pay those fees and cooperate.
"The tenacity and [stick-to-itiveness] of Bruce Wisan is just amazing," said Val Oveson, the former Utah lieutenant governor who was Wisan's partner at the accounting firm and has assisted him with the UEP.
For several months last year, it looked like Wisan's time running the trust was over.
In August, a prosecutor in Taylorsville charged Wisan with soliciting a prostitute.
The case was resolved last month when a justice court judge accepted Wisan's no contest plea to a class B misdemeanor with the agreement the plea will be held in abeyance and dismissed in 12 months if Wisan commits no further crimes, pays $680 in court costs and continues counseling sessions with his wife.
The charge spurred Wisan's retirement from his own accounting firm. And the attorneys general in Utah and Arizona, and a lawyer representing many of the UEP beneficiaries, all asked that Wisan be replaced by Oveson.
But 3rd Utah District Court Judge Denise Lindberg, who has overseen the UEP since 2005, last month opted to keep Wisan, saying there was no evidence he was not effectively managing the trust.
Wisan has declined Tribune requests for an interview since he was charged with the misdemeanor. Oveson spoke on behalf of the UEP in an interview Wednesday at WSRP, down the hall from where Wisan kept his office with the map.
Oveson said that the longer Lindberg took to make a decision about Wisan — she issued her order three months after Utah and Arizona asked that he be replaced — the more he and Wisan suspected Wisan would remain.
"I was very pleased with the judge's order," Oveson said, who had insisted he would become UEP fiduciary out of service, not ambition. "I was very pleased in her support of Bruce."
The goal of the UEP, Utah and Arizona has been to distribute homes to private individuals. Twenty-four homes were given away in Hildale in 2014. That, and the commercial property sales that accelerated last year, were great progress, Oveson said.
Lindberg, in the same order keeping Wisan, also appointed the first five of a nine-member board of trustees meant to decide who else receives property and perhaps, eventually, take over day-to-day responsibilities of the UEP. For now, Wisan continues to run the operation.
But problems continue. Wisan has asked people living in UEP homes to pay property taxes. Few have and the UEP owes $4 million to Mohave County, Ariz. On Feb. 15, some of those delinquent properties face foreclosure.
The Arizona attorney general has asked the UEP to forgo payments to its attorneys — who have been racking up fees at a rate of $100,000 a month — and instead put the money toward the property taxes. There have been property tax crises for the UEP before on both sides of the state line, and residents have always paid at the last minute.
Oveson is hoping the same thing happens again. If it doesn't, he said, the UEP is speaking with Mohave County and considering options. But paying the property taxes for residents, Oveson said, would set a bad precedent.
It's not clear what impact Wisan's personal troubles and the recent evictions have had on his relationship with the people of Hildale and Colorado City. Many of the people there have refused to talk to or cooperate with Wisan anyway.
"There's a real conundrum with relationships with people who won't talk to you," Oveson said.
Twitter: @natecarlisle