Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams is calling on longtime county Recorder Gary Ott to resign amid festering questions over his mental competency that county officials say is impeding his ability to carry out his public duties.
"What I'm seeing led me to the conclusion this morning ... that it's time for Mr. Ott to resign," said McAdams, who added that he hadn't seen Ott in "many months."
He's not alone in hoping the Republican whose term expires in 2020 will step down. Numerous county officials are looking at options for dealing with an elected official whose mental capacity may be diminished but appear stymied by ambiguity in state law.
There's no indication that pressure from the mayor or an ongoing investigation by the district attorney's office will push Ott to resign. The county can't remove Ott — who hasn't responded to calls for comment and who has delegated nearly all duties of the office to his deputy — unless he commits "high crimes, misdemeanors or malfeasance," according to the Utah Constitution.
Two of his aides — Chief Deputy Recorder Julie Dole and Ott's assistant Karmen Sanone — say there is no indication that he'll leave the post.
An apparent "vacuum" in state code leaves few options for Salt Lake County residents and officials to forcibly remove the 66-year-old recorder from the office he has held since 2001, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said.
"My job is to keep exploring every viable option in an environment where there's a vacuum," Gill said. "At some point, we need to recognize the human tragedy that is at play here."
The constitution also includes a provision preventing "mentally incompetent persons" from holding office, but Gill said the article doesn't give the county clear authority to remove Ott from office if he is mentally incompetent.
"I guess I'm baffled," Sanone said Wednesday. She said Ott has had health problems, but she denied that mental illness was one of them and declined to elaborate on them. While she had been described as Ott's girlfriend in the past, Sanone denied the characterization and said the two have only had a "long-term friendship." She also denied that Ott resided with her outside of Salt Lake County.
"He's had some health problems, but I do know that he knows perfectly well what's going on," she said.
Dole, who effectively runs the office, said Ott's absence is a management style, not an indication that he's incapable or mentally ill.
"I can't make Gary do anything. He's the boss," Dole said. "He hired me to run the office. That's the way it's been since Day One."
She said she'd spoken with Ott about possibly resigning last year, and that he wasn't interested. So, she said, she continues to manage day-to-day operations.
"As far as I'm concerned, he was of sound mind when he appointed me," Dole said, noting that "there was room" to question whether he was still of sound mind but declining to speculate. "I'm not involved in his personal life, his medical life, his health decisions."
Dole also publicly denounced "views of a cover-up on my part" in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon.
"I reject this portrayal, as I have no personal knowledge of what Gary's specific health conditions encompass," the post read. "Our Office operations and deliverables are transparent and well-run, as the 2016 Audit, by Scott Tingley, Salt Lake County Auditor, shows."
Gill's office is investigating staffers who may be helping Ott's office function while he apparently struggles. The district attorney's office has provided County Council members with a legal opinion on options they have for dealing with the situation.
"They have a range of things they can do," Gill said, though he declined to elaborate on what his advice was. "From a statutory perspective, there's not much there."
McAdams indicated during a news conference that those options include either cutting Ott's salary or lobbying the Legislature to pass a law setting up a process to remove elected officials whose mental illness impedes their ability to perform their duties.
Councilwoman Aimee Winder Newton said Wednesday that Ott's resignation is long overdue. She said she would propose cutting his salary during the next budget cycle if he's still in office.
"If he's not showing up to work and there's a potential that this charade is continuing because of financial gain for someone somewhere ... I just feel like [cutting his salary is] something that's fair to taxpayers."
Ott's salary with benefits is about $186,000, according to UtahsRight.com.
Public calls for Ott's departure follow a Deseret News story based on an encounter and interview with Ott in Weber County. The report followed more than a year of speculation about Ott's mental fitness, sparked by an early 2016 police report from officers in Tooele County who found the recorder wandering in freezing temperatures, poorly dressed and incoherent.
The County Council in October brought in Ott for a face-to-face interview during which he struggled to answer even the most basic questions, such as his address or the name of his chief deputy. Sanone said Ott declined to tell the council his address because he was on TV at the time.
"I was there. I thought, under the circumstances, where they [the council members] were pressing him on issues that weren't part of the discussions, the fact that he answered at all I thought was something," Sanone said. "He didn't have to answer." At the county's government headquarters recently, Ott apparently did not recognize Councilwoman Jenny Wilson when he passed her in the hallway.
The Legislature considered passing a bill this year to create a process for removing elected officials before abandoning the effort to spend more time on it. Ott was last re-elected in 2014, and his current term runs through 2020.
If Ott were to step down, Dole said she would be interested in replacing him.
tanderson@sltrib.com
Twitter: @TaylorWAnderson
