Candidates say they didn’t know about endorsements in four- page brochure

SPRING CITY—Questions have been raised about the authenticity of endorsements and the accuracy of claims in a four-page, 8-1/2-by-11 brochure, which was mailed in early October to every household in the Spring City zip code.

On its cover, the brochure indicates the contents are the work of two groups. “Citizens for Spring City” and “Woman Who Love Spring City.”
But the main organizer of the groups is Sonia Brown, who moved to Sanpete County from California a few years ago. She and her husband, Lowell, an attorney, live on a sizeable parcel of land that borders the Spring City limits but is in the county. The Browns are not eligible to vote in the Spring City election.

The four-page brochure is one advertising piece, combined with newspaper advertising, “cottage meetings” and a lot of word-of-mouth communication, in what has become possibly the most contentious political campaign in 25 years in Sanpete County.

At a meet-the-candidate night Oct. 6 at the Spring City Hall, Sonia Brown told the crowd six women and two attorneys in her group did exhaustive research to come up with the text of the brochure.

She said group members attended all city council meetings for the past couple of years and reviewed all city council minutes for the past five years, including listening to recordings of the meetings.

Her group even dug into the state archives to find out if Spring City had ever had what the groups contend state law requires in a properly adopted general plan.

But Councilman Randy Strate, one of the main targets of the brochure, points to multiple statements in the brochure that he says are misleading or “100 percent false.”

“It’s just fear mongering,” he says. “These people are just pushing fear mongering, making these outrageous assumptions about what might happen, could happen.”

A headline in 36-point type across the two-page centerfold of the brochure says, “5 Things You Should Know for the General Election.”
The brochure accuses Spring City Mayor Chris Anderson, who is stepping down as mayor but running for a two-year term on the council, of making “costly decisions…for our city,” because he was the final signer on $8 million in bonds to revamp and expand the water and sewer system.

But a financial consultant hired this year to assist the city with budgeting and accounting told the Messenger he was surprised at what good shape the city is in. He said that financially, “the city has been incredibly well managed over the past three years.”

The brochure says the water and sewer expansion projects will allow utility rates increases to continue, and development and massive expansion to take place.

Strate, whose council assignments include the budget, roads and water, says, “That’s a complete misrepresentation.” The state required the city to raise utility rates, as the state has done with cities throughout Sanpete and the state, to make sure the city was bringing in enough revenue to repay bonds, which were issued by the state. He says there are no plans for further increases any time soon.

A headline introducing one of the five points says, “Congratulations, we’re in debt.” The truth is, every municipality in Sanpete, nearly every city or town in the state, and the state itself is in debt because they’ve all issues long-term bonds for infrastructure they couldn’t pay for in one year.

Based on all the advertising and talk, no one could be more dangerous for the city than Strate. The brochure says he and Councilman Ken Krogue are the “subjects of lawsuits and state ethics complaints.”

A pending lawsuit against Krogue deals with his private activities before he came on the council. Strate said only lawsuit he faces is one Brown and her supporters themselves filed against the city. Because Strate is a councilman, he was named.

As for state ethics complaints, Strate does he doesn’t know what the brochure is talking about. “I have not received any communications from anyone that any ethics complaints have been filed.”

The brochure also says because Strate is president of Horseshoe Mountain Irrigation, the agricultural irrigation company in Spring City, he should recues himself from voting on any matters related to water.

The fact, Strate says, is that Horseshoe Mountain Irrigation has no ties with Spring City culinary water. The two operations have separate water sources, separate retention ponds and separate delivery systems (piping).

Spring City residents purchase their secondary water for watering lawns and gardens directly from Horseshoe. The secondary irrigation system has no connection with the Spring City culinary system.

Finally, the brochure accuses Strate of wanting to launch a “byway” around the outskirts of Spring City comparable to Highland Drive in Salt Lake City.

In fact, Strate says, he brought up the concept in a kickoff meeting with an engineering firm the city has hired to prepare a 20-year transportation plan. The goal would be to funnel traffic around the city rather than through neighborhoods.

But actual construction of such a route, if engineers adopt the proposal at all, is years, perhaps decades, away, and might not happen at all.
Finally, the reader comes to the back page of the brochure and a headline that says, “A Fresh Start for Spring City.” The page contains photos of four candidates—Paul Penrod, who is running for mayor; Michael Broadbent and Laurel Workman, who are running for four-year seats on the city council; and Jim Brown, who is running against the Mayor Chris Anderson for a two year seat. The page is pretty clearly an endorsement of the candidates shown.

Both the inside pages and back page of the four-brochure contain headlines that are alarmist in tone, such as “Watch Out For Your Water, Your Family, Your Town;” “Everything We Hold Dear is on the Ballot;” and “Mail Your Ballots for Integrity,” assumedly implying that ballots dropped in a drop box, such as one available in Spring City offices, might be tampered with.

Like most newspapers, the Sanpete Messenger has allowed anyone to place a political ad, so long as the ad is in good taste. Over the past 18 months, Sonia Brown has placed and paid for about a dozen ads in the newspaper dealing with Spring City government and candidates.
About the time the brochure was mailed to homes, Brown placed an ad in the Messenger supporting Paul Penrod, a current councilman and candidate for mayor.

The ad accuses Dan Rasmussen, Penrod’s opponent in the mayor’s race, of annexing 40 acres into the city and receiving a “sweetheart deal” from the present mayor and city council, although the ad doesn’t specify what the “deal” was.

Rasmussen cleared up the allegations in a letter to the editor of the Messenger the next week as well as in the meet-the-candidate event. He said he was one of a group of owners who banded together to annex the acreage. He owns 6 acres. And says he paid the same impact fees and water connection fees all new water customers pay.

Within a couple of days after the ad was published and the brochure hit mailboxes, Penrod and his wife Donna, sent their own letter to all Spring City addresses.

“We did NOT write, or approve or know about these ads,” they wrote. “And we do NOT agree with the statements written in them.”
“Some very harsh and untrue statements were made about very amazing people and our friends,” the Penrod letter says.
The Penrods say when they moved to Spring City, Chris Anderson and his wife, Alison, were the first to drop by and welcome them.
The letter continues, “I don’t know anybody who has done more for Spring City than Chris and Alison.”

Citing their leadership in promoting art and artists, and in restoring the Spring City School, the Penrods say, “They are a huge part of why Spring City is a place where people want to live and people want to visit.

“Dan Rasmussen is also an amazing man,” the letter adds. “He and his family became friends and were very kind to our family. He is a well known school teacher. They (the Rasmussens) are long-time residents of Spring City. We love Spring City and the people here, and we know the Andersons and the Rasmussens do too.”

At the meet-the-candidates night, all four candidates endorsed on the back of the Citizens for Spring City/Women Who Love Spring City flier said they did not know about the endorsements nor read the flier in advance.

But when all candidates for city office were asked if they agreed with the flier, most of them hedged, saying they didn’t know enough to evaluate it or hadn’t had time to study it. One said attacks are inevitable in a political campaign. The exception was Strate, who said emphatically the piece was filled with misinformation.

In response to the Penrod and Rasmussens objections, the Messenger announced that going forward, it will only accept ads for candidates placed and paid by the candidates themselves. And any political ad from a citizen group must be placed and paid by a registered voter in the town the ad concerns.