OCR Text |
Show Judge to hear complaints 4 against county officials By GARY R. BLODGETT FARMINGTON A complaint seeking removal from office of three Davis County elected officials offi-cials has been referred to the We- ber County Attorney's Office for review. The complaint is against Commissioners Com-missioners Harold Tippetts and William (Bill) Peters and former commissioner Glen Saunders, wha is now serving as interim county clerk. They are charged with nine counts of various alleged violations, viola-tions, including misuse of public funds, malfeasance in office, and impeding the duties of County Auditor Au-ditor Ruth Kennington. Also included in the allegations of the complaint filed last Sept. 9 is Davis County Attorney Melvin Wilson. Because of this, the civil not criminal complaint has been turned over to the Weber County Attorney's Office for study. Deputy Davis County Attorney Jerry Hess explained that since the , charges are against Davis County elected officials, the matter should be referred to an outside jurisdiction jurisdic-tion (another county) and Weber County Attorney Reed Richards has agreed to pursue the complaint. com-plaint. The complaint was originally sent to the Attorney General's Office and officials there noted that since the complaint is a civil case, instead of a criminal complaint, - it should be referred to the district court in another area. The complaint, it was explained, is an action allowed under the State Statute passed by the Utah State Legislature in 1953 and amended in 1980 which permits citizens to file a complaint with the, presiding (local) district court . in this case the Second District Court which charges local public officials with abuse of their official duties. Attorney Hess explained that although the citizens' complaint is civil, rather than criminal in nature, na-ture, it requires the county attorney attor-ney (or an appointed attorney) to investigate and prosecute the case as if it were a criminal case. He said that because of the mix-- mix-- ture of criminal and civil involvement involve-ment in the suit, the State Statute is somewhat unclear. After a thorough thor-ough investigation, Attorney Richards will have the discretion to decide whether or not the charges are warranted. The case will be heard before Judge Douglas L. Cornaby at 4 " p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 11. Meanwhile, Mean-while, because the complaint is civil, those involved in the complaint com-plaint have the right to accept depositions de-positions from others up until the time of the trial. |