He says UTA has a historical practice to block nepotism for board members and is attempting to put that into writing now. “Transparency and good stewardship of taxpayer funds requires the UTA board to function without conflicts of interest, actual or apparent,” he wrote to The Salt Lake Tribune. The full board has scheduled a Feb. 22 vote on the new beefed-up nepotism policy. “It’s not an anti-nepotism rule. It’s an anti-Brent Taylor rule,” Taylor says. The saga began in January when the Weber Area Council of Governments — made up of mayors and county commissioners there — voted to appoint Taylor to that group’s slot on the UTA Board. “I ran on a platform of reforming the UTA, representing the taxpayers, trimming executive compensation and making the organization transparent,” Taylor said in an interview. But McKinley wrote to the Weber group saying appointment of Taylor violated policy because his father works for the agency — but otherwise he would be welcome. “They said their policy ‘clearly’ prevented me from serving. So I asked to see that policy,” Taylor said. He said he found existing UTA policies mirror state policy and would allow him to join the board as long as his relative was already hired and is not transferred or promoted while he is on the board. He said that is the case, and his father is near retirement. “Then they changed course and said that it was the ‘unwritten intent’ of the policy that all family members be…more detail
