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Utah County Commissioner, Greg Graves, Accused of Sexual Harassment

A butterfly in a leafy bush.

On a few occasions recently, I've tried to do dig around the Utah County website, trying to figure out what bills have been passed, and when. However, I've come up empty handed. The county codes and policies I can easily find, and there are meeting minutes and meeting recordings to pour through. This is great if you already know when something happened, or if one has the stomach to comb through reams of terse descriptions of the topics which the commissioners discussed, or watch days of recorded debate. However, what I would like to find are copies of legislation passed, and voting records. It really has been hard for me to find anything that gives me a really solid idea of what the commissioners are actively trying to do, or how well they are doing it. I'm hoping this is just a matter of ignorance on my part, and that I will be able to find the documentation of passed legislation, and maybe some other evidence of what commissioners are trying to do, (without having to comb through every meeting) if I persevere a bit more.

Recently, we elected Nathan Ivie as a commissioner, and I found him to be a promising candidate, even if a slightly unconventional one, with little background that I could find to help back up his expressed priorities. So, I've been interested to find out what he is doing, now that he is in office, and have been disappointed with how difficult it is slogging through the county website.

That is why I was especially excited to see a report regarding a County Commissioner accused of abusing his power. The Commissioner being accused is Greg Graves, and Nathan Ivie is cited as criticizing the Greg Graves for his treatment of county staff, and expressing the importance of getting the accusations opened up to the public so that something can be done to end the abuse.

Lee and Ivie both voted to release the records regarding the accusations being leveled against Greg Graves in a recent meeting. In my opinion, the meeting is much more interesting than your average County Commission meeting.

Greg Graves has responded by insisting that the investigation "100 percent" cleared him of wrongdoing, but Nathan Ivie's response makes it clear that he does not agree, stating, "the conclusion of that investigation confirmed my personal feelings ... He abuses his power, intimidates employees and is vindictive to those who disagree with him. This type of abuse of power cannot be allowed."

Greg Graves is no stranger to scandal. In the wake of the Ashley Madison hack, it was revealed that Graves was one of the disgraced cheating site's users, having spent $522.99 on the site over the period of 2010 to 2014. His account expressed an eagerness to participate actively in the cheating promoted by the site. In 2016 he was accused of using unethical private donations to fund a seasonal party. It appears that a lack of transparency impeded the investigation, as this allegation resulted in the State Records Committee ordering Utah County to provide public email addresses to all of its employees.

Graves was elected to his county seat back in 2014, beating out incumbent Gary Anderson before Republican party delegates. It has been reported that in December, his party affiliation changed to Democrat for a time, (I have read conflicting reports that it was either less than a day, or several weeks) in what he described as an attempt to prove a point. Nevertheless, it must have been a private point, because he expressed displeasure that the move had been made public. He shifted his party affiliation back to Republican by the end of the same day. (In name only, I expect.) For the case in question, (item #10 on the agenda for Sep 26 2017, about 33 minutes in) that led to his affiliation switch, he makes a good case for taking a more conservative position, though it doesn't do much to explain his move to switch affiliation. (As an unaffiliated voter, unaffiliating would make much more sense than switching to the Democratic Party.) His arguments in the meeting were somewhat emotional, perhaps even intimidating. I found those arguments compelling, up until the point that he started arguing that property isn't a right (about the 1 hour mark in the recording). To be clear, property "value" is not a right. However, property is a right. His opponent's arguments overall made more sense.

It seems clear that the many calls for Greg's resignation have a solid foundation in the weakness and fickleness of the man's character, and we join that call. If anything good comes from this, we think it is the contrast that he provides to his fierce critic, Nathan Ivie. We hope to see more good things from Nathan Ivie in the future.

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