FLASHBACK 2009: A muckraker's guide to Utah 

Muckraking Gary Herbert
By Eric S. Peterson
epeterson@cityweekly.net

Public records reveal a lot. There might not be a public record of how many dead hookers a politician keeps in his trunk—but utilizing City Weekly’s muckraker guide, there is much to uncover. That’s why we’re casting our muckraking light on our soon-to-be governor, 62-year-old Gary R. Herbert, who—prior to Jon Huntsman Jr.’s surprise ambassadorship appointment—was known mostly as Gary Who?

Let’s first try court records. We know Herbert’s a Utah County man, so by running his name through the 4th District Court in Utah County, we come upon a few run-of-the-mill speeding and parking violations in Herbert’s name as well as a more interesting string of delinquent state tax notices, the earliest from ’94 for $288. An amount that small could simply be a rounding error for a well-heeled realtor, but then again, the 2004 tax notice was a little higher at $2,199. That same year, Herbert also got dinged for operating a business without a license.

Running a business search on Herbert, we see he is a registered principal in about a half-dozen businesses, most now expired and most tied to real estate in Utah County—attesting to his 20-some years as a realtor and as former head of the Utah Association of Realtors.

Going to the campaign records means checking Herbert’s candidate report from 2004. It provides more insight about the base he was cultivating when he initially ran against Huntsman for governor before joining Huntsman’s ticket. In 2004, Herbert raised and spent exactly $319,068.34.

Herbert likes to keep his workers in the family—evidenced here by his giving a combined $947 to wife Jeanette as “reimbursement.” Or, check out son Nathan Herbert, who received more than $12,500 from father Gary for campaign work.

A look at Gary Herbert’s donors shows some serious love coming from the Utah Association of Realtors, the group for which he served as president in 1989: That organization coughed up $30,000. But most interesting is the financial love Herbert gave to himself—$129,847 he received from his election PAC, Vision 2004.

What’s curious here is what the records don’t show. Because, in looking up donors and organizing documents for the Vision 2004 PAC on the Elections Website (which Herbert, as lieutenant governor, oversees), no records appear for Vision 2004 anywhere.

Vision 2004 may not show up, but in contacting the state’s Elections division, we are told it is because Vision 2004 was taken over by the aptly named FOGPAC (Friends of Gary Herbert, PAC) in 2007.

Why the PAC name change? It’s a good question, one with many a plausible explanation. But whatever the reason, it’s clear that making the vision more “FOGgy” also makes it more difficult to rake Vision 2004’s muck.

Knowing about the name change, however, we can look up FOGPAC’s donations and see that in 2003, the Phoenix-based Apollo Group was the PAC’s biggest donor at $80,000. Apollo Group is the publicly traded company that operates the University of Phoenix. Interestingly, the university’s CEO at the time (he’s since left the company), Todd S. Nelson, gave another $20,000

So, a third of Herbert’s war chest in 2004 came via one interest: the University of Phoenix. That friendly relationship may have started back in 1999 when then-Utah County Commissioner Herbert agreed to reimburse county employees for taking non-career essential classes (like Algebra 1) at institutions like the University of Phoenix. We found the minutes from the meeting where Herbert voted for the reimbursements via a Google search .

Oh, the fun you can have reading public documents. But you don’t have to take our word for it.