Mellor movie night turns meeting into love fest

What should have been a simple discussion about travel expenses turns into series of personal endorsements for commissioner up for re-election
Carbon County Commissioner Jake Mellor turned the end of last Wednesday’s commission meeting into a personal movie night.
He even urged audience members to grab some popcorn.
It happened during discussion time slated for the second to last item on the agenda, a presentation of past travel expenses for Mellor.
Mellor had earlier created some controversy when during the April 18 regular commission meeting, he became defensive about having already spent his annual travel budget with eight months left in the year.
Mellor was accused by fellow commissioners Jae Potter and Casey Hopes of submitting travel receipts for reimbursement when he knew he’d already blew through a year’s worth of travel expenses in only four months.
Mellor is seeking re-election to his second term this year. He faces a tough primary challenge in June after losing his local party delegation’s support during Carbon County’s recent Republican convention.
Mellor opened his personal movie night with a few comments Wednesday that suggested that the public had been misled about his travel.
“I think there is some information out there that is misleading or lacking in regards to us as a commission as a whole,” he said. “A lot of times there come scenarios where we need to put our own paycheck back into what we do for the county. And I don’t think that a lot of times that goes recognized. In fact, I know that it doesn’t.”
To illustrate how important his travel on behalf of the county is to the community, Mellor presented video clips of various business and government officials from around the state who serve on various boards or otherwise are members of committees in which Mellor also participates. These include various government, economic development and workforce improvement entities.
Hopes and Potter, similarly, sit on various state boards and committees.
“In this presentation, I’m only speaking about myself and my own assignments and responsibilities,” Mellor said before the lights went dark. “Just talking a little about my out of town travel and what I do for the county. I thought about putting together websites and a lot of paper information. I felt at the end of the day, a couple of video clips from members of these committees that I sit on, just explaining what they are and what we do and why that benefits Carbon County. I am not speaking in any of these video clips. It’s a series of different video clips put together. I know that each of you could do something very similar.”
Before hitting play on his video presentation, Mellor told the commission he would not be seeking any additional funds for travel this year. He said he would be paying for it out of his own pocket.
“Since I was highlighted sort of speak with my travel expenses, having hit my travel budget for the year already. I don’t have an ask during our budget amendments in July. I will not be asking for more money or more funding for more travel,” he said. “I just acknowledge that through my county paycheck, I will be putting that back into what I do for the community with my continued participation on all these boards.”
Once the lights were low and the show started, a series of clips played, each one delivering celebratory accounts of Mellor’s instrumental work on behalf of Carbon County.
First up was Ben Hart, deputy director at the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
“We’ve been very fortunate to have Commissioner Mellor involved in a lot of what we’re involved with in our office. Which are things like workforce initiatives, economic development initiatives, legislative initiatives,” he said into the camera. “We feel like if we don’t have that rural voice, then we can’t accurately represent our rural partners. So we are grateful to the commissioners who are willing to come and be a part of what we do … Really it helps us better represent all the different areas of the state.”
Next was Shawn Milne, a Tooele County Commissioner, who shared how he came into office six years ago when his county was facing a severe budget crisis. He said when Mellor reached out to him for advice on how to handle Carbon County’s budget problems, he enjoyed mentoring the younger public servant.   
“Commissioner Mellor reached out fairly quickly when he got into office and noticed some trends in Carbon County as well…the vehicle for that was the Utah Association of Counties. I admit that I am a board member of UAC the last two years. It is invaluable to be able to work with our peers,” Milne said. “What was fortunate for Commissioner Mellor and Carbon County particularly is because he was involved, because he was engaged, and wasn’t just aloof and in an office all the time; he had established these networks and connections that are so invaluable.”
Victor Iverson, a Washington County Commissioner, was next up. He commended Mellor on his work in the fight against inter-generational poverty.
“I really appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of my good friend Jake and his hard work as a county commissioner for Carbon County….Jake has done a great job in advocating for how to help the lives of our citizens that are struggling … I think he is one of the greatest champions Carbon County has,” Iverson beamed.
James Ebert, a Weber County commissioner, said into the camera that people often don’t realize how much work goes on at the state level that commissioners must pay attention to but that might escape public attention.
“Sometimes you don’t see the returns from the ground level. But they return over time,” he said.
Kimberlee Carlile, director of talent initiatives with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, said “It’s been a pleasure being able to coordinate with Jake Mellor.”
The videos continued for a bit before a clearly exasperated Potter interrupted the presentation.
“With the agenda, we’re talking about past travel expenses and while I see this as endorsement for you and for Carbon County, I don’t know that it pertains to the item that’s on the agenda. There’s no question that you’re involved in boards, as we are,” he said. “But if the item is a presentation of past travel expenses these are endorsements.”
Mellor responded that the endorsements correlated directly with his travel expenses, that they somehow proved that he was pursuing worthwhile endeavors outside of the area for the area.
“Endorsements of my expenses in that every time I travel to Salt Lake, if I submit those for travel expenses, that’s around two hundred and twenty something dollars. And yes, I’ve expended that for the year. Which means that every time I continue to do that, that just comes out of my own pocket, my county paycheck, which is fine,” he said. “I just want that to be a representation for everyone here to acknowledge and to understand that all three of us, I’m sure put our own money back into what we do.”
Mellor continued, “These are relevant to my specific expenses that I incurred and will continue to incur personally as we go forward. I didn’t mean to go through all of them. I did skip through one that was kind of noisy, you couldn’t understand what he was saying very well. But I would like to watch two more if you would bear with me.”
Potter agreed to only finishing the endorsement that was playing when he asked for a pause.
“I will go for at least this one you are on, that you are finishing. But I’d like to move on,” he said.
At the end of the presentation, Mellor said, “Somebody once mentioned that sometimes the best things that happen for a county actually happen outside it’s borders. Endorsements or whatever you want to call them, that’s what they testify to.”
No county officials or candidates present during the meeting wished to comment for this article.