The Heber City Council this week delayed renewing City Manager Matt Brower’s three-year contract, which expires April 18. The City Council will hold a special meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday to make a final decision regarding Brower’s continued employment. Brower has been city manager si nce July 2018 and previously managed the cities of Lincoln, California, Ocala, Florida, and Santa Clara City, Utah.  As chief of staff, Brower oversees city operations and finances. He is not an elected official and does not make policy decisions. Instead, he carries out the will of the City Council, who appointed him, acts as his supervisor and can fire him at will.  During his tenure in Heber City, Brower has assisted the council in carrying out its Envision Heber initiatives, which included public outreach about long-term planning in downtown, the design of a pedestrian-only alleyway in downtown called “C Street,” and the redevelopment of Main Street Park, beginning with the construction of a bandshell last June. Three years is the maximum length of Brower’s contract per city code. His contract was last renewed in April 2024. Councilors Aaron Cheatwood, Mike Johnston and Sid Ostergaard voted in favor of renewing Brower’s contract, while Yvonne Barney and Morgan Murdock and Mayor Heidi Franco were opposed. A majority of four is required to approve or deny Brower’s contract. Brower could continue acting as city manager without an employment contract in place, if approved by the City Council. After the meeting, Brower said he had “no idea” what factors may have contributed to Barney, Murdock and Franco’s “no” votes.  Further investigation painted a clearer picture of why the decision was delayed, revealing concerns about a financial audit in Lincoln, a city Brower previously managed, the City Council’s failure to provide Brower with regular performance evaluations and a complaint made about Brower to the Office of the Utah State Auditor. 2026 Emp Agreement RenewalDownload Public outcry In mid-March, a wave of public outcry began in local Facebook groups after Heber City resident Bridget Whiting created a petition asking the City Council not to renew Brower’s contract. There were more than 360 signatures as of Friday.  The petition lists concerns about the Heber City government’s lack of transparency and accountability, planning decisions, financial oversight and the overall direction of growth and development. The petition does not provide specific examples to back up its accusations, nor does it detail how Brower contributed to the problems it lists.  “Residents believe that leadership decisions have long-term impacts on our land, taxes, infrastructure and quality of life, and that it is important for the City Council to consider the concerns of the community when determining the future direction of city administration,” the petition states. Cheatwood said residents upset about Heber City’s growth are using Brower as a “scapegoat” because he is the “figurehead of the city.” “You need to look back to the councilors that chose, or that voted in the way that you dislike, and ensure that you show up next time to vote them out or vote someone else in, or that you show up and make comments to make sure your voice is heard,” he said. “But pinning it on Matt isn’t actually helpful because he didn’t do it in the first place. … He was carrying out someone else’s wishes because he has to. That’s his role.” Barney said the public opposition to Brower was the reason she voted against renewing the contract and in favor of delaying the decision. “It was very difficult. I like Matt. I think he’s a great individual. I appreciate his leadership,” she said. “We’re just making sure we’re dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s.” Financial mismanagement Although the petition did not list specific accusations against Brower, Whiting alerted the City Council on Tuesday to a California State Auditor’s report that found financial mismanagement in the Lincoln city government between 2013 and 2017, where Brower was employed as city manager between 2015 and 2018.  The audit, reviewed by The Park Record, found “questionable loans, transfers and allocations that did not always comply with state law.”  These issues included Lincoln’s overcharging and undercharging of developers; the use of restricted funds for unintended purposes; misrepresentation of its financial position; and failure to follow the recommendations of external auditors  The city’s director of support services oversees financial operations and reports to the city manager. The director who worked under Brower and other managers since 2006 “separated” from the city in January 2019, as the audit was underway. Details of his separation were not included in the report. “If you read that audit report, it indicates that there was a finance manager who was cooking the books and not telling people about it,” Brower told The Park Record. “I was getting ready to fire him. And his wife and friends, who work at the city, put this claim out there that I’m mismanaging because they knew I got ready to fire a few people.” Brower was referring to an anonymous letter sent by Lincoln city employees in January 2018, which accused him of mismanagement.  Brower said he was hired to fix Lincoln’s longstanding issues. “When I got there, there was no community works director. There was no public works director. There was no assistant manager. It was a brand new staff we put together, and we were constantly trying to identify the problems,” he said. “Every one of these issues were either approved or were part of processes that were in place before I got there.” Brower said he had never been interviewed for the audit, and the report includes no evidence indicating he was. Still, the audit referenced some issues that may have involved Brower. For example, the Lincoln city manager is authorized to enter into contracts of up to $25,000 without approval as long as it’s promptly reported in a city council meeting. But the city was unable to demonstrate that its city managers had ever made such reports, despite such contracts being approved during Brower’s time in Lincoln. Additionally, in November 2017, the director of community development asked an engineering firm to perform more work than was outlined in its original contract. When Brower became aware of this in January 2018, he asked the director of community development to formally request a contract amendment in the next city council meeting. At that time, the engineering company had invoiced the city for $111,000. The original contract was for $30,000. After the audit report was published in March 2019, then-interim City Manager Jennifer Hanson told the Sacramento Bee that Lincoln’s financial mismanagement “transcend(ed) a number of councils and a number of city managers” and could not be “pinpoint(ed) on a particular person.”  Hanson and the audit report partly attributed the financial mismanagement to Lincoln’s nearly quadrupling of population between 2000 and 2010.  Cheatwood, who was sworn in six years after Brower’s initial appointment in Heber City, said he was not aware of the audit.  “My experience, frankly, has been extraordinary in a lot of different ways. … (Brower) will call me back at 10 o’clock at night if I need him to,” he said. “My experience was such that I didn’t dig backward. I didn’t have a reason to.” In a statement to The Park Record, Franco said she learned about the audit in the past week. Brower never disclosed the report to her. “If I had known about this California State Auditor investigation into Lincoln’s mismanagement issues back in 2018, I never would have voted for him to become city manager,” she said.  Franco was a city councilor at the time. “In my opinion, I can’t explain away or defend this lack of disclosure, nor the audit results, to the citizens of Heber. I believe these intentional actions speak volumes and do not meet the high expectations of public trust in a city manager’s position,” she said. She added that she will be recommending a “thorough audit of the City’s purchasing policy and procedures” to the City Council. Lincoln AuditDownload Performance evaluation Murdock’s explanation for his “no” vote was that Brower’s performance evaluation had yet to be completed. The City Council is responsible for an annual performance evaluation, a stipulation that was added to Brower’s contract when it was last renewed, according to Cheatwood. But Cheatwood said those evaluations had not taken place since then.  “We, all of us, the entire council, messed up in forgetting or not realizing that we were supposed to be handling an annual review process with Matt directly,” he said. “At least in my mind, I thought that was something that would come to us, maybe from staff or something like that, but in re-reading the contract from the last time it was approved, that’s not the case. We are supposed to have driven that process, and we didn’t do it.” The City Council began its performance evaluation in a closed session on Tuesday. Originally slated for one hour, the discussion lasted nearly two, and the evaluation is not yet complete.  “We just ran out of time to complete our discussion before the rest of the things on the agenda,” Cheatwood said. That’s why he made the motion to hold a special meeting on Tuesday — to complete Brower’s evaluation in a closed session before voting on his contract in a public meeting. Complaint to the Office of the Utah State Auditor During a public comment on Tuesday, Joshua Jewkes, an attorney local to Heber City, revealed that an individual made a complaint involving Brower to the Office of the Utah State Auditor.  Jewkes could not be reached for comment by the time of publication. It is unclear how he knew about the complaint, but Franco confirmed that it did exist. “I was surprised and dismayed that any citizen disclosed something like that because complaints deserve due process,” she said. The complaint revolves around the Community Alliance for Main Street (CAMS), a nonprofit run by former Heber City Councilor and current Wasatch County Council candidate Rachel Kahler. The volunteer group has a stated mission of “fostering a thriving downtown area.” In January, the City Council approved an agreement with CAMS to program events in downtown for a minimum of 50 days annually for $39,900. Jewkes implied the complainant may have argued Brower’s positions as city manager and a CAMS board member constituted a conflict of interest. However, the content of the complaint could not be verified. “The complaint was anonymous and included no supporting evidence other than stating the obvious, that Mr. Brower sits on the CAMS board,” Jewkes said. “But that proves nothing on its face.” A full list of CAMS board members, including Brower, was included in the staff report when the City Council voted on the agreement. The complaint definitely asserted that the City Council did not follow the city’s procurement process when it approved the agreement, according to a message from City Attorney Jeremy Cook that Kahler forwarded to The Park Record. Heber City code requires competitive bidding by vendors or suppliers before the purchase of a good or service. There are some exceptions to the bidding requirement, such as sole source purchases, which happen when there is only one possible provider of what the city hopes to purchase. Ratifying the CAMS contract as a sole-source purchase in an upcoming City Council meeting is how Cook plans to address the complaint. He could not be reached for additional comment by the time of publication. The Office of the Utah State Auditor declined to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation into the complaint. ‘Never a rogue city manager’ Just as the City Council was split down the middle on whether to renew Brower’s contract, public comments were mixed in sentiment. There were nearly 20 public comments, the majority in support of Brower.  Of Brower’s supporters, several who had worked directly alongside him sung his praises. Former Heber City Councilor Scott Phillips, who worked with Brower between 2022 and January, said Brower “was never a rogue city manager” and “never did anything outside of the wishes of the council.” Jessica Broadbent, deputy director of the Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce, said she had seen “measurable progress in downtown” thanks to Brower, including increased events, foot traffic and use of public spaces. Heber City Planning Commissioner Tori Broughton said she had researched Brower’s work in past cities, including Lincoln, two years ago. “Frankly, there was nothing there that affected us here in Heber City,” she said. “I also believe that (the City Council’s) balance to his check, or check to his balance, is in full effect, which is allowing our Heber City residents to ultimately decide what happens here in Heber.” Corey Noyes, a former Heber City Council candidate who participates in the Heber Leadership Academy, which Brower established, argued that the city manager was underpaid. Brower’s current base salary is over $214,000, according to his contract. The managers of Wasatch and Summit counties, Dustin Grabau and Shayne Scott, each made just under $228,000 in 2028, according to Transparent Utah. Park City recently appointed a new city manager, Adam Lehnard, with a base salary of $250,000 per year. “You need to renew his contract, because if you don’t, there’s nothing to stop Matt from taking a more lucrative position elsewhere, and you will be stuck paying more for someone who’s not as good,” Noyes said.  Jami Hewlett, a former Heber City Council candidate who spoke against the renewal of Brower’s contract, suggested the low turnout of detractors may have been influenced by the timing of the meeting during the Wasatch County Republican Party’s nominating convention. That was another reason Cheatwood made the motion to continue the discussion to Tuesday. To renew or not renew According to Franco, there are several potential outcomes if the City Council does not renew Brower’s contract before it expires.  As previously mentioned, Brower could continue as acting city manager without a contract in place. If Brower is terminated with cause, such as mismanagement, criminal conduct or immoral actions, the City Council, with the assistance of the city attorney, must back up the allegations with evidence. Brower would then have 10 days to provide a verbal defense in a closed session before the City Council made its final decision about his employment.  This stipulation was added to Brower’s contract in April 2024. Franco was the only elected official to vote against renewing Brower’s contract then because the new termination process “crosses the line into a regular employee” rather than an at-will one, as she reiterated on Tuesday. If Brower is terminated without cause, he will be paid a lump sum severance payment equal to nine months’ salary, or over $160,000 . He could also resign by mutual agreement with the City Council, with no severance. Brower is hopeful for a contract renewal. “I’ve been here eight years. I’d love to continue the work that we’ve done to date, supporting the council, trying to get their policy priorities and budget priorities in place,” he said. “I’d be honored to continue and work with them in the community.” The post Heber City Council, public split on renewing City Manager Matt Brower’s contract appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less