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BLUFFDALE — Some members of the Bluffdale City Council are proposing to rename a Bluffdale fire station that was named for a former fire chief, arguing that the change is warranted after the former chief pleaded guilty in June to misusing public funds.
But some residents who are in favor of keeping John Calvin Roberts' name on the fire station have questioned the timing of the resolution, which comes shortly after Roberts was named a witness for the prosecution in a criminal case against Bluffdale Mayor Natalie Hall's husband, Jason Cristopher Hall, who is charged with threatening elected officials — assault, a third-degree felony, and stalking and threatening to influence an official action, class A misdemeanors.
The proposal comes years after the former fire chief parted ways with the city in 2020, after the city received whistleblower complaints that accused him of offering crew members double pay to sign up to work holiday shifts by scheduling them additional days but not requiring them to work. Roberts was charged in 2022, and in June pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misuse of public funds, a third-degree felony, as part of a plea deal. The plea was a plea in abeyance, meaning the charge could be dismissed after three years if he meets several conditions, including paying $10,000 in restitution.
The City Council approved a resolution in October 2020 — several months after the whistleblower complaints — naming the John C. Roberts Fire Station No. 92 in honor of the former chief, but is now considering another resolution to strip his name from the building. Some council members said they didn't know of all the allegations against Roberts at the time the building was named, and now say they want to change the name in light of his plea.
"This is a very, very hard subject," Councilwoman Wendy Aston said. She said council members initially believed the allegations against Roberts from whistleblowers involved simple pay discrepancies and payments to vendors for work that was never completed.
The resolution was tabled Wednesday night, but the City Council plans to revisit the proposal sometime next month.
"No one is questioning if he's a good person or not, but people are layered as well," Councilwoman Traci Crockett said during the meeting. "He has admitted to a felony against the city. It's a fact. He has admitted a felony. Do all of his good things against the city counteract a felony against the city?"
"We don't want to continue to run his name through the mud," she added. "I don't want to keep having to talk about that."
In 2020, Roberts ended up signing a "separation" agreement with the city that ended his 40 years with the fire department but allowed him to work for the city in the future in a different position. About one year later, as Roberts ran for mayor against Natalie Hall, city leaders issued a news release announcing a new investigation into Roberts' time as fire chief. Roberts contended the announcement was politically motivated and pointed to difficulties he faced staffing the department on holidays.
'Things are very heated'
Some residents say city officials knew about the allegations against Roberts when they named the firehouse after him, and are only threatening to revoke it now that he is involved in the criminal case against the mayor's husband. The resolution proposed on Wednesday lists the allegations outlined by prosecutors against Roberts, and critics say it will enshrine the accusations in the city record even if Roberts' case is eventually dismissed.
"Things are very heated. The city is very divided, very noticeably," Tammy Rasmussen, a longtime Bluffdale resident, told KSL.com after the council meeting Wednesday. "It was interesting to listen to some of the comments in there, people saying: 'Well, we need to get rid of this because it will unite the city,' which is completely false."
"How can this be viewed as anything other than a witch hunt?" she added.
Rasmussen and others have acknowledged Roberts' admitted wrongdoing, but say his long service to the community makes him worthy of having his name on the firehouse.
"You might say this isn't political, but if you actually just look at the facts, look at the timeline involved, how could it not be?" she asked. "Does he have a right to have his name on a building? I think he does, because I think his 40-plus years of service to the city and the community supersedes that."
Jeffrey Gaston, a former Bluffdale councilman who ran for mayor against Hall in 2021, accused her and her husband of threatening and harassing him while he was running. Gaston eventually dropped out of the race due to the alleged threats, and chose to support Roberts, who was also running against Hall.
He said Jason Hall assaulted him with campaign signs during a city event in August of 2021 where he was operating a booth for Roberts' mayoral campaign. Jason Hall also faces charges stemming from those allegations, and is scheduled for a jury trial in October, during which Roberts is expected to testify.
Jason Hall has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the mayor has defended him, saying that she was threatened and bullied first.
Roberts previously alleged the city manager and two City Council members showed favoritism toward Natalie Hall during that election when they announced an investigation into his time as chief — more than a year after leaders first received complaints about him.
Chief says plaque taken from firehouse
About a half dozen supporters of Roberts attended Wednesday's City Council meeting to oppose the resolution, and one public commenter accused city officials of having already removed a brass plaque with Roberts' name on it from the fire station in question before the council considered or voted on the resolution.
City Manager Mark Reid said he was unaware of the removal of the plaque and didn't authorize anyone to take it down, but Fire Chief Matt Evans insinuated during the public forum that the plaque may have been taken by Roberts, though he offered no evidence.
"We don't know when the plaque was removed. We noticed the plaque was removed," Evans said. "There was an incident where John (Roberts) came to the station on a Saturday and took some stuff out of the station. Maybe the plaque disappeared then. We don't really know. ... We honestly don't know where it's at."
Roberts did not respond to multiple requests for comment and was not present during Wednesday's meeting.
"When the plaque was put up, I saw that it was there and I honestly haven't saw or looked since, until the other day when somebody said, 'Well, where's the plaque?'" Reid told the council.
After the meeting, Evans told KSL.com he is unsure of when the plaque went missing, but said it was noticed "probably six, maybe seven, eight months ago."
"Unfortunately, we had an incident with the former chief," Evans said. "He came to the station and he had taken a few items that he said were his. We didn't notice that the plaque was gone then or not, so we don't know."
He said a police report was filed in the case of the missing items, but didn't know any details. Evans initially said Roberts visited the fire station this summer — which would have been several months after he said the plaque was first noticed missing — but said, "I can't tell you what day it was" when pressed on the timeline of the plaque going missing and Roberts' alleged visit to the fire station.
He later said "it's been a while ago" since Roberts came to the fire station, and estimated that it occurred sometime this spring.
What's next?
The City Council ultimately tabled the resolution to rename the firehouse, after Councilman Steve Austin expressed concern about approving it without the full council present — Councilman Alan Lord was absent. The resolution was originally scheduled to be heard Wednesday night on consent, meaning the council could vote without public input, but it was moved to the normal calendar of business at the start of the meeting.
"I personally do not feel ready to make a decision on this," Austin said.
Earlier in the debate, Aston said council members could "vote today, or we can bring this back and bring in the district attorney and have him lay the entire case out. If that is the direction we want to go, we can do that and we'll lay it out. ... I don't think that's very fair to John."
So members approved reconsidering the resolution during the first meeting in September and hope Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill will be willing to present the details of the case. Mayor Hall expressed support for holding a special meeting if Gill is unavailable during their normal meeting time on Sept. 11.
