Kanab-ing tax dollars for nepotism

First suspicious stuff in Kane County tourism board, now their economic development board?

Kelly Stowell, son of Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, was hired last week as a special consultant/executive director for southwestern Utah's Center for Education, Business and the Arts, located in Kanab. Sen. Stowell represents Kanab and surrounding counties and supported the funding for CEBA.

In addition to his [$80,000 per year] base salary, Kelly Stowell can earn another $20,000 if certain goals are met over the next year, said Christina Schultz, chairwoman of CEBA.

A number of state senators received an e-mail Tuesday complaining about Kelly Stowell's hiring. A July [16] story in The Spectrum, a St. George newspaper, has on its Web site a posted comment that makes the same allegations as the e-mail: that Kelly Stowell is unqualified for the position and that Sen. Stowell helped get CEBA a $125,000 grant funded by the 2008 Legislature that provided the money to hire a new consultant/executive director.

That's right by using 'the Google' I discovered that the Deseret News got the wrong date. Oh and the CEBA people say Kelly's the right son man for the job, even though he "is probably about 25 years old."

It seems the whole state is rife with examples of, at the very least, appearances of impropriety of actions that could be seen as quid pro quos involving members of the legislature.