Council Candidate Says He’s Victim of Defamatory Mailings, Dirty Politics

(KCPW News) A candidate for Salt Lake City Council says defamatory mailings falsely portraying him as anti-Mormon and swiping at his Republican opponents are phony. District 2 hopeful Kyle LaMalfa says the postcard, which displays his logo but no name or return address, does not reflect his beliefs. And he says following the postcard, voters received a letter from a man named Diamond Jim Davis, referencing the postcard as reason to not vote for LaMalfa while accusing him of bigotry.

“I count among my key advisers members of the Republican party and members of the LDS faith. That’s on record with the city recorder’s office. They are offended by the postcard. I am offended by the postcard and anyone in the community who receives this postcard has every right to be offended by it,” he tells KCPW.

LaMalfa says his campaign has contacted authorities to launch an investigation into who sent the postcard. He says that person is responsible for mail fraud and violation of intellectual property laws.

But one of LaMalfa’s opponents, Michael Clara, claims that what’s in that postcard is actually consistent with his campaign.

“He has made comments about people’s religious affiliation publicly in the City Weekly. I’m not sure what he’s upset about,” says Clara. “The only thing I can think of is that they sent it out, they got such a backlash on it that their next move was to say, we didn’t send it out.”

In the article Clara refers to, which dates back to 2008, LaMalfa talks about how the People’s Market is held on Sunday in part because of the organizing committee’s feelings of being outcast by the “dominant Utah culture.” But LaMalfa does not make any anti-Mormon comments, and the candidate’s Facebook page says the article was “butchered” by the letter that accused him of bigotry.