BEFORE THE DIRECTOR OF
THE GOVERNMENT RECORDS OFFICE
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE
STATE OF UTAH
Appeal Case No. 2026-058
PETITIONER’S STATEMENT OF FACTS,
REASONS, AND LEGAL AUTHORITY
Submitted Pursuant to Utah Code § 63G-2-403(3)(b) and Administrative Rule R20-3-2(2)
Date of Submission: 18 May 2026
I. INTRODUCTION
Joseph L. Puente (“Petitioner”) respectfully submits this statement of facts, reasons, and legal authority in support of Appeal Case No. 2026-058, filed pursuant to Utah Code § 63G-2-403 and Administrative Rule R20-3-2(2). This appeal arises from Respondent Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity’s (“GOEO”) denial or partial withholding of records documenting the agency’s decision to approve and structure a $2 million Industrial Assistance Account (“IAA”) grant to Nuovo Film Festival, Inc.—a decision formalized at the 8 JAN 2026 GOEO Business Development Board meeting.
As the facts below demonstrate, this grant did not arise in isolation. It was preceded by a specific, conditional legislative appropriation for the Sundance Institute that contained an express lapse provision, the triggering of that provision when Sundance departed Utah, and a months-long period during which individuals later connected to the grant were privately developing a Sundance “replacement.”. The records Petitioner seeks are the agency’s own decision-making documents—the analyses, communications, legal reviews, and internal materials that show what GOEO knew about its statutory authority and what it considered when it decided to redirect funds that the Legislature had explicitly directed to lapse.
Those records are public under GRAMA’s foundational presumption that government records are open. GOEO has failed to meet its burden of justifying withholding. Petitioner respectfully asks the Director to order disclosure—or, at minimum, segregated disclosure with narrowly justified redactions—and to issue a written decision reaffirming GRAMA’s presumption of openness as applied to records of public spending decisions.
II. STATEMENT OF FACTS
A. March 2025: Legislature Conditionally Appropriates $3.5 Million for Sundance Institute
1. 5 MAR 2025: The Utah Legislature passed Senate Bill 2, the "New Fiscal Year Supplemental Appropriations Act" (2025 General Session). Item 22 of S.B. 2 appropriated $3,500,000 from the Industrial Assistance Account to the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (GOEO) for a conditional grant to the Sundance Institute.
2. The appropriation was explicitly conditional. S.B. 2, lines 254–257, included a lapse provision stating: "If the Sundance Institute chooses to leave the state of Utah, GOEO shall not disburse the funds provided for this purpose and shall allow them to lapse." This is not ambiguous precautionary language—it is an affirmative statutory directive specifying what GOEO must do if the condition fails.
3. 25 MAR 2025: Governor Spencer Cox signed S.B. 2 into law. The conditional appropriation and its lapse provision became effective law on that date.
B. 27 MAR 2025: Sundance Announces Departure; Lapse Provision Is Triggered
4. 27 MAR 2025: Two days after Governor Cox signed S.B. 2, the Sundance Institute publicly announced that it had selected Boulder, Colorado, as the new home of the Sundance Film Festival beginning in 2027. Under the express terms of S.B. 2, lines 254–257, this announcement triggered the lapse provision. GOEO was legally required to refrain from disbursing the $3.5 million appropriation and to allow those funds to lapse.
5. Despite this statutory directive, GOEO did not publicly acknowledge the lapse obligation. Instead, within weeks of Sundance’s announcement, Governor Cox’s administration began publicly signaling that it was looking for a Sundance replacement. By 17 APR 2025, news outlets were reporting on public statements from Governor Cox that “dozens” of entities were “jockeying to fill the Sundance void.”
C. May 2025: Nuovo Film Festival, Inc. Formed by the Governor’s Designated Point Person
6. 21 MAY 2025: Less than two months after Sundance’s departure announcement, A. Scott Anderson executed the Articles of Incorporation for Nuovo Film Festival, Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah. Geralyn Dreyfous of Park City, Utah, was named as Registered Agent.
7. 23 MAY 2025: Nuovo Film Festival, Inc. (“Grantee”) was formally filed with the Utah Department of Commerce, Division of Corporations and Commercial Code on. Filing Number: 250602384782B; Entity Number: 14576555-0140. The entity was a brand-new domestic nonprofit corporation with no public track record, no prior operations, and no publicly visible history of open competition for state grant funds.
8. Scott Anderson was not a stranger to the Governor’s office. As Anderson himself disclosed at the 8 JAN 2026 GOEO Board meeting—discussed in detail below—he and others had been tasked by Governor Cox’s administration to develop a Sundance replacement after the festival’s departure. The formation of the Grantee in May 2025 was the direct product of that private, executive-branch assignment, not the result of any public solicitation, competitive application process, or legislative authorization.
D. 8 JAN 2026 GOEO Board Meeting: A Pre-Drafted Motion, Closed Process, and Unanimous Vote
9. 6 JAN 2026: GOEO posted a public meeting notice on the Utah Public Notice Website for the 8 JAN 2026 Board meeting. The agenda listed three action items. Two of the three items included substantive descriptions. The third—the IAA grant at issue—was described only as:
"Industrial Assistance Account (IAA) Grant—The Board will vote to approve one IAA grant."
(emphasis added)
Unlike IAA Grants listed in previous Agendas, this description disclosed no amount, no recipient and no purpose, and no connection to the Sundance appropriation or its lapse. Unlike the other agenda items, it provided no information that would allow a member of the public to meaningfully evaluate the proposal before the vote.
10. 8 JAN 2026: Before Scott Anderson spoke, staff introduced the GOEO agenda item as “an IAA grant to discuss today in our board meeting” and read a pre-drafted motion into the record, which stated:
“The Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity Board recommends Nuvo Film Festival Incorporated (NFFI) for an Industrial Assistance Account one-time grant of $2 million to operationalize key film ecosystem objectives through the establishment of specialized programming, workforce, and infrastructure.’
A specific grantee, a specific fund, a specific dollar amount, and specific programmatic objectives had already been identified and drafted into motion language before the Board heard Anderson’s presentation.
11. Scott Anderson then presented the grant proposal. In the course of that presentation—part of the audio recording available through the Utah Public Notice Website—Anderson stated that after Sundance’s relocation announcement, he and others had been tasked by Governor Cox to develop a Sundance replacement and had ultimately recommended an “ecosystem” approach, outlining several programmatic pillars including an AI-enabled soundstage and other broad objectives already being addressed by several established organizations and programs.
12. The Board Chair addressed the source of funds, stating on the record that "the funds were previously allocated to Sundance, but with Sundance leaving has come back,"—in actuality, “the funds were” never disbursed—claiming that this allowed GOEO to “remain within the film vertical.” This statement is the only public explanation ever offered for the funding source and did not acknowledge the lapse provision of S.B. 2, which required that “GOEO shall not disburse the funds,” did not explain GOEO’s legal analysis for treating lapse-directed funds as available for discretionary reuse, and did not disclose that the Legislature would subsequently act to rescind those very funds just weeks later.
13. The Board voted unanimously in favor of the motion—made by Judd Cook, and seconded by Jeremy Andrus. The Chair declared “Motion passes” and addressed Anderson in terms that treated the grant as proceeding, stating the Board looked forward to “being supportive.”
14. 8 JAN 2026 (The same day as the board meeting): GOEO issued two press releases announcing approval of post-performance tax reductions under the REDTIF program. GOEO issued no press release about the $2 million IAA grant, which became publicly known only through subsequent news coverage.
E. 10 FEB 2026: Official Minutes of 8 JAN GOEO Meeting Omit the Funding Source, i.a.
15. 10 FEB 2026: The posted minutes for the 8 JAN 2026 GOEO Board Meeting confirmed the unanimous vote and the motion’s formal language. However, the minutes contain no mention of the Board Chair’s statement that the funds were “previously allocated to Sundance.” This omission removes the most legally significant contextual fact about the grant—its connection to a lapse-triggered appropriation—from the official written record of the meeting.
F. FEB–MAR 2026: Initial GRAMA Request, Denials, and Appeals
16. 9 FEB 2026: Petitioner submitted a GRAMA records request to GOEO seeking records related to the IAA grant, including the grant application or proposal, staff analyses, internal and external communications, legal or fiscal reviews, any scoring or due-diligence materials, and the draft or final grant agreement.
17. 10 FEB 2026: GOEO Public Information Officer Patrick Fitzgibbon prepared a denial letter—dated “February 10, 2026”—asserting that “a formal grant application has not yet been generated or submitted” and that “no decision has been made.” Fitzgibbon did not transmit the denial letter until 17 FEB 2026.
18. 18 FEB 2026: Petitioner challenged the denial, appealing to GOEO’s Chief Administrative Officer. The appeal noted that GOEO’s own official meeting minutes, and press coverage, including—but not limited to—the Salt Lake Business Journal headline (“‘Lights, camera, AI’: Initiative gets $2 million from state”) were difficult to reconcile with GOEO’s claim that no decision had been made.
19. 3 MAR 2025: GOEO Director Jefferson Moss denied the appeal. Moss’s denial letter characterized Anderson’s 8 JAN presentation as a “new concept” intended “to promote public awareness and transparency about a preliminary idea,” and stated that “no funding has been approved.” The denial letter further asserted that “the GOEO Board does not approve this type of grant—it only provided its recommendation.” Each of these characterizations is contradicted by the plain text of the meeting agenda, the Board’s motion, the roll-call vote, the minutes, and the Board Chair’s congratulatory remarks.
20. 5 MAR 2026: Petitioner filed a Notice of Appeal with the Director of the Government Records Office, and a revised notice on 16 MAR. The appeal was assigned Case No. 2026-058. A 17 MAR 2026 scheduling letter confirmed the appeal and identified a tentative hearing date. Following a request by the Attorney General’s Office, the hearing was rescheduled for 28 MAY 2026.
G. MAR 2026: Legislature Formally Rescinds the Sundance Appropriation
21. 16 MAR 2026: Governor Cox signed Senate Bill 3 of the 2026 General Session (“Current Fiscal Year Supplemental Appropriations Act”). Items 27 and 194 of S.B. 3 specifically reduced the GOEO Tourism/Film Commission line by $3.5 million from the Industrial Assistance Account on a one-time basis and transferred those funds to the General Fund. In plain terms: the Legislature took the money back.
22. 12 MAR 2026(before S.B. 3 was signed): Deputy Fiscal Analyst Steven Allred confirmed by email that the Legislature’s position was that the 2025 Sundance appropriation had been made "on the condition that they would receive the funds if they made the decision to remain in the State of Utah" and that S.B. 3 "takes back the appropriated funds." Allred’s email made clear that the Legislature did not treat those funds as having been lawfully available to GOEO for discretionary reuse after Sundance departed.
23. The legislative rescission and Allred’s confirmation are directly material to this appeal. They establish that GOEO’s 8 JAN 2026 decision to redirect lapse-triggered funds was, at a minimum, taken without legislative sanction—and that the records Petitioner requested, showing how GOEO analyzed its authority and what legal or fiscal reviews it conducted, are precisely the documents needed to evaluate whether GOEO acted within its statutory authority.
H. Summary: Why These Records Are Essential
24. The record documented above establishes a clear sequence: (1) a conditional $3.5 million appropriation with an express lapse provision; (2) the triggering of that lapse provision when Sundance departed; (3) a private, executive-branch task force that developed a new nonprofit organization while the lapse provision was in effect; (4) a GOEO Board meeting with a pre-drafted motion, minimal public notice, and no written explanation of the funding source or legal authority; (5) official minutes that omit the most legally significant contextual fact; and (6) a legislative rescission confirming that the funds were never lawfully available for reuse.
25. Against this backdrop, GOEO denied Petitioner’s request for the underlying decision-making records—the documents that would show what GOEO’s staff and legal counsel knew about the lapse provision, what analysis (if any) was conducted about GOEO’s authority to redirect the funds, what communications occurred between the Governor’s office and Scott Anderson during the period when Nuovo was being formed, and what conditions (if any) were imposed on the $2 million grant. These are the records that should have been part of the public record before the vote occurred.
III. LEGAL AUTHORITY AND ARGUMENT
A. GRAMA’s Presumption of Openness Governs
Under Utah Code § 63G-2-201, "[a] record is public unless otherwise expressly provided by statute." This presumption of openness is GRAMA’s foundational principle. The burden is on the governmental entity—not the requester—to justify any denial of access by identifying a specific, applicable statutory exemption. The Director reviews the denial de novo. Utah Code § 63G-2-403(10)(c)(i).
B. The Requested Records Are Public Records
The records Petitioner seeks—application materials, staff analyses, communications, legal or fiscal reviews, and grant agreements—are public records under Utah Code § 63G-2-103(22)(a). They are prepared, owned, received, or retained by GOEO in connection with the transaction of public business: the award of $2 million in state appropriations through the IAA. Records documenting how a government agency analyzed, deliberated over, and authorized a public expenditure are quintessentially public under GRAMA.
C. § 63G-2-305(35) Protected Classification Is Improperly Applied
1. The Harm Requirement Is Not Satisfied
Section 63G-2-305(35) requires that disclosure would result in competitive injury to the person who submitted the information. GOEO cannot categorically assert this harm for all records without record-by-record analysis. A newly formed nonprofit incorporated eight months before the grant vote, with no prior operations and no publicly visible competitive history, cannot credibly assert cognizable competitive harm from disclosure of its grant application materials or the agency’s internal analyses.
2. The Agency’s Own Decision-Making Records Are Not the Submitter’s Records
Staff analyses, internal communications, legal reviews, and board materials created by GOEO are the agency’s own records—not records submitted in confidence by a third party. They cannot be shielded by a business-confidentiality exemption designed to protect information submitted by third parties.
3. The Final-Contract Carve-Out Applies
GRAMA’s protected-record provisions do not shield the terms of a final, executed grant agreement. Utah Code § 63G-2-305(35) cannot properly be invoked to shield a public contract between a state agency and a grant recipient.
4. No Record-by-Record Analysis Was Conducted
GRAMA requires individualized analysis. A categorical denial without examining each record and explaining why each qualifies for protection does not satisfy the agency’s burden under the de novo standard of review. Utah Code § 63G-2-403(10)(c)(i).
D. Segregation Requirement Mandates Partial Disclosure
Even if some portions of some records are legitimately protected, Utah Code § 63G-2-308 requires GOEO to disclose the non-protected portions. Wholesale withholding of documents containing mixed public and non-public information is not authorized. Petitioner does not seek disclosure of genuinely proprietary trade secrets—Petitioner seeks the agency’s own decision-making record.
E. Public Interest in Disclosure Is Exceptionally Strong
The Director has independent authority under Utah Code § 63G-2-403(11)(b) to order disclosure of protected records if “the public interest favoring access is greater than or equal to the interest favoring restriction of access.” Here, the public interest is compelling on multiple grounds:
The central question this appeal raises is whether GOEO complied with the lapse provision in S.B. 2. The Legislature’s own fiscal analyst has confirmed that the Legislature did not treat those funds as lawfully available for reuse. The public cannot evaluate GOEO’s statutory compliance without access to the agency’s own legal and fiscal analyses.
Statutory compliance is directly at issue.The public meeting notice provided no meaningful information. No press release was issued. The official minutes omitted the most important contextual fact. The only public record of the funding rationale is twelve minutes of audio in a fifty-minute recording.
The grant was approved through an opaque process.Nuovo Film Festival, Inc. was incorporated eight months before the grant vote by the same individual who presented the proposal to the Board. No competitive solicitation has been identified. The public has a legitimate interest in knowing what analysis GOEO conducted about this selection.
The grantee was formed during a private executive-branch process.S.B. 3 (2026) pulled the $3.5 million back to the General Fund—an action that confirms the Legislature never sanctioned GOEO’s reuse of those funds. The records Petitioner seeks would show whether GOEO was aware of the legal risk and proceeded anyway.
The Legislature subsequently rescinded the funds.The grant has been voted on, publicly reported, and the subject of legislative action. There is no ongoing procurement, no pending competitive bid, and no litigation that would be prejudiced by disclosure of the underlying decision-making record.
No countervailing harm justifies withholding.
F. Utah Code §§ 63N-1a-306 and 63N-1a-307 Imposes an Independent Disclosure Obligation
Utah Code §§ 63N-1a-306 and 63N-1a-307 imposes an affirmative disclosure obligation on GOEO with respect to certain IAA expenditures, requiring that information about grant recipients and purposes be made publicly available. To the extent withheld records fall within the scope of that provision, GOEO’s withholding violates both GRAMA and §§ 63N-1a-306 and 63N-1a-307’s independent transparency mandate.
IV. RELIEF SOUGHT
Petitioner respectfully requests that the Director of the Government Records Office:
1. Order GOEO to produce all records responsive to Petitioner’s GRAMA request that were denied or withheld in whole or in part, including but not limited to: the application or proposal submitted by Nuovo Film Festival, Inc.; all staff analyses, due-diligence reviews, and scoring evaluations; internal and external communications relating to the grant from the period 27 MAR 2025 through 8 JAN 2026; any legal or fiscal reviews addressing GOEO’s authority to use funds subject to the S.B. 2 lapse provision; the draft or final grant agreement; and any board materials prepared for the 8 JAN 2026 meeting;
2. In the alternative, order GOEO to conduct a record-by-record review of each withheld document, provide a detailed written index identifying each document and the specific statutory basis for each withholding, and segregate and produce all non-protected portions pursuant to Utah Code § 63G-2-308;
3. Find that GOEO’s categorical application of Utah Code § 63G-2-305(35) to the agency’s own decision-making records was improper and did not satisfy the harm requirement or the individualized-review requirement;
4. Find that GOEO’s own internal analyses, communications, and board materials do not qualify as protected records submitted by a third party in confidence;
5. Order production of the final grant agreement in its entirety, to the extent such a record exists, as a public contract not properly shielded by § 63G-2-305(35);
6. Weigh the public interest under Utah Code § 63G-2-403(11)(b) and find that the public interest in transparency over a $2 million expenditure of lapse-directed appropriations, made through an opaque process, outweighs any interest in restricting access;
7. Issue a written decision with findings of fact and legal conclusions sufficient to create a clear precedential record regarding GRAMA’s application to economic development grant records; and
8. Preserve Petitioner’s right to seek costs and attorney fees in any subsequent judicial review under Utah Code § 63G-2-405(4).
V. CONCLUSION
On 27 MAR 2025, the Sundance Institute announced that its namesake Film Festival was leaving Utah. On that same day, a statutory lapse provision became operative—requiring GOEO to refrain from spending $3.5 million in appropriated funds and to allow them to lapse. Within two months, a new nonprofit organization was incorporated by the individual who—by his own account—had been privately tasked by the Governor’s administration to develop a Sundance replacement. Within eight months, that same organization was the beneficiary of a $2 million IAA grant approved through a process that gave the public almost no advance notice, produced official minutes that omitted the funding source, and generated no proactive press release. Within weeks of the vote, the Legislature passed S.B. 3 to rescind the appropriation entirely—confirming it was never lawfully available for reuse.
The records Petitioner seeks are the agency’s own contemporaneous documentation of this sequence: the analyses, communications, and legal reviews that show what GOEO knew, what it considered, and on what basis it decided to redirect funds the Legislature had directed to lapse. Those records should have been part of the public record before the vote was taken.
Petitioner respectfully asks the Director to order their disclosure and to issue a written decision reaffirming that the public has a right to see the information government actually relied upon when deciding how to spend public funds—particularly when that decision involved funds that a specific statutory directive required to lapse.
Respectfully submitted,
(SIGNED)
Joseph L. Puente
Petitioner / Records Appellant
Salt Lake City, Utah…
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of this Petitioner’s Statement Of Facts, Reasons, And Legal Authority has been served via email upon the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, et. al, on the same date it was submitted to the Government Records Office, in accordance with Administrative Rule R20-3-2(2):
(SIGNED)
Joseph L. Puente
Salt Lake City
_________________________________
EXHIBITS
The following documents are attached and incorporated by reference.
_________________________________
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Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Government Records Office