THE ISSUES

Process & Planning
Housing
Commercial growth
Taxes
Public Safety
Infrastructure
Recycling

Process & Planning

I have served on the City Council for almost five years, with two different mayors and city managers. I have seen what works and what doesn’t. As mayor, I will exercise care for the following concepts in need of attention:

Public participation: State law requires a minimum for transparency and public hearings. Leaders should go beyond that when they know a topic matters to the public.
Strategic planning: There is currently no strategic plan for the city’s communications, or economic development, or budget. That needs to change. An update on the city’s General Plan is finally underway. That is the vision for how Clinton will grow in the coming years. The next mayor needs to ensure the public’s voice is truly reflected in that plan.
Careful preparation: Major updates to our laws and land use should undergo thorough, transparent analysis and should be available in fully developed draft form long before the public hearing. The City Council should receive their agenda packets well in advance of meetings. No more last-minute overhauls to ordinances or development agreements. That’s not fair to the public.
Expert input: The City’s department heads should have a strong voice in educating the full City Council at every stage of the decision making process.
Civility: The mayor is the chair of the council and should ensure decorum. Personal attacks have no place on the council.

Housing

Prioritize small single-family lots to help the housing shortage.
Emphasize ownership.
Don’t line corridors with apartments.
Nestle townhomes/multi-family in smaller pockets, behind commercial. Blend well.
Don’t zone for huge acreages of attached housing that look like walls and walls of sameness.
Protect Clinton’s less urban family-focused character.

Utah has major problems with housing affordability. All the researchers say the root issue is that supply isn’t keeping up with demand. State leaders are asking all cities to make way for more housing supply. The legislature passed a law that says cities have to prove every year that they are doing something to support moderate-income housing. The law doesn’t force what that something is … yet.

I have personally discussed this issue with hundreds and hundreds of Clinton residents during my time on the City Council. They’re frustrated because they see apartments and townhomes going up all over the Wasatch Front, but prices aren’t going down.

A good 70% of them tell me they are not opposed to growth. They understand it’s healthy for a community to have various types of housing. They might support some small pockets of townhomes or other attached housing, if the units are configured to blend well. But, above all, they would like Clinton to prioritize small single-family lots. They ask me to do everything I can to protect Clinton’s less urban, family-focused character.

In 2024, the council voted unanimously to approve the mix of small single homes and townhomes being built on the north end of Clinton, near 2000 West. But it only got my vote as part of a negotiation after I fought for a better process. I pushed for buffers of larger lots and green space near the existing homes, and to give the small homes regular streets instead of private drives. When the current mayor wanted the developer to be free to remove sidewalks, I argued vigorously to keep them.

The current mayor and other elected officials wanted more density in our ordinance, and I came out of that experience a little metaphorically bruised and battered. But I gained an even greater passion for protecting the public’s voice. That paved the way for what came next.

For the first time in Clinton’s history, the public carried out a referendum petition to overturn a City Council decision, gaining more signatures than the number of voters who have ever voted in a Clinton election. That doesn’t happen unless there’s something very wrong with the process and the public isn’t feeling heard.

It was a 35-acre project on the west edge of the city, with 80% townhomes. It was too much, too big, and it was configured with all the rear walls of the attached townhomes lining the outskirts, like a fortress. The current mayor pushed hard for the project’s approval, and I voted no. I knew the project went against the vision of a majority of Clinton residents. The project passed on a 3-2 vote. Residents who had filled the room for a public hearing and witnessed a very flawed process left disillusioned and launched the referendum.

As the petition gained momentum, I went out and helped gather signatures. (State law protects the right of elected officials to advocate for a referendum.) This was big, and I needed to do everything in my power to protect the voice of the people. The petition would have been successful if not for outside individuals, hired by the developer, who ended up deceiving some Clinton residents into removing their names from the petition. That deception led to a lawsuit, and now the landowner is working to negotiate a better development plan.

When residents say, “We understand growth, but we’re also asking you to protect the things we love — the things that make this place feel like Clinton,” they mean it.

Commercial growth

Clinton doesn’t have an economic development plan. We should have one. There will be elements of economic planning in our General Plan update, which is finally underway, but we need a strategic plan for how to professionally market our city to the kinds of business and commercial developments that residents want.

Commercial retail generates more revenue for the city than any other use of land. That’s why it’s so important for our city’s long-term health. Commercial landowners pay property taxes on 100% of their land’s value. (Residential landowners pay on 55% of their value.) Plus, many commercial properties generate sales tax. The more sales tax revenue we have, the less we have to raise our property tax.

Taxes

We should only raise property taxes when necessary, and only by the amount necessary to balance the budget according to state law.
What’s “necessary” should be decided through transparent, strategic planning that includes public input early in the process.
We shouldn’t raise taxes simply to put money into the city’s savings account. Residents should keep money in their own savings accounts until the city actually needs to use it. In cases where an upcoming project is too expensive to fund in a single year, officials should strategize the most cost-effective way of paying for it and prove that to the public.
Anything above 25% general fund balance should go toward necessary projects so the city isn’t hoarding surpluses from prior years.
Annual property tax increases “slow boil the taxpayers,” to quote the Utah Taxpayers Association. A tax increase should not be presumed. Each year should be analyzed on its own merits to see if other sources of revenue can offset the property tax, or if expenditures can be cut.

Public Safety

When I first joined the City Council in 2021, I listened carefully to the concerns of our new police chief, who felt the department was understaffed for Clinton’s population. I successfully advocated for a new officer that year.

In the years since, the City Council has added funding for several new police officers and fire/medical personnel. We have high-caliber departments, and Clinton is regularly rated among the safest cities.

There is more work to do, including a strategic analysis of our employee retention. I’m committed to that work. My interaction with the public tells me a supermajority of residents place high priority on the city’s safety. A supermajority support our first responders.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, we’ve received more complaints about speeding, noise, domestic issues, and other disturbances that expose societal tensions. The more proactive our first responders can be, the greater the opportunity for reducing stressors and building community.

Infrastructure

I pushed to get an additional $250,000 last year in ongoing funds to maintain our streets. The Council agreed, and we are working to catch up on slurry seals and other basic maintenance that prolongs the life of our infrastructure. Streets, water lines, sewer lines — it’s all incredibly expensive. Inflation in the aftermath of the pandemic doubled our infrastructure costs and drained the bulk of the $8 million capital improvements fund our Public Works/Engineering team had worked so hard to build. We are aiming to rebuild that fund, and this year’s budget moves $500,000 in excess general fund balance to it.

Our engineer says we need at least another $1 million per year to properly stay on top of our street maintenance and to replace old, crumbling areas. One idea is to implement a monthly utility fee specifically for streets. We haven’t studied the idea in depth, but I believe it’s worth considering as a transparent way to address street maintenance.

Beyond streets, I support the construction of our new water well to create redundancy in our water system, and I support the fiberglass lining of our aging sewer system to increase longevity and prevent high replacement costs. The monthly utility funds that run these infrastructure services should be managed as if they were individual businesses, and should ensure proper funding to stay on top of system maintenance.

Recycling

The Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District, which controls the landfill and recycling center, plans to require every city to have a citywide recycling program or face fines. They cite the shrinking life of the landfill, long miles and emissions from trucking waste to outside facilities, and principles of environmental stewardship.

We don’t know when that requirement will begin. When it does, Clinton will institute a citywide recycling program, and residents will pay for that line item on their monthly utility bill. My guess is it will be about $5 per month.