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MILLCREEK — There's no shortage of community members eager to lead Millcreek's transition from township to Salt Lake County's 17th city.
Thirty-five candidates will be competing in next month's primary election to be Millcreek's first elected city officials. Nine are mayoral hopefuls, and the rest are competing to fill four City Council seats.
It's been more than a decade since the county has seen a more crowded mayoral race, said Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen. In 1999, 11 candidates competed to replace outgoing Mayor Deedee Corradini, a race ultimately won by Rocky Anderson.
It's no surprise that Utah's capital city would draw so much interest, but Swensen said she's thrilled to see such high engagement in Millcreek's community of 60,000.
"It definitely shows there is a tremendous amount of interest in the development of the new city," she said. "And that's exciting."
While the rest of Utah will be voting on legislative, school board and other incorporated races, Millcreek voters will also get to decide on who will lead their community into a new era.
It's that excitement, plus community members' desire to ensure Millcreek starts off strong, that has drawn such a crowded pool of candidates, said Millcreek Township Council Chairwoman Lee Ann Hansen.
"Everybody wants a seat at the table," Hansen said. "I think some are excited that we are going to be a city, while others are people who didn't support being a city, so they want to make sure we don't get off to a rough start. … This is so new, so they want to do it the right way."
Voters last year chose to make Millcreek the county's fifth-largest city by a 2-to-1 margin, launching a special 2016 election to choose the city's first mayor and City Council.
Next month, Millcreek voters will decide who will advance to the November ballot. After the fall election, Millcreek's new leaders will have less than two months before Jan. 1, 2017, when the township will wean itself from Salt Lake County to operate under its own government.
The 2015 vote was a complete turnaround from 2012, when Millcreek voters rejected incorporation by 60 percent to 40 percent — an issue that continued to divide the community up until last year's decision, Hansen said.
"Now everyone's saying, 'Let's move forward. Let's get good people in,'" she said. "We want to get this right, and we want Millcreek to get off to a good start."
Two mayoral candidates come from last year's pro-city campaign: Fred Healey, who was chairman of Millcreek Neighbors for Representative Government, and Jeff Silvestrini, a committee member of that group and chairman of the Mount Olympus Community Council.
Also running for mayor are Scott Howell, Phillip Archer, Edward Frank, Craig Cook, Becky Moss, Verdi White and Jo-Ann Wong.
The City Council candidates are:
- District 1: Gar Hendry, Diane Angus, Thomas Richards, Silvia Catten and Lorrin Colby Jr.
- District 2: John Douglas, Rivka Richman, Dwayne Vance, Dwight Marchant and Jamie Walker.
- District 3: Bob Shupe, Chaskey Barry, Jem Keller, Cheri Jackson, Adam Zimmerman, John Lish, Don Willie and Jeffrey Waters.
- District 4: Vaughn Howard, Robert Beardshall, Lisa Bagley, Barry Bowen, Bev Uipi, Seraya Amirthalingam, Lamont Tyler and Kurt Zimmerman. The Millcreek Township Council will be holding three meet-the-candidate nights this month: - Wednesday, May 18: The 10 hopefuls competing for City Council Districts 1 and 2 will be at Millcreek Elementary, 3761 S. 1100 East, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
- Tuesday, May 24: The nine mayoral candidates will be at Wasatch Junior High School, 3750 S. 3100 East, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
- Thursday, May 26: The 16 candidates for City Council Districts 3 and 4 will be at Wasatch Junior High from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
