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SALT LAKE CITY — All seven members of the Salt Lake City Council announced Thursday they are endorsing Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall in the city's mayoral race this November.
Council members Victoria Petro, Alejandro Puy, Chris Wharton, Ana Valdemoros, Darin Mano, Dan Dugan and Sarah Young released a joint statement backing Mendenhall as a "positive vision for our city's future."
"Mayor Mendenhall boldly led the city through the pandemic, through the earthquakes, through the windstorm and through the flooding; and she did it without demonizing our allies or picking fights with our would-be partners," the statement reads. "Salt Lakers deserve leaders who are more interested in making progress than playing politics, who are willing to make tough decisions rather than complaining about difficult situations and who are unafraid to work together to get results."
Mendenhall, who took office at the start of 2020, is running against former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and community activist Michael Valentine. In a video Thursday, the incumbent said it is "quite an honor" to have the endorsement of the entire council ahead of the election.
"I am humbled and grateful and I hope to keep working with the city council to do more and do it better for this city than we ever have before," Mendenhall said.
Anderson, who fell behind in campaign fundraising by a 2-to-1 ratio between mid-February and July, shrugged off the council's joint endorsement on Thursday, calling the body "sycophantic" to Mendenhall in a statement to KSL.com. He argues the city hasn't done enough to address homelessness, affordable housing or crime, asserting that the metrics it uses for success are skewed or misleading.
"The failures of the Mendenhall administration, supported by the council, have led to the severe degradation of our city," the statement reads, in part. "Fear by parents who want their children to be able to walk to school safely and use our public parks, and a lack of any reasonable progress in helping homeless people transition from their present circumstances — to the detriment of everyone in our city."
The mayoral candidates are currently set to square off in nine debates or forums over the next three months.
It all leads up to the city's election on Nov. 21, where ranked-choice voting will be used for the first time to decide the mayoral race.
Who is running for office in Salt Lake City?
The council's endorsements come after the deadline to run for office in the city passed last week. Four of the seven current council members are up for reelection themselves, though Puy is running uncontested.
There are four city council races this year because of a special election to fill the seat vacated by former councilwoman Amy Fowler, who formally resigned from her District 7 seat in July following a DUI arrest in May.
Less than two weeks after her resignation, the council selected Young, chief of staff to the state superintendent at the Utah State Board of Education, to fill in for the remainder of this year. She and Molly Jones, who also applied to be a replacement, are vying in the special election to serve out the final two years of that term.
Here are all the names on this year's ballot:
Mayor
- Rocky Anderson
- Erin Mendenhall (incumbent)
- Michael Valentine
District 2: Fairpark, Glendale, Poplar Grove, Downtown
- Alejandro Puy (incumbent)
District 4: Central City, Downtown, East Central
- Eva Lopez Chavez
- Clayton Scrivner
- Ana Valdemoros (incumbent)
District 6: Bonneville Hills, East Bench, Sunnyside East, Wasatch Hollow, Yalecrest
- James Alfandre
- Jack Bellows
- Dan Dugan (incumbent)
- Taymour Semnani
District 7: Sugar House
- Molly Jones
- Sarah Young (incumbent)
