- Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall reports progress on Salt Lake City's public safety plan.
- Twelve of 27 strategies have been completed, focusing on housing, addiction resources and security.
- Mendenhall urges state support, citing systemic challenges.
SALT LAKE CITY — Six months after acknowledging that Salt Lake City wasn't doing enough to ensure public safety, Mayor Erin Mendenhall on Wednesday announced that "tremendous progress" has been made in implementing the city's public safety plan.
But as she did in January, the mayor is also calling on state leaders to do more on their end to support what she says should be a collaborative effort.
"I want to be candid about the other goals that are outside of the city's sphere. I'm disappointed and I wish more progress was made on those external recommendations during this year's legislative session. The city advocated for several clear policy changes that would have better advanced this plan, but many of them failed to pass through the Legislature," she said.
"We cannot keep doing this alone. This crisis demands sustainable, long-term funding from the state to meet the scale of this challenge in the fastest-growing state in this nation."
In January, Mendenhall announced the city's public safety plan, which included 27 strategies and 23 urgent recommendations for partners at the state and county levels to improve safety in Utah's capital city.
Wednesday, while standing in front of the north entrance of the Salt Lake City-County Building, along with Police Chief Brian Redd, the mayor announced that 12 of those 27 strategies have now been completed. Many of them deal with emergency shelter options, affordable housing, and continuing to fight the drug problem and provide more mental health and addiction resources.
Mendenhall also pointed to the city investing millions into public safety.
"And as part of those investments, we've now added park security across nine city parks and along key sections of the Jordan River Trail. We're improving street lighting in high-traffic areas, with several more trailer lights arriving by the end of this month. And we've committed an unprecedented-in-city-history $5 million toward deeply affordable housing this year. Because we know that housing stability is essential to public safety and reducing an individual's criminal justice system involvement," she said.
Officers have given extra attention to cleaning up areas such as the Jordan River Parkway, which was closed for three months, and the Ballpark Neighborhood, the chief and mayor said.
Mendenhall also praised Redd, whom she picked as the city's new police chief in February to replace Mike Brown.
"Under Chief Redd's leadership, Salt Lake City ended June on an eight-year low for overall crime. And we're on track to finish out the year, 2025, with over 1,000 more jail bookings that 2024," Mendenhall said.
According to the city's statistics, overall crime is down, both year-to-date compared to the same time last year and over the past three-year average.
However, overall violent crime is up. According to the city's statistics, aggravated assault, robbery and rape are all up compared to a year ago.
Residential burglaries in particular have been on the rise for the past several months. Redd believes that is due, in part, to the successes officers have had combating the drug problem around the city. He says the street price of fentanyl is up, which is driving some to commit other crimes to support their addictions.
This is where Redd and Mendenhall say support from those outside of Salt Lake City is needed to address the intersection of crime, homelessness, addiction and mental health issues.
"It does no good to treat someone and release them back to the same environment," Redd said, adding that the "system" needs to be better aligned so that people can get help getting sober.
Mendenhall says these short-term "wins" will not distract the city from achieving its overall public safety plan. But police cannot do it alone.
"They are not equipped to solve every problem. And they shouldn't have to be. Their job is to protect our community and enforce the law. And I want you to hear me when I say that our officers are as frustrated as anyone at the way that our system is failing so many individuals," she said.
"Salt Lake City is not letting a broken system prevent us from fixing the pieces that we can control," she added. "We are not letting a lack of space in the shelter system mean a lack of effort on our part."
