COMPARE CANDIDATES

1. Rocky had a broad reputation for accessibility and transparency as Mayor. “Anderson has changed the way city officials interact with their constituents, making his administration one of the most accessible in the country." Sasha Abramsky, "The Other Rocky,” The Nation, Dec. 15, 2006, found at https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/other-rocky/.

      As Mayor for 8 years, Rocky returned calls, responded to all letters, and held monthly Saturday Mornings With the Mayor, One-on-One Meetings, and News & Community Conferences, providing the media and everyone in the community frequent opportunities to ask questions, provide information, suggestions, or criticism, and obtain information from Rocky and the directors of all City departments.
       Mayor Mendenhall has, at most, set aside one hour per month to meet (often by remote video) with a maximum of six people for no more than ten minutes each. That’s not access; it’s an insulting pretense of accessibility that allows no meaningful opportunity for constituents to communicate directly with their mayor.
      She has been nearly as inaccessible with the media—through whom the public relies for information about our government. Most often, she has someone else do her speaking for her—as if she were royalty or an out-of-touch celebrity rather than a leader answerable to members of the public.

"I wrote to Mayor Mendenhall about crucial matters affecting my business, employees, and neighbors but she never got back to me—until, months later, I went to the news media. That was the opposite of my experience with Rocky when he was Mayor. He always responded and was always accessible, whether we agreed or disagreed."
-John Gardiner, CEO, Gardiner Properties LLC.

2. Instead of unsheltered people camping throughout the city, being outside in the freezing cold (leading to at least six deaths so far this winter, as of January 18, 2023), and being subject to raids and evictions by the police and the destruction of their property by SLC Streets Division employees or a company contracted with the City, Rocky has favored a central camp and alternative shelter sanctioned by the city that would provide safe, decent toilets, showers, laundry facilities, food, outreach workers, and access to mental health and addiction treatment, such as the camps in Denver or the Courtyard at Haven for Hope in San Antonio.

Mayor Mendenhall has opposed such proven, successful solutions, ("Heck no," she said. "Sorry, Salt Lake City is not doing a designated camping area.") https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/11/25/should-utah-give-homeless/) and later said she and the City will not provide the leadership for such solutions—that it "must be led by" the County and the State. https://local.sltrib.com/legal-campgrounds/index.php As a result, there have been homeless encampments in parks, downtown, and in many neighborhoods, they have been raided relentlessly by SLCPD officers, property at those encampments has been confiscated and destroyed, and unsheltered people have been freezing and dying unnecessarily. All of this has been inhumane, cruel, and without justification.

3. While Salt Lake City’s streets, parks, and neighborhoods have been the sites of homeless encampments, with no coherent plan by Mayor Mendenhall for a solution, the camps set up by unsheltered people have been cruelly raided, repeatedly (more than a hundred times) by the SLCPD and the SLC Streets Division staff, pushing the people off from their camps and destroying their property if they are unable to remove it in time, with no alternatives offered to them for a place to live. As one article described the situation: "Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County are, to a certain extent, currently enforcing no-camping ordinances—but with no

designated camping area, it’s simply moving camping around the city and into neighborhoods."
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/10/6/23391389/homeless-camping-salt-lake-city-pioneer-park-coalition-plan-homelessness
One SLCPD Captain’s description of the meanness and pointlessness of the raids and confiscations was reported as follows:

Even when police or county health officials clear people from an area, SLCPD Captain Derek Dimond told city officials that officers know most campers don’t have other options and will likely set up somewhere else—and officers will likely be instructed to clear that space, too.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/07/22/mural-homeless-youth-salt-lake/

The Salt Lake Tribune has described the terrible trauma and suffering incurred by homeless people as a result of the absence of sensible alternatives, a coherent plan by the Mayor, and the inhumane raids by police and others contracted by the Mendenhall administration at https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/01/14/help-us-tensions-build-among/. Rocky is also extremely concerned about good, compassionate police officers and contractor employees being placed in the position of being ordered to engage in such cruel treatment toward members of the homeless community. According to Rocky, "It must be tremendously demoralizing for many of our city's police officers to be seen as the tools of the Mayor's incredibly inhumane treatment of homeless people, especially when their plight is a result of the failures of leadership by our city's Mayor."

Rocky has termed this "the lowest point in Salt Lake City’s history in terms of humane treatment of people in need." As Mayor, Rocky always made certain there were adequate shelter facilities for homeless people and that they were treated humanely.

The Los Angeles Times applauded Salt Lake City for providing a large overflow shelter for homeless people during the Olympics, stating, in an article entitled "Olympian Effort to Handle Homeless," that "as the city prepares to take the world spotlight Feb. 8, it is proving as hospitable to the down-and-out as it is to the moneyed."

The city has gathered hundreds of volunteers to help the homeless and last week opened a new emergency homeless shelter—not in some distant suburb but just a few blocks from where the figure skaters and ice dancers will compete.

It’s the first time, officials say, that an Olympic host city has added an emergency shelter—with 450 beds—to accommodate the expected overflow of homeless people.
* * *

Salt Lake City . . . is putting out the welcome mat. "We respect the human and civil rights of everyone, including the homeless, during these Olympics," said Mayor Rocky Anderson, a former attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We won’t be doing roundups or anything like that. This community is very caring toward the homeless."

The ACLU said it has received no complaints of mistreatment from homeless people.

Tom Gorman, "Olympian Effort to Handle Homeless," Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2002, found at https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jan-31-mn-25711-story.html

As a City, we were proud of our compassionate treatment of homeless people when Rocky was Mayor. Now, the inhumane treatment of homeless people by the Mendenhall administration is a source of community shame and outrage.

4.   As a resident of Salt Lake City, with his law office downtown, Rocky wrote to Mayor Mendenhall and a City Council member, pointing out many of the serious problems relating to filth and crime in the downtown area. He urged that public toilets be provided for those who need to relieve themselves, noting that human feces and urine were commonly found throughout the downtown area and in several neighborhoods. In fact, Rocky’s dog Teddy, while being walked, picked up a large piece of human feces just a few feet from Main Street and Exchange Place.
      Also, almost every morning, Rocky and other tenants of the beautiful, historic-renovated building where his law office was located on 300 South and Main St. were greeted at the art deco entrance with puddles of urine. (At one point during the frustrating course of his correspondence with the Mayor and the Council Member, Rocky sent them an email with a photo of a urine puddle in the doorway and noted that, in fact, there was a public urinal, after all—the entrance to his building.)
      The correspondence continued for several months, with the Mayor shuffling the matter off to a staff person. The only answer provided was that the City would pay a private company to clean up the feces and urine if they were called. Rocky expressed his utter dismay and anger that there was no

concern or compassion by the elected officials regarding the human dignity and hygiene of people who need to relieve themselves but have no access to a bathroom. He also expressed his disgust that they also seemed to have no concern for the residents, businesses, and visitors in our city who are so often exposed to the human filth in our downtown and throughout several neighborhoods. Rocky found it disgraceful that the "solution" of having a private company clean up after the fact appeared to be "good enough" for our City in the minds of the Mayor and the Council member. You can read the correspondence at: https://www.rocky4mayor.com/uploads/1/4/2/8/142863209/2020-2021_rcaemailswithmayormendenhallsofficereneedforslcpublictoilets_upload2.pdf

5. The Mendenhall administration has handed out millions of dollars in subsidies to developers, including for housing for homeless people, without requiring buildings be electrified and that the electricity come from a clean, renewable source. As a decades-long internationally renowned advocate for climate protection and clean air, Rocky would attach to all SLC subsidies for construction a requirement that clean, renewable energy be utilized.

6. The Mendenhall administration has said it will, down the road, sign a deal for clean energy with Rocky Mountain Power, as several other cities will also do. But the Mayor has not done anything innovative or exceptionally effective to earn national or international attention.

When he was Mayor, Rocky arranged with Rocky Mountain Power for Salt Lake City to be the state’s largest purchaser of clean, renewable energy. Rocky was known as one of the greenest mayors in the nation and, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, was one of the top 20 climate protection activists worldwide. Because

of his effective, innovative environmental programs, he received the EPA’s Climate Protection Award, the World Leadership Award (Environment), and the national Distinguished Service Award from the Sierra Club.
A presentation produced and narrated by Rocky, describing how Salt Lake City reduced greenhouse gas emissions in its municipal operations by 31% in three years, and how it provided international climate protection leadership, is found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MKcHOqJp6Y&t=6s.
Rocky teamed up with Robert Redford and ICLEI in hosting mayors from around the country annually for three years at the Sundance Summit, to teach about the climate crisis, how best to educate constituents about it, and the best local practices to combat it. See Leigh Dethman, "Rocky hopes local fight on climate won’t cool," Deseret News, September 8, 2007, found at https://www.deseret.com/2007/9/8/20040158/rocky-hopes-local-fight-on-climate-won-t-cool.

7. In March 2021, Mayor Mendenhall said her administration was working at "light speed" to get housing for homeless people at The Other Side Village "up and running" by winter of 2021. (See "Mayor Mendenhall, The Other Side Academy to Partner on Tiny Home Pilot This Winter," March 29, 2021, found at https://www.slc.gov/mayor/2021/04/29/mayor-mendenhall-the-other-side-academy-to-partner-on-tiny-home-pilot-this-winter/.) By the winter of 2022, nothing was yet built! Had the administration acted with the urgency the matter deserved, hundreds of people could have been out of the cold in the homes at The Other Side Village during the winters of 2021 and 2022.
The same has happened with so many other projects, such as the former Public Safety Building at 500 East and 200 South and surrounding property, which has been, for the entirety of the Mendenhall administration, nothing but an eyesore, public nuisance, and lost opportunity.
Rocky has pledged that, under his administration, the property will be developed into an attractive and beneficial amenity for our City.
Also, consider the Seven Canyons Fountain at Liberty Park, which, for the entirety of the Mendenhall administration (and even before), has remained closed because of inaction, inattention, and plodding, wasteful government-by-consultant-and-committees.

When Rocky was Mayor, the Seven Canyons Fountain had to be shut down because it didn’t initially have a filter system. Rocky immediately raised substantial money from private sources, worked to have the City allocate money toward the project, and Seven Canyons was rapidly fixed and opened for the public’s enjoyment.
The difference has been that Rocky knows how to get things done.

8.   Rocky changed the culture of the SLCPD during his tenure, making it clear that good police should be respected and appreciated by the community, but that police who abused their power or failed to perform their jobs would face accountability. Rocky also formed the state’s first Civilian Review Board, investigating and making discipline recommendations in individual cases. He also formed the state’s first Crisis Intervention Team, training police officers how to recognize and deal with mental illness.
      Mayor Mendenhall and the current Chief of Police have both said they "support" the failure of two police officers to put into practice their training and give aid to a man who was bleeding to death from a knife wound. Also, note from the below investigative pieces how the changing excuses for the first-responders’ failure to give aid to a man with a severe knife wound were promoted by the Mayor, who when asked if she would prefer that first-responders be willing and able to utilize their first-aid training to help a person in need, stated (like the School Police Chief in Uvalde) that "I want our officers to be safe. That’s their job."
      Rocky would never tolerate the failure of SLC’s first-responders to provide assistance to a person who was bleeding profusely.
      Watch these shocking investigative pieces:

9. At the behest of Mayor Mendenhall, who has recklessly increased City government spending, including for the creation of several new departments and department directors and other administrators, Salt Lake City property taxes were recently increased 4.9%.
During the eight years of Rocky’s time as Mayor, property taxes were never increased and Rocky increased the "rainy day" reserve fund by more than 62%.

10. According to former Chief of Police Chris Burbank, while Rocky was Mayor, he set a goal of 6 minutes or less for priority 1 calls to the police and monitored its accomplishment by calling the Chief regularly.

Under Mayor Mendenhall, SLCPD response times have been abysmal and, instead of improving performance to meet the prior goal, the SLCPD Chief has dangerously lowered the bar by setting the "goal" at 10 minutes.
Mayor Mendenhall said it is not her job to set police response times, because it shouldn’t be "politically directed." Watch this disturbing investigative report: https://www.fox13now.com/news/fox-13-investigates/fox-13-investigates-salt-lake-city-lowers-the-bar-for-police-response-times. Keep in mind that if someone is being raped or assaulted, but police don’t arrive in time to find anyone on scene, the crime statistics will not include the crimes. Violent crime rates (which have increased about 20% in the past two years) don’t correctly reflect the level of crime when the police fail to show up.

11.   Salt Lake City’s housing is now incredibly unaffordable for most people. Unaffordable housing is the major cause of homelessness. (Please read this excellent article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/homelessness-affordable-housing-crisis-democrats-causes/672224/)
      The failure of City government to stop the rampant gentrification of Salt Lake City and to provide adequate affordable housing is a betrayal to us all. Mayor Mendenhall has proposed nothing other than the old formula of zoning changes and subsidies to developers.
      Rocky is passionate about doing what works best—and about making radical changes to provide adequate mixed-income affordable housing (for people at all income levels). He vigorously advocates that the city directly build mixed-income social housing that could provide hundreds or thousands of housing units for people at almost every income category (see Peter Dreier, "Why America Needs More Social Housing," The American Prospect, April 16, 2018, found at https://prospect.org/infrastructure/america-needs-social-housing/), in addition to partnering with the State, County, and philanthropists to build far more permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people, as was being done when Rocky was Mayor.

12.   During her last campaign, then-candidate Mendenhall issued a mailer “that strongly hints she is a Mormon, when in fact she is not.” Bob Bernick, “Mendenhall mailer makes religion a last-minute issue in race for SLC mayor,” Utah Policy, October 31, 2019, found here. “The mailer, signed by several faithful LDS Church members, says they have ‘worshipped with her,’ ‘visit taught’ her and ‘served with her’—all Mormon societal buzz phrases that could well lead readers to believe Mendenhall is LDS.” Id.
      That letter refers to “her policy vision and plans” including “the return of neighborhood cleanup day.” Three years into her term, Mayor Mendenhall has yet to fulfill her promise to return to our residents the hugely popular curb-side clean-up program.
      During Rocky’s eight years as Mayor, the curb-side clean-up program was reliably conducted every year, all within budget and without any property tax increases. Rocky will restore the program immediately upon being sworn in for the third time as Salt Lake City’s greenest and most responsive, accessible Mayor.

ROCKY III