This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Over the last four years, I have watched and complained about the public safety issue that affects the residents and businesses of Salt Lake City. Salt Lake County does not adequately fund for enough jail beds and for prosecution and the jail has become a revolving door for the criminal element that is getting increasingly bolder.
A January 2017 Salt Lake City Police report showed how bad crime was getting in Salt Lake City. Despite successful efforts of SLCPD to reduce serious crime like homicide, robbery and burglary by 7 percent, over 10,000 crimes occurred and the perpetrator could not be arrested and booked into jail and remained on the street to threaten law abiding citizens. Criminals could not be arrested for open drug use, public drunkenness, forgery, property damage, prostitution, retail theft, simple assault, threatening residents and trespass. Unfortunately, there have been very few complaints from the City Council about this serious issue.
The Council finally complained about the jail restrictions a year after it was put into effect. And, despite many news stories about the homeless issues, the situation in the Rio Grande area is getting worse and spreading throughout the City with homeless camping.
My main reason for running, is I am tired of the City Council saying that crime is down when criminals victimize residents. Until criminals can be arrested and booked into jail, and prosecuted, no one should be happy about the crime rate and the Council should be vigorously complaining. When State Street motels are raided every week by the police, there is a problem. I want Salt Lake City to stop ignoring the homeless camping and drug dealing that has spread.
My other reasons for running include I want to stop the secret meetings and decisions without public hearings that the Council keeps having. When they decided on the homeless shelter sites, they did it in secret and excused themselves by saying that they didn't want to pit neighbor against neighbor. Good decisions die behind closed doors and the so called cast in concrete decision was so bad that two of the sites had to be rescinded. The Council has also closed a golf course without a public hearing and recently approved a new bonding entity (the Central Wasatch Commission that doesn't answer to voters) without a public hearing.
I am running to stop the City Council from approving significant tax and fee increases for water, sewer, streetcars and street maintenance. The Council has also talked about a costly parks bond that will be used to close golf courses, to be discussed after the election along with other fee increases.
I am running because I believe that Public Utilities is misusing its authority to protect the canyon watershed and not building restrooms for the six million visitors a year that visit our canyons. I also believe that parks should not be overcharged for water (compared to other municipalities in the county). Because city parks use so much water, for what arguably are amenities including trees that mitigate our city's heat island and reduce pollution, the parks department is charged at the highest price per gallon. Recently, the parks department ran out of money to water trees on the 600 East median and stopped watering city gardens.
Other recent issues include the city is planning on almost $1 billion in transit projects in the proposed Transit Master Plan. I believe that we should be focusing on better neighborhood bus service before building more questionable rail projects. I want to stop road diets that increase congestion and pollution. And I want to stop wasting millions on alley trails.
I want to solve the problems now instead of waiting until just before an election to address these issues. I am a longtime community activist; I go to most City Council and community council meetings; I write op-eds for the newspapers and a blog at georgechapman.net. I am running for Salt Lake City Council District 5 (Ballpark, Liberty Wells, East Liberty Park and Wasatch Hollow) because we deserve a council that is more respectful of citizens, residents and voters.