Two youthful and ambitious Salt Lake City Council newcomers, crowned Tuesday by wide margins, may effectively shift the politics, policies and attitude of Utah’s capital.

Political observers don’t expect drastic changes. But the election of unapologetically progressive Kyle LaMalfa and career Democrat Charlie Luke could lead City Hall leftward. Both men concur with that premise. Both pledge to make the city’s legislative body more aggressive by pushing more initiatives. And both vow never to be a "rubber stamp" for Mayor Ralph Becker, who just won a second term and endorsed their opponents.

That proud independence could affect the way neighborhoods look, where you can get an alcoholic drink, the fate of downtown streetcars, a year-round public market and convention hotel and whether the curtain ever rises on a $110 million Broadway-class theater.

"It seems to me, intuitively, that the gravity on the council might have shifted," says re-elected Councilman Luke Garrott.

Councilman Soren Simonsen, the council’s other bona fide liberal, shares the enthusiasm. "It’s probably safe to say the two new council members are a bit more to the left than those they replaced," he says. "I’m encouraged for the more progressive agenda. That freethinking is very positive."

LaMalfa and Luke are split on certain controversial items. LaMalfa favors neighborhood pubs, joined a lawsuit to stop a sports complex and adamantly opposes development in the Northwest Quadrant. Luke would fight neighborhood bars, withholds judgment on the legally challenged sports fields and is not against developing the Northwest Quadrant "with a great deal of planning."

Both men like streetcars — provided some kind of circulator connects to their east-bench and west-end streets — and both will fight for more vibrant commercial districts near neighborhoods.

But both share some economic skepticism over whether the city should subsidize a mega-playhouse, convention hotel and public market.

If past is prologue

Luke, who captured the east bench after blitzing District 6 incumbent J.T. Martin by more than 20 percentage points, is no stranger to politics. He ran Democrat Scott Leckman’s U.S. Senate campaign against Bob Bennett, briefly oversaw former Mayor Rocky Anderson’s first campaign, served on the Planning Commission, owns a government-relations firm and hosted a political show on KSL Radio.

"In some cases I tend to be fairly progressive — socially, quite liberal," he explains. "But, at the same time, fiscally, I’m quite conservative."

Luke wants the city to get back to "nuts and bolts" basics such as street, sidewalk and sewer repair. So if big-ticket projects threaten that infrastructure budget, he would oppose them.

Luke’s lone Planning Commission vote to endorse a rezone for the Parleys Way Walmart was not conservative, he argues, but "pragmatic." His hope was to let the city control the store design. And he points to his support among divided Yalecrest residents as evidence that he is a bridge-builder.

"What people can count on is that I don’t take decision making lightly," Luke says. "In terms of collaboration, that’s what the neighbors saw in me. I’ve never been an easy one to label, and I don’t anticipate that changing much."

LaMalfa, who beat three-term District 2 incumbent Van Turner by 15 percentage points, calls his left-leaning worldview "something you could smell from a mile away."