Council colleague Dave Tafoya, likewise, is convinced his Latino heritage did not factor into his election and re-election.

Rather, the two officeholders say, Roy residents considered their résumés and their reputations - Smith's as a longtime member of city panels and Tafoya's as a member of a well-respected family - and rewarded them at the ballot box.

"People knew my dedication and commitment," Smith says. "Diversity . . . was just something that happened because people got involved."

That, activists say, is key if Utah's growing minority communities are going to gain seats on future school boards, city councils and county commissions. Right now, those numbers - particularly among Latinos, the state's largest and fastest-growing minority group - are dismally low:

l Only two of 69 school board members in 10 districts along the Wasatch Front, or fewer than 3 percent, are minorities - Christina Morales in the Ogden School District and Alama Uluave in the Salt Lake City School District.

l County councils and commissions in Utah's 29 counties are even less diverse. Only two of 109 council members and commissioners - fewer than 2 percent - are minorities. Salt Lake County Councilman Randy Horiuchi is Japanese American; San Juan County Commissioner Manuel Morgan is half Navajo.

* All the mayors in Utah's 25 most populous cities are Anglos, although South Ogden - the 34th largest municipality - has a black chief executive, George Garwood.

* Only eight of 136 council members in the top 25 cities are minorities.

* Of 111 mayors and city council members in Salt Lake County - which is at least 12 percent Latino, according to the 2000 census - only four are minorities.

* Women are mayors in only two of the state's 25 biggest cities. However, women hold a notable share of school board posts and serve on county commissions and city councils. In Provo, for example, women are the majority on the City Council and six of seven Granite School Board members are women.

* Salt Lake City and West Valley City - both of which have Latino populations approaching 20 percent - have all-Anglo councils and mayors.

West Valley City Mayor Dennis Nordfelt maintains he would love to see more diversity in office. "I wish we had it now," he says.

A Latino candidate fell short in the city's most recent election.

"It isn't like we're trying to keep them out," says longtime Councilwoman Margaret Peterson. "We're trying to get them in."

On the Murray campaign trail in 2003, a volunteer heard a racial slur while campaigning for council candidate Jeremiah Watson. So Watson knows his black skin played a role with at least one voter.

"But it didn't cost me the election," he says.

The larger issue may have been age; Watson was 21 at the time.

He's now student body president at Salt Lake Community College and pledges to be back on a general election ballot someday.

But Robert Gallegos, president of the Raza Political Action Committee (RAZPAC), argues Utah's power structure neither invites nor really wants people of color.

"The only thing that's going to turn this around is we have to educate our community," he says. "We have to make our community politically active."

Color of change: Some strides are being made - and in some unlikely places.

Roy, with a minority population of less than 10 percent, already has achieved some diversity.

In the Weber County city's last two elections, Smith, Tafoya and John Cordova, who is Latino, amassed the three highest vote tallies among council candidates.

Cordova has since resigned, but not long ago Roy's five-member council had two Latino men, one black man, one Japanese American man and one white woman.

In Utah County, Pleasant Grove, which is less than 7 percent minority, rivals Roy for council diversity. Darold McDade is a Shoshone and Michael Daniels, originally from Hawaii, is half Japanese.

But in Summit and Wasatch counties, where the Latino population has been burgeoning since the 1990s, minorities have not yet sought office.

The Rev. Robert Bussen, who oversees Catholic parishes in Heber and Park City, predicts that will come. "It takes time to build good, strong leadership," he says.

In the state's most diverse city, Wendover, Mayor Steve Perry bristles at any suggestion his all-Anglo council cannot adequately represent a population that is more than 68 percent Latino.

"We're making decisions for people," Perry says, "not the color of their skin."

But many minorities and activists insist council diversity does matter, especially in increasingly diverse communities.

"We fought a Revolutionary War on the premise of no taxation without representation," says Archie Archuleta, a longtime minority advocate in Salt Lake City. "That still applies all over."

Archuleta says it's more than simply having a spokesman. A community without representation doesn't feel part of the political system.

"If you're elected, you're included. So the people who elected you are included. They become part of the process."

Latino activists warn that serious problems face minorities, and that solutions will be harder to find without officeholders who understand the communities and their problems.

"Who knows the community of minorities but a minority?" asks RAZPAC's Gallegos.

Mark Maryboy - the first Navajo elected to the San Juan County Commission, back in 1985 - stands as an example of the impact one minority can have.

"I was vocal about issues," Maryboy recalls. "I tried to ensure there was equity as far as the distribution of San Juan County goods and services."

Today, funds continue to be set aside for roads, senior citizens and recreation on the Navajo Reservation - even though Maryboy left the commission in 2001.

In Ogden, where the Latino population is close to 25 percent, council member Jesse Garcia has served as a voice for low-income residents. He often opposes redevelopment projects he fears would come at the expense of the poor.

Says Archuleta: "As we march around the world preaching democracy, we can't forget to practice it at home. Democracy has to be inclusive, and reach from top to bottom."

Funds and faith: Growing a new generation of community-minded and politically savvy citizens is a goal of minority activists. But barriers loom.

For one, a large share of Utah Latinos are not U.S. citizens and, therefore, can't vote.

The national Pew Hispanic Center lists Utah as one of five states with the highest percentage - 48 percent to 54 percent - of undocumented foreign-born residents.

"You're not going to get much of a turnout that way," says Lee Martinez, who served on the Salt Lake City Council as an appointee several years ago.

Even Latinos who can register and vote do not do so in great numbers, he says. "There aren't that many issues that the community sees as theirs," Martinez says.

Says Christina Morales, the new Ogden School Board member: "Hispanics are not really political . . . They don't have time for that. They work to support their families."

Moreover, many are not yet fluent in English, let alone politics.

Theresa Martinez, a sociology professor and associate dean at the University of Utah, points to reasons for the apathy: "They feel left out. They don't feel valued."

One of the biggest obstacles: money.

"A lot of these people don't have the money to run," explains Chris Martinez, a former Clinton City Council member who spent about $3,000 on his own unsuccessful campaign for Davis County Commission last year. He raised another $1,000 in small donations.

But Martinez says he faced an even more daunting hurdle: He's a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Republican county.

That's an impediment across most of GOP Utah, because Latinos historically vote Democratic.

Of the 12 candidates Latinos considered their own on Salt Lake County and statewide ballots in 2002, only one prevailed: Lee Gardner, who is part Latino. The only Republican of the bunch, Gardner won another term as Salt Lake County assessor.

The fact that many minority candidates are not members of Utah's predominant religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also plays a role.

"In some communities, it is a barrier," says the U.'s Martinez.

In addition, many potential candidates shy away from running because they believe religion matters to voters. "Perception is a killer," she says.

Chris Martinez, who is Catholic, concedes it comes up often. "A lot of people tell me, you're not a Republican, you're not a Mormon, you have two strikes against you."

Mayor Rocky Anderson has made religion an issue, noting that six of seven Salt Lake City Council members are LDS - even though Mormons make up less than half the capital's population.

Activists believe the political equations are about to change.

"With the growth of the Latino community, it's starting to bust open," says Lee Martinez, the former Salt Lake City Council member, pointing to the election of Ross Romero and Mark Archuleta Wheatley to the Utah House.

That's just the start, according to Tony Yapias, former director of Utah's Office of Hispanic Affairs.

More elected diversity will come, he adds, as U.S.-born children of Utah's undocumented immigrants become eligible voters, educated in public schools and unlimited by limited English.

Yapias predicts that anti-immigration measures - such as the recent ban of driver licenses for undocumented workers - will make them more politically driven and solidify them as a voting bloc.

"In another 10 to 15 years, you're going to have more Latinos in office."

To reach that, Romero says minorities need to join campaigns and learn how to raise money and communicate a political message.

Christina Morales, who served on Ogden's Civil Service Commission before her election last fall to the Ogden School Board, says it's time ethnic minorities tap the strength in their numbers.

"Until we get people interested in the process and seeing that change can come about, they're not going to understand the power they could have."

RAZPAC's Gallegos says the resolve is there.

"We're not going to give up," he vows. "We're going to continue to run people until people realize this is a diverse state."

kmoulton@sltrib.com

---

Tribune reporters Mark Eddington and Christopher Smart contributed to this story.