In her first comments on the matter since a series of sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against Salt Lake City Council member Eva Lopez Chavez, Mayor Erin Mendenhall said the public should “start by believing” the alleged victims.

“I appreciate the courage of the victims who have come forward,” Mendenhall said in a meeting Wednesday with The Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial board.

Four people from Utah political circles — one of them fellow council member Victoria Petro — have accused Lopez Chavez of restraining them during what they considered unwanted sexual advances, before she joined the council in 2024.

The mayor called the allegations “disheartening” and said they “hurt the public’s trust” — but she declined to call for Lopez Chavez to step down from the council, at least until a pending council investigation concludes.

“We will see how this plays out,” she added.

Lopez Chavez has denied wrongdoing and said she welcomes a “fair and independent investigation” while vowing to remain on the seven-member council in the meantime.

Lopez Chavez was also a candidate running for Utah’s new 1st Congressional District seat — until she failed to meet the signature threshold and did not make it past last Saturday’s Democratic state convention.

Mendenhall said Wednesday “it’s difficult when one of the victims is another person on the City Council and again, I really respect the courage of council member Petro for coming forward.”

Spurred in part by an internal complaint filed sometime in February by Lopez Chavez herself against Petro and council Chair Alejandro Puy, council staff and the city attorney — at Puy’s direction — initiated a review of the council’s own code of conduct and related policies.

“I truly lament the circumstances that have brought us to this point,” Puy wrote at the time to the council’s non-elected executive director, Jennifer Bruno. “But when safety and institutional integrity are at issue, inaction is not an option for me.”

Puy did not specify the conduct to which he referred. The ensuing review has marked the first time that code of conduct, adopted a month before Lopez Chavez took office, has been deployed.

Mendenhall told The Tribune’s editorial board a process is now underway for the council to formally direct city staff to investigate the allegations against Lopez Chavez. If that goes forward, she said, that probe would have “willing participation from our administration — and that includes HR and any other departments that may be necessary."

Of a council investigation, the mayor said, “they have to trigger that ... This is all very new to us.”