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Lehi • Chris Jones believes the City Council doesn't represent residents as well as it should.

Currently, all council members are elected at-large, meaning they represent the entire city. Jones and several other Lehi residents say that means council members from one area may not be as sensitive to issues from another part of the city as they should be. All of the current council members live in the east-central part of this northern Utah County city — none of them live on the west side or on Traverse Mountain in the city's northern sector.

Jones and four other residents are seeking support for an initiative to change the council from an at-large body to one in which council members represent specific precincts.

"This is not a vendetta. It has nothing to do with who is sitting there now," said Jones, who manages a mortgage company. "It has to do with what is the best form of government for Lehi."

But Mayor Bert Wilson takes the Ann Landers approach to the issue: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

"We have council members who are chasing every corner of the city fulfilling residents' needs and working on problems," Wilson said.

Jones and residents Jay Lethbridge, Connor Boyack, Jay Christofferson and Jonathan Heaton have cleared the first hurdle, getting clearance to start the petition drive. Now they have to convince about 2,000 of their fellow residents that the idea is worth voting on.

The five members of Lehi's council live in the eastern and middle parts of the city, within the city's traditional borders. Two of them — Stephen Holbrook and Johnny Revill — live west of Interstate 15, while the others live on the east side. Revill is also the only council member living south of Main Street.

If Lehi voters agree, it would become only the second city in the state with a geographic-based council membership. According to the Utah League of Cities and Towns, the only city with such a setup is Salt Lake City. The rest of the cities use at-large councils or a combination of at-large members and representatives from various parts of the city, such as Provo.

No other Utah County cities are considering a change in council organization. During the 2010 County Commission race, candidate Joel D. Wright proposed going to a council form of government to give cities better representation on the governing body.

Jones and his supporters are not calling for a change in the form of Lehi's government. It would remain the same, but council members would represent specific areas of the city instead.

If the change is approved, sitting council members would remain until the next election, when district-based members would run.

Jones and Boyack said Lehi has outgrown having an at-large council. With a population pushing 50,000, and a land mass that puts it in third place behind Eagle Mountain and Provo, an at-large council doesn't properly represent residents, they contend.

"If you try to represent everyone, you represent no one with that overlapping representation," said Boyack, who lives on Traverse Mountain. "I think not only Traverse Mountain residents but all residents want direct representation through a person" who is directly accountable to them.

He compared the situation to letting Congress be elected at large rather than by state and districts. He said that would result in geographically isolated elites running the country.

"If it's a good idea at the federal and state level, it's a good idea at the city level," Boyack said.

But Wilson said the current council has done an excellent job of representing the interests of all residents. As at-large representatives, Wilson said the council members think about what is best for all Lehi residents rather than the interests of a particular corner of the city.

Quin Monson, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, said there are pluses and minuses to both forms.

A geographic-based city council would create broader representation, Monson said, but it might result in a factionalized body that fails to look at the city as a whole. However, he said, an at-large council could easily ignore fast-growing parts of the city.

"I'm kind of an admirer of Provo's system of basically splitting the difference," Monson said. "You get a little bit of each."

George O. Stewart, a former Provo mayor and at-large councilman, agreed.

"You need that citywide voice, someone who's speaking for the whole city," Stewart said. "I have always felt that when I was on the council that I had as much responsibility for the southwest as the northeast where I lived."

Stewart also drew a congressional analogy, where the House of Representatives represents narrow constituencies while the Senate has a broader perspective.

In Provo's system, Stewart noted each resident has three members of the council representing them: the two at-large members and one district representative.

Lehi's Wilson said geographically based seats create another problem: finding people to fill them. He questioned what would happen if nobody in a particular district wanted to run for office.

"What are we going to do? Force someone to run for office who doesn't want to?" Wilson said. "My position is let the best people in the city run for office and let everyone in the city vote for that person."

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