This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The population of Salt Lake County is expected to grow by more than half a million people over the next four decades. And Jenny Wilson would like to talk to every one of them.
Wilson is the Democratic candidate for the at-large seat on the Salt Lake County Council, the one being vacated by the retirement of longtime incumbent Randy Horiuchi.
She has a long résumé of political and nonprofit sector positions, including a previous term on the County Council. She has worked with politicians both Democratic (including her father, former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson) and Republican (including Mitt Romney, when he was the head of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee). She also has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard.
But the reasons why Wilson is the right one to take this seat on the council go beyond her résumé. They include her belief that the county's top priority in the coming years will be to absorb and manage the inevitable explosion in its population. And to do so in ways that preserve the natural beauty of the county's canyons and ski areas, guard the individual identities of cities and communities, look out for the interests of the middle class and provide everyone with transportation and other community services that keep up with demand.
She also knows that effective politics is often a question of building and keeping relationships. She is nothing if not eager to reach across party lines, and to officials in other levels of government, to get things done.
Wilson claims the support of many Republicans in Salt Lake County, including more than a few city officials. They back her candidacy, Wilson says, because she has shown in the past that she puts public service above party. And, she says, because the traditional partisan divisiveness over environmental issues — canyons preservation, mass transit, air quality — has given way to a widespread understanding of how those matters must be addressed if any of the communities in the Salt Lake Valley are to remain livable.
Wilson's Republican opponent, attorney and businessman Micah Bruner, deserves to be commended for stepping forward to run for office. His positions on many issues are not all that different from Wilson's, though his attitude toward local government's responsibility to manage growth seems a bit passive compared to the need.
The Salt Lake County Council has a lot of work ahead of it. Making an experienced conciliator like Jenny Wilson one of its members will increase the chances of success.