Davis County LWV Candidate Forum Davis County UT

Thank you. I'm Nikki Nelson, by the way, and I am uh representing the League of Women County. And our mission tonight is to help voters learn about candidates and issues by hearing from the candidates themselves. And before we go any further, we're going to say the Pledge of Allegiance led by Anne

Johnson.

So, as I said, the candidates tonight are competing in the Republican primaries for county commissioner seats A and B for county sheriff and county clerk. The reason we're doing a Republican primary is that the winner of these primaries will be unopposed in the election. And reminder that you must be a registered Republican to vote in primaries. Primary election is June 23rd and ballots will be tomorrow. Ballots may be mailed back or dropped off at any dropbox. Um ballots will be postmarked when they are processed, not when they are mailed or are received. So don't wait until the last moment to mail your ballot. As I said, we're streaming and recording this meeting and we're collection collecting questions from the audience on 3x5 cards and I believe they anybody watching on Zoom can submit a question on um the I want to thank especially Marne Hawker and Trina Owens of Davis Technical College Business Resource Center. This is their conference room and they were very helpful in happen. Our format tonight will begin with about an hour for the five candidates for county commissioner. We'll follow that with about 30 minutes with the two candidates for county sheriff and 30 minutes with the two candidates for county clerk. And the way the panel works is each candidate has two minutes for statement and then we proceed to a series of timed questions and then give the candidates one minute their conclusion. We rotate through the candidates so that each candidate has at least one chance to answer the question first. Our timer is John Logan and he will give the candidates 1 minute, 30 second and 15 second warnings. And we ask the audience please hold your And our candidates are John Adams, Scott Fletcher, Kendallan Harris, Loren Kamalu, and Susan Lee. And we'll get John.

John Thank you so much, Nikki, and thank you for doing this. You can have a job in radio. I I think after this, um I I want to thank the League of Women's Voters, uh and uh Davis Technical College. I I sit on the board here uh the foundations board and Roy and Tibby Simmons who this building is named after actually just uh donated or through a charity donated $6 million and that provides $30,000 a month which goes towards uh scholarships for people who go to the school. And so uh it's it's really an honor to be in such an awesome place. Uh you know, my name is John Adams. I'm I'm going to stand up because I think there's folks in the back who maybe can't see. I'm John Adams. I'm running for Davis County Commissioner. And the reason I'm running is because I don't want to see taxes increase. And that's a big problem for me because for my family, we live paycheck to paycheck. And as the taxes have gone up time, we've had to sacrifice more and more. And I've seen families, in fact, I was knocking doors other day, and I knocked on the door of a wonderful woman named Elizabeth, and she told me that she's afraid that within the next couple years, she won't be able to pay her property taxes and she'll have to move out of her house. And so, that's a big problem right now. And county and not doing enough to cut the taxes. And so, that's going to be my goal. And that's one of the reasons I'm running. I'm also running because I feel like currently there's divisiveness within our county and I want to bring people together. I'm good at doing that. It's one of my special gifts. And so as we come together, actually with taxes lowering, I believe that community, we'll find that we'll all be much happier. Uh please vote on Thursday. If you get your ballot, please vote. I'm John Adams.

you. So, also thanks to you and uh your board for hosting this thing. Let me introduce myself. My name is Scott Fletcher. I'm running for Davis County Commission seat A. Um I just want to say that I'm I'm the endorsed candidate of the Davis County Republican Party. I've also been endorsed by the Davis County Conservatives. I've also been endorsed by the Utah Veterans Association. I've been endorsed by um Rod Hall, Pastor Bickl, and many others that have endorsed me already. So, I appreciate their support. And once again, why that's important is because 900 delegates vetted the candidates, and I was the one that was elected as the endorsed candidate. So, why am I running? Um, so John talked a lot about taxes and and I think a lot of us are running because of this increase in taxes, right? There's 14.9% tax increase, which it said originally was And there'll still be a need to be able to cover the other percentage. There's going to be about $4 million will still have to be covered. So, we're all running for that specific reason is to kind of look at taxes. But we can all say that, but the question is how are going to address that? So, I will give plans directly on how to do that. One is that we need to get government out of what private business does. So there's stuff like the Western Sports Park, there's there's the convention center, there's many others where currently we're losing money. It's your money. It's not the county's money. It's your money and we need to address those things and attack those specific items. So there's got to be processes in place. So I bring 40 experience in business as a physicist and as an executive and I will use those skill sets of schedule, cost, performance and risk. There are processes that we must use to go address these things. She'll hear a lot of accolades and a lot of stories but the question is who has the skill sets, who has and who has the tenacity to make it happen. And I would ask for your vote because I bring all of those to bear. Thank you. Scott Fletcher, please vote for me.

Cday. >> The exact problems that Davis County is facing right now is what I have been working on successfully in Bountiful for the last 12 years. And so that's a big part of why I'm running. And that's part of why four former Davis County commissioners are endorsing me as well as many other elected officials. And Scott's right. He got the Republican endorsement. He got 53% at convention. I got 47% of the delegate vote, which is nearly half. And so, a lot of people are willing to place their trust in me. Um, Bountiful City has one of the lowest tax rates in the county, and that's under my stewardship. Also, um, I know how local government works. I've been in the trenches of it for 12 years. So, as mayor, we worked on nonpartisan issues, things like streets, parks, police, garbage, just your everyday services that that we provide to residents. And the county provides services such as animal control, libraries, elections, sheriffs, the the the um sheriff's department, the jail, attorney's office, and the health department. Important services that you rely on. My goal, my number one priority would be to keep the level of service and without raising taxes or fees. And so I have experience doing that. Bountiful is very successful, very lean, conservative city. And I know exactly how that. Also, my second priority would be to listen to really listen to constituents, um, employees and fellow elected officials. I learned a lot from listening in Bountiful and there were decisions that we made because we listened that really helped. My third priority would be to make sure that we have a good throat] If you don't really know where you're going, you can't get there. If you don't have a target, you can't hit it. And so every year in Battlefield, I led strategy sessions where we talked about what our priorities were. And so I would appreciate your vote, Kendall Harris.

Thanks. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for coming. My name is Loren Kamalu. I am currently serving in seat B of the county commission. The county commission is the executive and legislative body for the county and we do a lot of administrative work. I have an awesome handout which the the league is also sharing the same handout from the commission office which shows what the commissioners do. It's very important that you understand what the commissioners do. Davis County has one of the lowest tax rates of any county in the state of Utah. And Utah is recognized around the nation as a best managed state. among the urban counties, which we are the third largest population in the smallest square miles of any county in Utah and about ready to be filled in in the coming decades. We have been doing great and we have a quality of life and a respect around the state where people look to Davis County pilots, for a great school district, for wonderful neighbors. The cities are in charge of the parks, but the county and the cities do a services. Uh, just a little bit more about me. I have a business background and I served in Cisville City for four and a half years on the planning commission. I loved my public service so much in this city that I pivoted from being in private sector and having my own business to feeling like I would be in public service for the rest of my career. Um, thankfully my husband who is here supports it's been a big change for our family too. I went back to school for a masters of public administration because government is vastly different from the private sector. We love our 15 cities. We work closely with them and um it's very important that everyone understands that almost all the services we receive come from our city and come from our county. A little bit of property tax goes to city, a little to county and all the rest to other areas.

you. Welcome. I'm Susan Lee and I am running for seatb and I am the endorsed candidate from the con the Republican party convention. And the reason I think that's important to know is because I worked really hard to earn the votes of the delegates to win and now I'm working really hard to earn all of your votes to win at the actual ballot box and so I hope I do so. Um, a little bit about me. My husband and I raised our four sons here in Davis County. We currently have 12 grandkids and um, I have my degree in accounting and I served on the Cisville City Council for four years and so I had no plan to the commission, but I got a notice in the mail saying 30% tax increase. And I was like, what? And as an accountant with an accounting background, when you see that big of a jump, it's usually a red flag. And so I started attending all of the gatherings that they offered for people to go and ask questions. And as I met with people, the fastest growing segment of the population in Davis County is 60 years and older. And there were so many people there with their mortgage payment and also their property taxes. and they said, "We're getting to the point where we're going to have to sell our homes." And it lit a fire under me because I know that if we don't start correcting, which what I consider a spending problem in the county, we're going to have a lot more problems and it's going to be a lot harder for so many that live within our community. And I really care about this community. And so as I look at all of you, I want you to know that I will be leadership that will listen. I want to be in there so that when you have concerns, I gave people my phone number, you can call me. I want to be there for you and that's why I'm asking for your

you. you. The next question is two minutes and Scott. Um, and it's The Davis County tax increase last year was only half of what was originally proposed. Did this result in a reduction in services, deferred purchases or maintenance or other items detrimental to the county? What specific changes, if any, would you like to make to the Davis

budget? >> So, thanks for the question. Let's let's back up and talk about uh fundamentally why that first off, the uh county controller went to the commissioners and said, "You've overspent." And they didn't So, they overspent by $12 million. So, $6 million was was part of the tax increase. That was the 14.9. They wanted 30. So, that was part of it. Now they've been able to claw back about $2 million of the remaining six by cutting service by cutting benefits to their employees. So there's still $4 million out there that has to be addressed. So the question is how do we address this issue not only now but in the future because we have built a culture of tax and spend and tax and spend. I'm running on the fact that we need to change that culture. We need to represent the citizens of Davis County going forward. So there are specific things I would do. Number one is we need to look at what we're spending within the county itself. There there may be duplication of efforts. We need to have a a charter of each one of the each one of the divisions and be able to put that forward. That's number one. Um number two is once we once we get through that, we need to look specifically at where the costs are going. I've gone through this book. This is the 23 to 24 budget book. You can see it's dogeared. I have ripped through this and I've identified already many areas where our increases from one year to the next have gone up by 32 and 34%. With only a 1% increase in population, it requires you to go through the data in order to be able to address how to get to an answer on the budget. I will do that. I know how to do that. I will use my 42 years as an executive that that. Like I said, I've got more experience. So the question becomes, do you want somebody that's running county government or you want this to be run like a business? I think we need to run this our county like a business. It's a profit and loss thing. The difference is what? If they overrun, you pay. It's your money. In business, if I overrun, I go out the

vote. So, after the tax increase, the county has done a number of things, including um a hiring freeze, saying no to anything that wasn't um that wasn't statutoily required, early retirement for some employees. Um they they do they've recognized some savings through some of these measures that they've taken, but there still is a serious situation. There still is progress that needs to be made. um and so some of those things that need to happen is we need to look department by department and look at what is statutoily required in each department and then make cuts. And I I propose making cuts with a scalpel as opposed to a hatchet, right? Um there are things you could do. For example, they're spending a million dollars a year on overtime at the jail. Um that's a complex issue and so there are ways to solve that. There are ways to to um to reduce that number, but it takes you you could save you could save money on paper. You could say, "Well, let's just cut half the employees at the jail, right?" And then you could save money on paper. But then what are the real ramifications of that? Um, if you have overtime employees that are being burned out, if you have um more liability because of less employees at the jail, if you have um higher turnover costs, every time someone quits, it costs more money to hire someone new. So, it's easy to to um look at finding cost savings on paper, but it's a little bit more um complex to really address those issues. And so, I would love to dig in to those numbers. I would love to work with HR, with the department heads and fellow elected officials and see where we can cut with the scalpel and be um careful as we're as we're cost savings with our cost savings and to

Thanks. There is an elected finance offer officer. He's the controller. His name is Scott Park. He's fantastic. He knows the finances of the county deeply. He's also the budget officer and has other responsibilities. He wrote the pamphlet that's back on my table, which was at the public open houses. If you never caught it, feel to pick one of up. Um, I Q&A. Again, my background is business. in this very room where the Davis County Chamber of Davis Chamber of meets. They it because the last time that we increased the revenue for county services was back in 2016. Since that time, there has been an accumulation of inflation. So when we sat down for those budget meetings with Scott Park in the start of October, he had already gone through all of the department requests and said no to everything that's not required by state law. That was the starting point. From that point, we have 25 leaders of all the various departments and offices and they found more ways to cut. And then did the math. And again, if you're liking the level of services in the county, and 32% inflation since the last increase, there's a few good questions on that paper. Um, there is nothing in Utah property tax law that adjusts for inflation. And in this room, I asked all business owners, "Is your cost of doing business the same as in 2016?" No one said that it was. And it's the same in our households and it's the same for government that provides all those services. Another thing that's been tremendously difficult for cities and counties are the unfunded mandates from the state. There is much reform that we need to find with property tax law and that happens at the state level. There is a billboard right this minute as you travel south on I-15 that that says that a candidate has cut 1.5 billion from the state budget. And that's because they have put that load onto counties and cities and grown government with more

do. So the complete budget, the total amount that the county gets to spend is $300 million and $90 million of that comes from taxes. And one thing that I did is I went and looked back and since 2018 the rate of spending has far outpaced the rate of growth by over 50%. Now there was inflation in there the total inflation amount was 22%. And during the same time period they got one-time funding for COVID and the car's act which was about $90 million. So is why wasn't that enough? Why did they go over $12 million? And so you know I if we really want to get down to the bottom of the problem, it's spending. There's so much spending that happened during that time frame. There were new buildings that were built. There was and and what you have to understand is when they build new buildings, there's ongoing expenses that have to go along with that. the the running of the buildings, the personnel that that are part of the building. And something that they are also doing is they are putting into um the animal care facility. They're building a new facility that is three times larger because there it is no longer an animal um control. It's animal care. And so if they don't adopt the animals out, then they have to care for them, which means so much more in staff, the cleaning of the kennels, the food, all of this. The full-time veterinarians now they're going to have to hire. So they've created an element of ongoing expenses that will have to be dealt with, and I'm willing to stand up and deal with it

>> Awesome. I've set my notes aside because actually I kind of want to talk to you more like I'm talking in your living room. Um the my career has been in sales and I've had 26 years of sales experience working for someone but I would like to say that my whole life I've been selling. one of the things that makes me unique is I don't really take no for an answer. And that's something about sales you have to have is when someone says no, you have to get creative and see if there's a possible way to find And when I got on Kisville City Council 7 years ago and we started working in the budget, it became addicting to me to find new ways to save money. and Mayor Trans here nodding her head because we spend hours and hours and hours pecking at the budget, figuring out different ways. I'm not sure about my fellow candidates, but I've sat down with Scott Park, the controller, and I've given him ideas of what I think we can already be doing now, not just when I'm in as a county commissioner. And I'll tell you one of ideas I had. There are people constantly leaving the county, employees that are leaving. So, if you've if you've never worked in in government, you don't know that it's almost impossible to fire employee. But when they leave, you have an opportunity. And this is what I shared with Scott. When they leave, don't hire for that position right away. meet together with the department heads and see if there are a current employees that would take over the responsibilities of this person that's left for just a little bit more money. And you have to understand government to know that one employee that's maybe bringing that's maybe costing $50,000 salary is actually $75,000 with benefits. So if you play two employees, say 10 grand more a year, you're going to save the county loads of money. He looks at me, he says, "This is actually a really good idea. With a thousand employees, we have a ton of turnover." Those are the types of ingenuity and ideas that I'm going to bring as a county commissioner. Thank

much. >> Okay, thank you. This next question will start with Kendallan. Changing the subject, many state leaders are sponsoring nucle small nuclear reactors which would store the waste products on site. Would you support having the reactors in Davis County and storing the

here? I I doubt we would have um nuclear here in Davis County. Um, but I do have a unique perspective because in Bountiful we own our own power department and so many nuclei many reactors are carbon-f free. They're green power and so um nuclear is more nimble. It is reliable. Um it's important to have that as part of our port portfolio. There are issues with wind and solar where they're not always as reliable, but something like nuclear has that advantage. And so it's really important for us to have a diverse portfolio when it comes to power. And we need power more than ever before with EVs, with AI, with technology. The demand for power for energy is only increasing. And so of course it's important for us to be mindful. Um and of course safety is the highest priority. um if it's unsafe then of course we wouldn't be storing the the reactors but um energy is an important component and one time heel Utah which is an organization based in Salt Lake that's environmentally conscious came to Bountiful came to a meeting that we that we held and when we were discussing nuclear and they said because there are proven ways of to mitigate storage of nuclear reactors um they said we actually aren't concerned about safety. They said we're more concerned about the cost. And so in my that is actually really the bigger question is if we had nuclear then what are the costs associated with that? And so I do think that it's important to explore different power alternatives. I wouldn't be in favor of storing anything here if it were dangerous in any way, but think that it's um so obviously safety is is the bottom line, the most important thing, but cost is also

I'm going to add just a little bit more to the last question and then answer one. So, $6 million more that needs to be cut from the budget. I will tell you exactly what the controller with. He's going to consider 2 million as as dust because numbers even though we do our best, they're not always exact by the end of year. um another 2 million of that six uh we plan to address in the upcoming budget discussions in October because again there's um offices and directors of departments that are constantly innovating and finding you know what can and uh not have to keep being paid for. Then there was the two million early retirement incentive also. Um people had to sign up for that. That's playing out. So far we know there's at least 1 million savings there ongoing. People who qualified who've been with the county for a long time. 70% of the budget is payroll because we are a service organization and not a business organization. So to move to the nuclear um here in Cisville, I served again first as a planning commissioner. Cisville City also has its own power company and I heard about this U Amps conference and I they would pay for my registration but I had to figure out my own travel and lodging and that's an adventure you should ask me about sometime how I saved money. Anyway, so I went and I learned way back in 201 they were talking about these small nuclear reactors like this has been a topic for a long time to find the clean energy that can be base power but also you know responsible with safety and with um the environment. So it's been talked time. Um I think that the technology has come along. I understand that one of the big things is is permitting and it's a very long process and I think we would have to definitely figure out how to take care of them when um responsibly and I I don't have an answer to that but that is something we will to figure out. It's been discussed

time. Um, just to touch on what she started off with, the thought processes that I think is if they all of those services or all of the monies that they're cutting, why didn't they cut them before they came to us asking for the 30% tax increase first? And so, I'm glad they're cutting them now, but as far as your representative, I think it should always be what you look at first and not the fact. Um going on to the nuclear um uh question. So I think it's a complex question that um we have to take into consideration that when we make these choices we have to go and talk to not just the experts but to the citizens that are most affected by these decisions. And with uh with that I just my background when I was on the Caswell City Council back in 2014 to 2018 um I asked to be over the power company. um that was the part that was my responsibility and I went to u amps and I did the learning and everything but um they had a system of where they wanted you to pick different projects to get your electricity from and so there was wind, there was solar, there was the the water um but there was nuclear as an option and we did go into a project to get nuclear at the time but I think it the case city's been pulled but um the diversity wasn't that great because like wind was very expensive and didn't provide a constant source of energy that we need and so I think when we look at these things we need to consider what is the most reliable and then if we do take the option of nuclear then we do have to have a very good game plan in place so that we're not caught off guard with nuclear waste. What are we going to do with it? So, that all has to be talked out. I I think it's a great option because like Kendallin said, it is very clean and so um I look forward to seeing

Thanks. Thank you. Um yes. So, like Susan, I've served over the uh power here in Kisville City and actually was on the Cisville City Council when we voted to depart from the Uamps project that had to do with with nuclear. And a big element of that was that we were seeing that many of the cities were departing from this project and we would be burdened with the cost and that was not something we were willing to burden upon our citizens. And so I feel like when you talk about nuclear, I don't know if you saw the news that our great Hill Air Force base actually transported and helped transport a small nuclear um just recently. I mean it's fascinating technology, but there's some things some really really big things that you need to the citizens and also you need to be aggressive with transparency. And I think we've seen with the data center and some of the things that have recently that not being aggressive with transparency makes everybody sit there and think what are they hiding? And so when you talk about nuclear this is a big deal and you would need to really really make sure everybody knew what they were getting into and be on board. At least 51% of the people should be on board before you opinion.

Now

work. >> So I'm probably the most experienced one here being a physicist in working nuclear weapons for my entire career. So I've worked with the 17 national labs on nuclear and on small nuclear uh reactors as well. So I have a in-depth knowledge of this. So it can become economical. It can but you have to do and John's right. You need to do you need to bring together citizens so they understand what the impact is of nuclear reactors. You need to understand what the economics are. You need to understand the safety is you need to understand storage. So one thing and I'll be very clear in this. I would not advocate for storing the nuclear waste here in Davis County. So very clearly I would not support that but we could put it other places. So it is an option that we can move forward with on nuclear because it will in the future provide the energy needs that we need. It's very very difficult uh hydro h you know water power that's going to you know we or have a problem with water already. So we got to come up with other solutions that could be a fundamental solution going forward but we do need the citizen committees to bring those forward. So I spent I spent uh about three years at a place called Hanford facility. It's in the southeastern part of of Washington State and there they have the nine nuclear uh facilities to be able to build all the nuclear capabilities for our weapon systems and now it's a super fun site. So I have direct experience in knowing what they do with that with the waste of of nuclear reactors and we don't want that here. We do not want that here. We will not store it here. once again, I have more experience on this on this table this today on terms of nuclear reactors, what they do. by the way, Ken Lyn, they do have reactors here in Davis County. It's a Hill Air Force base issue like you said, John. So you need to be aware of what's going on in the in the city and in the state and in the county. And so we are already working that forward. So thank

time. Thank you. Next question we start with Lorine. Kind of an energy question. Lorine, what is your opinion the way in which the proposed box elder data center has been handled and how would ensure that any Davis County impacts from the box elder data center are

addressed? Yeah. In April, we had the Utah Association of Counties post legislative conference. year. The CEO of the Utah Association of Counties, his name I um some of this news was popping at that time. The box elder county commissioners were not in attendance at UAC. They're usually there. Um all of the counties in Utah are members of UWAC and um we work a lot together um to support or oppose legislation every year that will um help governments. And so, um, I found out later when when things got hot in the news that, um, she was upset and those commissioners were missing because they had not been brought along by the powers that be with that decision. And um, so that's mistake number one. We absolutely need to have tremendous collaboration between the state and the local I am told by some commissioners who have already served three or four terms in other counties that it used to be that the their state legislators and leadership of the legislature worked very closely with local government with a lot collaboration. And in just my time, I have have seen that become less. We have some fantastic legislators who serve within jurisdictions in our county. Some ter terrific, some of the ones I admire most. But I would say that the the leadership and the trend has been much more top-down than it used to be in the state of Utah. And that's not a good trend. Um, we should be working together for the benefit of all of our residents in state. um, it's it's definitely been tremendously hard and now they're having to backtrack and we're seeing that happen live with, you know, people up up for office and saying, "Oh, but I'm trying to do this differently now." So, go well. You should always start with collaboration, great transparency, and discussions locally.

story. Um, I have to say I agree with Lorine. I think she stated it well. It needs to be done in a manner that it involves everyone that is affected by what's going on. And I think the way that it was handled up there was probably not the best way. It was um quick and a lot of people didn't feel listened to. But what's important to know about this data or data center um is that there's a need for it if we want to continue using the technology we have now. Whether or not having that big data center where it's at and that large I don't know if that is the right way to do it. I don't think it is personally. But um we have um the ability right now to be involved in the process that is happening by letting your voices be heard. And I think they're starting to listen to them because changing it seems like daily on certain things that the governor came out and made it executive order to change how it's done. And now uh uh there was more information of we're not going to let it be as big as it is. But with that being said, if it's me if it's being built for more ju than just our area, if it's for the surrounding areas in other states, maybe we have it a lot smaller and let them take a portion and share it in other states rather than compiling that huge monstrosity here locally. And so I would be in favor of scaling it down. Let's make it more reasonable, but let's listen. Let's work with the people because something that that is going to affect that many people should be done that way and I would be for that. Thank

you. >> Thank you. Uh yeah, I can at least say right now that Mr. Wonderful is not considered Mr. Wonderful in Utah and he needs to stop mocking those of us who live in this great state. Um quite frankly the you know the comment I made earlier about the nuclear applies here aggressive transparency and so even you know the question was how would it affect Davis County and I think that I I'll make my comments about uh about the data center in a moment but one of the things I think we miss fundamentally in Davis County is aggressive transparency. How often are we being reached out to in a way that we can read or understand what's going on in the county without having to go to a website and file through a bunch of small little taps. And so that's one of the things that I want to improve as a county commissioner. I want you to be able to say at the end of four years, wow, I really know John because he's told me what they're doing at the county. And he's been aggressive to transfer that information to us. Um, you know, I I've done my research on this data center just like probably everybody else. And I think they made a big miss trying to push this through without actually informing the people what they do and what their goal is. One of the goals that I've heard is to eventually eliminate uh income tax in the state of Utah. We see that in Alaska because they have so much oil coming in. Alaska residents actually check from the state rather than paying income tax. And so if this goal, I'd like to hear about that. That sounds interesting, but I want to know all of the facts. And I think we're entitled to

facts. >> So I want to draw a parallel between what happened in Boxeller County and what's going on in Davis County and the lack of transparency currently in Davis County. I'll give you three or four examples. So the Western Sports Park cost you $70 million. Thank you for your tax your tax money. Cost you $8 million to operate a year. We're losing money. The convention center loses a million to2 million year. Thank you tax money. The new the new healthc care facility for pets probably going to cost you around 20 plus million dollars and it's probably going to run in three to four million or plus in expenses thanks money. There's the western there's a facility down there USU runs um uh by the Cisville ponds. You pay USU to run that $350,000 and then at the end of additional 10 years the It all goes over USU. Those things have not been transparent So, we have a problem in Davis County with transparency. And I would agree that I will bring citizen committees together, which key tenant of my and those and those uh committees will be put together across the county of people to be able to look at the hard data. The answers are in the data. So let's talk specifically about the data center is that was done poorly. The data wasn't wasn't made available. It wasn't transparent. Things were done behind closed doors. There's things called MIDAS and and PIDs that they use for using unelected officials to make decisions about money. We have to stop that. We need to change the culture and be transparent going forward. But in order to do that, you need the data. We need people who understand how to evaluate the data, how to put that data in place, schedule, cost, performance, risk, earn value management. These are the things that businessmen do. They're not the things that county county um um employees and county um elected officials do. Businesses do that. Well, I ask for your vote because I will use those processes and I will use that

you. So I think that our residents of Utah were right to be to be upset about the process that happened um in Boxelder. We need to be responsible stewards and my son is to me. He he never uses AI unless it's like a last resort because he knows that it takes a lot of water and so he's taking that to heart in a personal way. Um but the the data centers the whole issue was it was introduced backwards and so um there are very many pros very many cons right but um but the way that that was introduced was backwards and so now MIA and the county commissioners have approved for it to move forward and to be able to go to the permitting um regulating process and there's a thousand boxes that they'll check about air quality and water quality etc. when all of those are important questions, but they're questions that should have been asked first, right? And so it's backwards. And also, like has been said, um the way that it was introduced to the public was backwards. Um it it's definitely a matter of where it it should have been something that the public was aware of before it was suddenly the news was it's approved before we even knew what was happening. And so um transparency, I agree, it's very important. All of us will say that but I can tell you what I have done. So what I have actually done in the way of being able to listen to feedback is in Bountiful I implemented public comment periods. They weren't there before I implemented that. Residents wanted um there was a development being proposed and they wanted green space instead. We changed and we did we um designated it as green space. We had an employees that gave us ideas for cost savings and so we listened and we implemented those cost savings. Time after time I have shown that the things that I did in Bountiful, you can't always wave a magic wand and do what the whatever people are coming asking for. But in many instances, we listened and made different decisions

public. >> you. Um, this next question, start with Susan. I get so interested listening to the answers that I'm

here? >> Susan, if the effort to save the Great Salt Lake receives federal funding, which has been about, how should the money be spent that County? What can the county do to promote getting more water into the lake and

wetlands? So, the Great Salt Lake is critically important to our economy, to our air quality, to so many aspects of Davis County's life and it does affect how the weather um comes in. Sometimes we get the lake effect snow and so there's so many ways that you know if we don't have that great salt lake and if we don't take care of it will change how we get our um I think our rain and so many aspects of of why that is so important to us. But um one thing I did learn, I actually um sat on a U DOT board for four years um while they built the West Davis corridor. And something that a lot of people are not aware of is that Utah has a obnoxious weed that is not native fragmite. And the fragmite is growing in every waterway everywhere in the state that it can suck up that water. And it's a really big problem. And so I hope that a lot of the funding that the state gets will tackle that problem because I think that one issue if we can get rid of that weed in our waterways will save us so much water. But but along with that I think we all need to be able to take u the challenge to find ways to conserve water within our own yards. I think, you know, if we plant gardens, maybe uh find the drip method, uh things that will use less water but be just as effective. And so, I would support programs to help people if we do get funding that we utilize it very carefully, but in those

you. >> Like you, I because I set aside, I couldn't remember the questions and so I was so excited when this p popped up. Um, actually, you know, I'm a very curious person and so when I decided to run for county commissioner, I started reaching out to any of the commission boards that would let me come and one of the boards is the Davis County Conservation Board. And they meet in the county building and uh they actually were super happy to have me because they said that there hasn't been a commissioner that's gone to their meetings since Randy Elliott. Now, I don't know if that's true, Lorraine, so I'm not trying to point fingers. That's what they said. It was a fascinating meeting. And one of the things they did discuss was the fragmitees. And um they actually are doing something about it right now. They've got amazing machines that they're using that are going in and cutting and killing these fragmitees. And uh and and like Susan said, this is going to have a huge impact on the Great Salt Lake. But more than that, we've got to be creative. We've got to really help figure out how to get more water to the Great Salt Lake. And I think uh making sure people understand the options that are available to them is a big component of that. One of the things we've looked at with Weber Bas and Water on Cisville City Council is we've approved what's called flip your strip as well as an additional thing now that you can actually take out grass in your lawn and if you replace it with something Weber Weaver Bas and Water will pay you money to do that. And so you think like, oh, we've kind of always wondered if we wanted to put in that little basketball court in the backyard. Well, now you can get money to do that because quite frankly, the water that you in the shower, that all makes its way to the Great Salt Lake. It's the water on our lawns that's causing the problem. And so, if we can figure out a way to and I don't ever want to infringe that type of stuff on on folks that have their beautiful lawns, but but we want to provide that information. And and if you in this room didn't know about that option right now, then there's a problem. We're not communicating it well

So, here's the data. The data is that you and I both use 150 to 160 gallons per person per day. That's for culinary water. For the secondary water, onethird of that water goes to the farmers. Now, I'm not a big advocate of getting rid of the farmers going forward. But what we can do is we can pull together a citizen committee and bring in experts. Utah State University has as an agricultural school. We can bring in civil engineers, water engineers, be able to bring them do is gather the data using citizen committees and decide on how one gallon of water gets used, how it makes it from when we use it to Great Salt Lake. The Great Salt Lake is a huge us. It drives our economy. It drives our weather. It drives so many things that we have. There's the shrimp uh that we have out there. So, there's a significant economic driver. So, we must look at all the issues. If we do, as John says, and start putting rock every place, guess what? That dries up temperature. You have to understand the variables that you have to address in order to get to the problem. to address the problem. So unless you have the data available to do so. So education is clear. Education has to be done. We'll bring citizen committees together to address these Farmers, common citizens, people of experts in civil engineering and We'll look at the economic impacts. We do need to increase the water to the Great Salt Lake because it does have a tremendous economic impact on us. But there are ways to go about it. But you have to understand the basic data and what the impacts are. If you don't understand that, you can't come up with solutions. I will use my skill sets and assessing data and bringing people together to coalitions which I did for 11 years in Washington DC working with the House and the Senate authorization appropriation committees and the three and four-letter agencies to build coalitions. I will bring all of

you. I agree with Scott that we need data and I always ask for data and we often get a lot of great information so that we can make decisions. C the county is a really important regional partner when it comes to the Great Salt Lake just being there near the border. It's an important place that we reside. Um agriculture is a huge part of it. There are programs where we can pay farmers if if the federal government were to give money. There are programs where we can pay farmers to um lease us water that can be used for the Great Salt Lake. There are engineering um models that can be accessed where we can redirect trapped water. We can remove fragmitees like Susan talked about. Um that's an important invasive weed where that's soaking up a lot of water that's needlessly. We we implemented flip flip your strip in bountiful where we um there people could apply for rebates if they change their landscaping. And so there's a lot of things that can be done. The county can be an example, right? The county owns properties all across the county. And so the county can make sure that they're not watering the road or watering at off hours or um that we're not watering too many days per week. The county can lead out as an example. Also, um I agree with Scott that we need to look to data, look to the experts, follow their advice. Absolutely. And the county can also educate people. The county can put things on our website, can spread information, can help make sure that people are aware of what can be done to conserve water. And we need to treat water like the scarce resource that it

is.

place in the western hemisphere for bird migration. Um there's a lot of other very important things about Great Salt Lake and um next to the cost of housing in the state of the number one uh emergency problem that we have it the other one is water. We are normally the second driest state in the whole nation and we haven't always behaved like we are the second driest state. So, uh, it's gotten to be problem. There are some efforts that are collaborative. Any sort of a of a complex problem, no one can solve it. And the county does not have authority to solve it. It's take all the stakeholders and all the efforts. And there are a lot of groups already working. I attended just a few months ago big gathering at the state capital um with a group called Salt Lake Rising. They had the speaker there. The it was packed. They had producers there because there's the question about agriculture and and different crops and and water. Um, and there were four experts in the front of the panel and I listened to those and I took notes because I started to learn about water when we moved here in 1996. I knew water was a scarce resource and we as a family have always been paying attention to that. Um, and so when I was a planning commissioner, I attended an all day watershed um tour by the Weaver Basin Conservancy. water is a deal. Um, so that that meeting at Great Salt Lake uh Great Salt Lake Raising Rising, they talked about some things and I paid particular attention to a PhD at Utah State University. His name is Dr. Matt Yoast and he pointed out that something we already know that just because you throw a lot of money at something doesn't mean it always moves the needle as much as it should. and he spoke strongly about how important it is that we do the right things with any resources as well as the education. And the last thing I'll say is that about a week ago we heard that there is money that we do get from a new bill that came into law and um it is to be used for conservation when green belt land develops. And you can bet that I'm going to sit with Dr. for Matt Yoast and our economic development director to figure out what we can do in this county to actually help and not just throw money

it. you. Um okay, now we're going to go to a one minute question and it's about communication. How can commissioners better communicate with the public about county responsibilities and services? And um we did have I we're not going to get to all the audience questions, but we had a question about honesty and integrity as a candidate. So maybe you can

in one minute. >> Wow. Should I pledge the scout oath? I'm honest. Um, yeah. I mean, honesty is part of transparency, I would say, because oftentimes when you aren't transparent or you aren't aggressively transparent, like I like to be, it comes across as dishonest. Um, and so, uh, the, you know, the skill of saying, well, I thought I told you that doesn't work. And a lot of us who are running right now have seen that one of the best forms of communication that you can do is send out a postcard that doesn't have to be open. See, if I get a a piece of mail and it's not uh I can tell if it's a bill or a check, but if it's anything else, it's going in the garbage can. And a lot of the times we're living in a society where you have about 11 seconds to capture someone's interest. And so an aggressive form of communication that I think the county could over under overtake undertake is sending out postcards that say, "Hey, the county sheriff's department is doing this. Click this QR code if you want to watch a 90-second video about it." and provide forward aggressive communication so that people feel like we're not just waiting for them to come to us to find things out that we're being out there and that's honesty, right? I would say so.

Thank you.

you. >> Great question. So, I'm going to equate uh transparency, integrity, and communication all into one big hole. So, what do we have now today? A lack of transparency in our current commission. You don't know about all the things that I've talked about in terms of what you're really paying for because they haven't been transparent. They haven't been honest. They've been driven by special interest. I commit to you that will not happen. So, how will we do that? First off, commission meetings happen now on Tuesdays o'clock. A you work. Can't make that 10 o'clock meeting. I'll tell you what, we're evening and you will be invited and we will provide you with data on what will be talked about at that meeting. We'll look at uh giving you data on pluses and minus of things we're going to discuss and we'll talk about the budget. That's one. Two, on the other side of that of that newsletter which we will provide to you judges. It's very difficult to get information on judges. We will provide that. We'll we'll give trend analysis for those judges. We will provide you uh uh the data necessary in a newsletter and in person and we will make it available to you. Transparency, honesty, I will provide that to you and I guar and I promise I will

you. I'll just address the honesty and integrity question first and that is during my um 12 years of service in Bountiful, I have acted with integrity and I can honestly tell you that every time any a resident came to me with a problem, I always tried to respond and I always um tried to act with respect and kindness even if they were not um kind to me. And so I firmly believe in in um acting with integrity and honesty and respect. Um when it comes to the question, I think that the way that residents usually discover the county is when they have a problem like oh I have my tax increase or oh I have a I need to like check out a library book but I don't know they I can't find it or oh I have the stray pet but I don't know where to take it. And so I think that's sometimes when residents find out about county

um had wanted to get our our uh meetings live streamed and taped on our website. So, he and I made that happen. A year later, um actually before the pandemic began, um I knew that we weren't pushing anything out to our residents. the different departments and offices had um some social media which is really fantastic but there was not a proactive push of a of a communication and so I worked with all the offices and departments and took that on and that started in January of 2021. So you can sign up for it if you have a hard time finding it. Um just reach out to me specifically. My card is out there. My cell phone is on that card. And um there's responsibility. I mean we have open and public meeting laws. Everything has to happen open and publicly with all the contracts and all the business. There's already this. And um so it is also a responsibility for us to sign up for those things as residents and to to make a little time to pay attention to the things that are made easy for us to know what's going on. I think more and more people are getting interested and they're helping their neighbors get interested. There's people in the room who do that sort of a thing and uh it's on us really to pay attention and to participate in our

that. You know, for most people that live in Davis County, they just are living daytoday within their families with in their neighborhoods. Um, taking care of what is right there important to them. And most of them don't even think about what's going on with Davis County Commission within the Davis County until something. And once they need something, they should be able to go to the website and easily find that service. Um, right now I think for the most part that's you're able to do that and I, you know, as long as we can improve on that. I know that, um, there the newsletter that they talked about that's emailed out, but beyond that, um, honestly, I don't think a lot of people really mind. They just don't want to see their taxes go up, but they want the services. And so, we can do a good job with that. and as your commissioner, if you choose to vote for me, um that's what I'll work on. I will work hard to make sure that you're taken care of when you are

you. Okay, this is the last question. We start with Scott. Scott, take one minute and clarify or add anything and tell us

you. >> Well, if you've not been able to tell, I'm pretty darn passionate about Davis County. I've lived here for over 66 years. My children and grandchildren live here. I have 11 grandchildren. I am passionate about Davis County. I care. I invested grew up in Centerville and Bountiful. It was dirt roads. We used to drive the cattle up and down Parish Lane. I have seen growth. I have seen what's gone on. I will apply that. I'm grateful for the endorsement of the Davis Can Republican Party of the of the uh the um the DCC as well as the veterans as well as many others who have endorsed me and I would appreciate if you'd endorse me as well as we go forward. So my my priorities are very clear. Transparency is number one. Fiscal We have got to use data to make decisions. I'm unique in this in across the board on all the candidates that are here. I will bring that 42 years of executive experience of that ability to take data and assess it and make decisions not based on a gut feel which some of my uh colleagues here have stated but based on very specific data and my commitment as you you the County above all

I have 12 years of government experience. And in Bountiful, it's important because Bountiful is known as being lean, fiscally conservative city. And that's not by accident. We did look at data. We did our homework. We went to the trouble to, you know, we went through the budgets with a fine tooth comb. And I know how local government works. I know how budgeting works. So that's one aspect of the job, right? The budgets. The other aspect is all of the issues. For 12 years, I've been studying the issues. And just as one example, let's talk about law enforcement for a minute. Um the morale we we talked about body cameras, bulletproof vests over time. Um there are salary wars, right? when I was with Bountiful where different departments were trying to steal our police officers, but I would sit down with those police officers and they were struggling trying to figure out how to make ends meet. And so that's just one little example, but for 12 years I've been studying all of these issues and I understand how these things work. And so, um, I would love to put that experience to work in Davis County and I know I can help. Please vote

Harris. Okay, if you didn't realize it yet, these three are running for seat A. Everyone will get to vote in that race. And then we two are running for seat B, and everyone will also get to vote in that race. Um, I have a bunch of handouts back there. I hope if you there's any of those you do not have, including my card with my cell phone, you will get those. Not everything you've heard up in the front is very factual. I recently attended a conference and um not related, it was a human services and housing conference that I attended and by golly I was in a session where um a gentleman who was training in there said I never promise what I don't have I just sat thought I wish all people running for office would would think about that as well. There are so many things you can say because people want to hear it and it's not necessarily something that we have control over. So take a look at how the county is organized and what what we do and gather the correct information which is factual. I am running on empowering the people. I believe very much in the power of the people of the United States. I believe in the constitution and I in we the people very much so. And I um love the feedback. I love the learning. I love when we go to primary sources and learn really how it works because then our voices can really make a difference. And thank you so much. Reach out anytime. There's a lot of information on my website,

lorenkamalu.com. Well, I want to thank all of you for coming out tonight and getting to know more about us. Um, a story that I like to tell, and some of you have heard it if you've listened to me before, is a story about my parents. Uh my parents just turned 90 at the beginning of this year and my dad was a school teacher. My mom was a homemaker and for 30 years they worked and lived within their means so that when my dad retired they could comfortably. Well, I can tell you to this day that their property taxes are almost three times more than what their mortgage payment was. And I think what a shame that is. I think we can do better. I think we can do more. I think we can have where we work better with the legislature to see if we can't with taking that burden off the backs of that segment of our population because they are on fixed incomes and it is hard. And as a commissioner, I promise that I will listen to everyone, but I will also work hard so that we can make sure that that doesn't happen, that we don't kick or make make it so that people lose their homes and you know, this is a great place to live and I hope that we all get the opportunity to keep living here by

you. >> Thank you. Um, this is just awesome. I want to thank my fellow candidates. Honestly, if you guys knew this is hard, but we're doing it because we absolutely believe that we are the ones to represent you. Um, this this is actually really awesome because you get to see inside my brain a little bit. I sat down and I thought, "Yeah, but those postcards that I'm thinking about, that would cost money and I don't want money to be charged on the people." So, I thought, well, what if businesses There's plenty of businesses that would love to say county information by Bowman's or somewhere like that. These are the types of ideas we need to think about. And this is how you pick at a budget. This is how you bring property taxes down is you aggressively challenge things and you think of better ways. My name is John Adams and I ask for your vote. Thank you so much for having us

moderator. Let's give the

applause. We're going to move very quickly to hear

sheriff. >> Hello, I'm Angie Sterner, the League of Voters of Davis County. And for sheriff candidates questions, same format, they will be timed and given the 1 minute 30 second, 15 second warnings. And we ask the audience to please hold their applause end. We will get started with John Atkin. The first question, they'll turns. Shouldn't be too hard with you. Okay. Question number one, two minutes. Tell us why you are running for this office and two or three of your

priorities. How's that? There we go. So, my name is John Akin. I'm currently running for the or working within the Davis County Sheriff's Office. That's one thing that sets me apart. I like to pay. So, you once. Uh, I love law enforcement. I love public safety. I love this community. So, I've lived outside of this country, lived outside the state, and this is specific place my wife and I decided to raise our kids who are currently in grade school. I have heavily vested interest again. So at the sheriff's office, I work full-time internal affairs. I work with a Utah National Guard, start on the army side as a military police guy, went Air Force security forces, and now I'm an Air Force intelligence officer. I also work part time as a firefighter paramedic and have four kids. My wife is a saint and There are a lot of things that frustrate me when I look at public safety and law enforcement as a whole. I don't think we do a great job at taking care of our people. I also think and look at the world ahead and it's changing faster than any of us can keep up, especially when we start looking at what the next two to three years looks like, specifically technology. My job as an Air Force intelligence officer that who the military has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into me is to train me to perceive threats and changes so that way we can help mitigate the impact. One of my frustrations within law enforcement and public safety for far too long is we've been purely reactionary. I think there are plenty of instances where we can be proactive while still protecting our would like to say that there is a big disconnect currently at the sheriff's office between the administrators and as well as the people doing day. That's not foreign among all just the sheriff's office. That's common among a lot of entities. But if we listen to the people doing the job every single day and we provide them the resources, we wrong. The administration exists because the job the people do every single day. And that's what I'm advocating for is to take care of the people so they can do

>> Thank you to everyone for being here. Thank you to the moderator. Um, and thank you to John. Thank you. Uh, as somebody said earlier, this this is really hard and I appreciate those as a citizen. I appreciate everyone that's willing to stand up and run for public office. I'm running for office. I'm a lifelong county resident. I actually started my career at the Davis County Sheriff's Office. It's where I met my wife on my first uh day there. And it's where I worked for 16 years before I took finished a master's degree in public administration and took a job as assistant police chief with Roy City and then later moved on to the Weaver County Sheriff's Office. I'm running because I love this community. I love the agency that gave me my start and vested in me and I want to return uh back to that agency to to help them uh perform and help safeguard my community. Some of my priorities I want to I want to focus on the employees. Um I had I want to focus on competitive pay. We have to stay competitive in this market. I have a lot of experience writing RFPs and doing large paycale pay studies. When I was at um I also want to develop a culture of mentorships. When I was a brand when I was a young deputy, um I had a supervisor. He was my direct supervisor, but he learned that I was trying to get into a class for advancement. He found the class for me at another agency. Went and registered me for the class. This is a little bit right at the beginning. I don't want to say that it's prior to cell phones because that feels like it dates me too much, but it was kind of the beginning of cell phones. Cell common. He found where I lived, sought me out, and uh and gave me information, put it on the door, saying, "Hey, I found the class for you. If it works, if it doesn't, contact this guy." I want to create that kind of culture at the sheriff's office. I also want to build uh a stronger community by interacting with the citizens and walking neighborhoods. I commit to walk all of our contract cities in uniform once a week to hear your concerns and meet the people in those neighborhoods. Thank

you. >> Thank you. So, question number two, Aaron first. You have two minutes. Is the current budget for the sheriff's office adequate? How would you reduce or increase it for the next few

cycles? So, during the during the previous discussion, it was brought up that the sheriff's office was over budget and overtime by about a million dollars, which would indicate that potentially that budget's adequate. About three years ago, the sheriff's office actually gave up 19 positions to fund raises for employees. We did a similar thing at Wever County, trying not to raise taxes, trying to compete with other agencies. And so that was that was a decision that

but here's what I'm going to do as sheriff. I'm not just going to go in and ask for those 19 positions. What we did at Weaver County is anytime that we had a turnover in a position, similar to what John Adams talked about, we would analyze that position and see, hey, can those responsibilities be absorbed somewhere else, can we take that captain position, for example, we convert it to two deputy positions, take those responsibilities, put it somewhere else. When we had when the state mandated that we all did, security chiefs, we were county, we found inside of our existing budget, the funding to be able to do that as opposed to just going to commission and growing the budget. So I would I would I would do that before and then identify the number of positions that other thing that I will do and that I have experience with is auditing every line item of the budget. We implemented lean systems at Weber County that comes from the manufacturing industry to really lean out our processes and eliminate identify and eliminate waste. One of the things I like what Scott Fletcher said about operating like a business. One of the things that I would like to do at the sheriff's office, we've got to get all of the employees involved in finding cost savings. In a way that I think we can do that, the sheriff's office has almost a If you have an employee that can find $10,000 of savings, why can't we give them a 5% bonus of $500 in order to find those and buy savings?

So, we'll start off with the the overtime inside the the correctional facility first. So, that's about a million dollar a year. And the reason why we have issues when we talk about overtime specifically is because we don't have enough staffing to be able to do the job itself. And so, when we talk about overtime, you know, we'll get into whether it has enough money or not, but the simple fact is we do not have the staffing. And I would argue it's pretty simple that we have the lowest staffing percentage out of any law enforcement agency in Davis County. We struggle to keep people. We struggle to recruit good people and then we lose fantastic people usually for if you think about that, if you lose people for less pay to another agency that's close by, why is that? What is it that's driving that factor? I've different friends who've left us supervisors to and good. I think it was uh Commissioner Kamalu who mentioned, you know, when we have a high turnover, maybe it was Kendall and Harris. When we have high turnover, it increases the cost because if we keep sending law enforcement officers to the academy, we keep sending uh correctional deputies through the academy, we're spending tens of thousands of dollars and we're not able to invest in the people to retain them. And so, when it comes to budget, when it comes to expenses, we need to make sure we're we're doing the basics first and we're taking care of our people. But yes, we should have some evaluation on whether or not the budget is adequate. We have contract services that come from the US Marshalss, from the state, from US Forest Service, from our contract cities, West Point, Fruit Weieber. And I think it's worth having conversations of are we re-evaluating those? Are we checking to see what amount we Is the Forest Service paying enough or is the $15,000 annually actually adequate? And we should be having those fights before we start going to the taxpayers that live in Davis County and ask for them for money. We should be asking the state for Analopee Island when we have to go out there and take care of that portion. We should be asking the US Forest Service for more money because we have to patrol the canyon area. And so when it comes back to budget, we need to make sure that everything's taken care of. But I also think that we should have a evaluation and audit on our structure of our administration. patrol for example, we have a captain in there and it hasn't really changed much since we ran paramedic services which counted about 50% of our call volume. So it's the question is we're not getting that call volume. Are these positions adequate and

you. >> Okay, because of time we we should have already been starting the clerk's questions. I'm going to have to cut down the time on your Are you okay cutting it down by 30 to 60 seconds? 30 to 60. Some of them I I'm just guessing which ones will be easiest and cutting those down the most and the other ones less. So for jail services question, I'm cutting it down to 1.5 minutes. That's the next question. Um, okay. So we also had an audience question that I'm sorry I don't have time for them to answer. It's a good question a duplication of services between county and cities, but you could ask your current sheriff. just go and find out from department. So, we'll move to question number three and have John Atkins first. Give

1.5 minutes. How can jail services be improved to make sure punishments are fair and recidivism is reduced? What changes in state assistance would be

helpful? >> Punishments fair? Because so, I work internal affairs. So, when I think punishment's fair, I think of internal investigations. Is is that kind of what? Can you read that

more time? >> so. How can jail services improved sure >> that inmates

are treated fairly

>> and recidivism is reduced? Do we understand agree >> the interpretation of the question?

Okay. 1.5 minutes.

>> Yeah. Thank you. So, this goes back to a lot of the basics I already kind of mentioned unfortunately. So, sorry if it's a little bit redundant, but the simple fact is if we can't do the basics that we can't go above and beyond and do extra things. I think there are many avenues where yes, we can do improved services. I sat down was I was contacted about two months ago with by uh two volunteer clergies within uh Farmington who came to our jail and they did con they did convey to me that ours is one of the most difficult to work with in northern Utah. But I'll also add to the fact that our staffing is low. If we have minimal staffing, there's only so much we can do to be able to provide because we can't have people going through the jail unsupervised and escorted. And so going back to the simple fact is we need to listen to our people doing the job every single day. They are the ones that know what the problems are. They are the ones we to. Law enforcement corrections has been a heck of a lot different since George Floyd back in 2009 or 2019. Things have changed. Society has changed and by and large we've had too much of a disconnect from administrators that've been in the job for apologize 30 or 40 years and they think they know best when things have shifted underneath them. I think we need to go back to make sure that we're covering those basics. And then yes, absolutely. Where can we work with people that are volunteering their time and efforts, but as well as educational purposes to be able to reduce that recidivism. I think that is absolutely crucial because when we start throwing people in incarcerating them, we're talking between4 to $80,000 a year. And that's your money. That's all of us as taxpayers money. So, how can we reduce it? Well, let's start going through the program and the processes to be able to make sure that there's a good re-entry program, that people can leave the facility, that they can have a point of contact, they can have a driver's license. I spoke with uh one of our representatives in the south end, Melissa Gar Ballard, and that's one thing she's been trying to push because she sits on a criminal justice board is can we get these folks IDs at least

you. That's a that's a really simple question to go to 1.5 want to I want to lean on my experience as a correction chief at Weaver County for this one. So about 95% of the inmates in a county facility are going to come back the community. And we've been making the mindset change of of going from a jail to a correctional facility. And we need to keep doing that. One of my favorite things to do as a as a corrections chief at Wever County was if you're familiar with the Weber County Jail, it's kind of in a weird location. It's kind of isolated. I would I would pick up individuals as they were released from jail and I would take them home and I would I would tell them I'd give them a ride on on one condition if they promised not to come in my back and then and then what I would do is I'd ask them about the barriers to to to staying out. What are some of the barriers? And we I would learn firsthand about these barriers. And sometimes it's like putting somebody in the in the seat of a plane that's never flown a plane and said, "Here, figure it out." Because they're coming out with no resources, no connection. I had the opportunity under Sheriff Arban to start with him what we called the bridge the gap program where we actually started working to get IDs and get and eliminate those barriers. And then we actually moved it to a full re-entry program where we have six full-time staff and re-entry efforts stop on the day you come into the jail. We do an assessment. We start having contacts. We've reached out and got federal and state funding to support those programs. And in a one-year period at the Weber County Jail, we saw a 45% reduction in

recetivism.

So, Erin, you will go first for question number four. Erin Perry will go first. minutes. What is your biggest Davis County security worry that the sheriff's office

for? >> So, I thought a lot about this one. I I think a big one is is maintaining the trust and integrity of the profession, but I think the biggest one for a sheriff's office is the jail. And what I've found as I've gone to door to door and I've talked to people, people ask me, "Well, do we have a jail in Davis County?" And I think you don't have to raise your hand, but I I'd be interested if there's anybody in here that doesn't know uh I think it's a testament to the work the jail. The the Davis County Jail has a daily population of about 700 inmates. These individuals include individuals that are that are charged or convicted of rape, criminals. That is a huge responsibility that's undertaken at the jail in order to keep them safe and then to provide the programming and and those things at the jail. I was going to run for sheriff about 10 years ago when I had been at Roy for about a year and I had been a a sergeant for seven years at the Davis County Office, but I felt like I was lacking certain levels of experience. And now in hindsight, being at Weber County for six years and being the corrections chief during CO and managing that facility, I know that that's some of those pieces that I needed. I think that it's imperative that you have a sheriff that understands firsthand the responsibilities jail.

to 115, I

think. >>

So,

>> see that's

good. Let's see if you can

that. >> Yeah, I get a little too longwinded. So, we'll see. We'll see how this works out. So, some of the main biggest concerns and security concerns we have within Davis County is our future. We talk about kids. We talk about I've said this time and time again, sexual crimes against our children is more prevalent in Davis County than most of you folks know. And that is going to be our downfall. that and then we look at the future. We look at artificial intelligence. We look at fraud and we're not doing anything about fraud and artificial intelligence. That is very concerning to me. We see fraud now. When I worked as a criminal investigator several years ago at the sheriff's office, fraud was usually, oh, someone just tricked a senior or somebody stole a driver's license or stole a credit card. Now it's people can duplicate your voice. They can put you in places you've never been. They can create fake videos of school shootings and post that on the net. These are the where our life is going. We can't live in the past. We need to make sure that we have a vision for the future and have our pulse on what is driving our society and the concerns tomorrow. That is where my mind goes. And I think that is really what and the sheriff himself needs to be able to be accustomed to is have that pulse on society, have and develop those relationships so that way we can actually get after problems and we don't just keep dealing with the byproducts. I am very much someone that wants to look at the root of the problem. I'll just share this. What's what's the increase in society? and substance abuse, right? What is the biggest byproduct of sexual abuse? Oh, probably sexual abuse. and mental health. And so what I'm after is trying to fix problems that we keep dealing with on the regular. I'm sick of seeing as law enforcement professional, those folks that get in this job, they want to get into it, they have the passion, they want to make the change, but if we don't have the change, they will leave. I promise you. Thank

you. >> Thank you. Question number five, John Atkins will answer first. You have one minute. How can the sheriff's office better prepare Davis County for an earthquake, a large fire, or

disaster? You So, on the military side, we're actually trying to prepare for this as well because we are trying to figure out what happens if we lose all communication. So, we've been going through this process the past couple months. That way, if something happens, I know when I'm supposed to go um and what AM radio to turn to. So, we have fantastic people that are volunteer ham radio operators. I used to have my ham license and that expired several years ago. um I never kept it up, but those folks are paramount because that works all the time. I also think it's imperative that we have good relationships at every single level within Davis County. I have over 20 endorsements from mayor, city council members, and commissioners because and legislators because I know those things are important. Too long and too often, law enforcement, but also other government entities are dancing to their own sheet of music. I see that. I see that now. And that's not okay. Okay, we need to be able to get on the same page, work together, develop these relationships, know what everybody has to bring to the table, and that way we'll make sure that we are prepared

So, when I was at Roy, I was actually appointed as the emergency manager for Roy City and I worked with the the Weber County emergency manager. And then when I was at Wever County, the emergency manager fell under the sheriff's office and reported to me. So at Davis County, the the county emergency manager uh is in the sheriff's uh chain of command. And uh I was just on there I was on the website, the emergency manager's website today, and there's a lot of resources and things we're doing. Um the emergency operations center that was just recently built uh at the complex will help uh to train. It'll also help during 30 seconds already, huh? Okay. It'll it it it'll help Um um I think the emergency manager is doing a really good job. What we need to do is the foundation is there and the facilities are there. What we need to do is get that message out. So they do like they have a a preparedness fair coming up in September. We need to do more of those and get that message out so the community is better involved and understands the resources and and the things there. I attended recently the the local emergency planning committee meeting. Businesses, religious leaders, and individual citizens can attend that. You can get on the emergency managers website. You can go and you can attend that. We need more attendees. Programs are there. The planning is there. We need more people to come to these events and be part of the group. So, as a community, we're better prepared for

you. Okay, question number six. We have eight six. You have one and a half minutes to answer this. Erin will go first. Is there anything about the sheriff's office's current relations

>> So, this is a question that I've actually we get asked a lot. We get this question asked a so I actually reached out to the director of the Department of Homeland Security for the Salt Office and I just said because this is one of those interesting questions. Somebody will say, "How do you feel about ice?" And then they give you one minute to answer it. And I usually say, "I like Pebble ice. That's that's the kind because that's about all the time you have for

I had an interesting conversation with the director of ICE. He likes the cooperation that's going on between his office and the Davis County and the Davis County Jail to identify and remove undocumented individuals that are there on What he would like is he would like more law enforcement agencies to cross deputize task force officers not for targeted enforcement which I involved in. I have committed to, as a law enforcement officer, I have responded to active shooter events. I've responded to officers shot in the line of duty. And I've ran into incidents willing to put my life on the line regardless for anybody, regardless of your your race, your beliefs, and your status. I don't want victims being afraid to call 911 for our services. But I think there's an opportunity for us to increase public safety through a relationship with ICE to target the criminals. And where I would actually work on that agreement is in our narcotics unit. I worked in the narcotics unit, dangerous criminals in that unit. And I think that we could cross deputize one of our officers there to enhance that relationship, enhance public safety in Davis County without fear of and and getting

911. It's not enough time to really talk about all the all of it, but if you want to research it more, 287G is engulf is that's what the program is called underneath DHS and ICE. Thankfully, our DHS uh his he lives over in Syracuse, our director state. Um what my mind goes to is I'll give you a hypothetical. So, say I'm driving down the road as a law enforcement officer and I see a vehicle swerving off and I'm like, well, probably DWI. So, pull them over, go through the test. Yeah, intoxicated. Okay. All right. All right, we're arresting him. We're taking him to the jail. Oh, we run through. Okay, this person is here illegally. Okay, we're book him into the jail and now we're notifying ICE. ICE says, "Hey, hang on to them." Normal occasions what this will look like once you hit zero, then you're going to get the boot out the door. But, um, in this instance, it's illegal. Okay, hold on to them. We'll you funding. Keep them until we're ready to collect them. Perfect. And that's the jail enforcement model. We do not have a current contract within that. If you go the 287g program on ISIS's website, it'll show who has those contracts. we don't have that in place. Um, website. I think that is right. I think that that gets after the people that are here illegally and committing crimes against us. I'll also tell you that my mind doesn't always go to the folks that live to the south of us. My mind as a military and tell guys goes to people here from China, people here from the Middle East, people here from Eastern Europe that do not like us, do not like our way of life. And as a sheriff, I need to be aware of these things, especially when our biggest resource and probably one of the biggest targets in the state of Utah is Hill Air Force Base. And that does concern me. That's the responsibility as well at the sheriff to make sure that our cooperation and our agreements are well and that that way we're taking care of them on the outside of the base to make sure that we deal with those concerns and we deal with those threats, especially when we start looking at the drone program, how drones are changing and evolving so quickly. What is that going to look like the next two to three years? Well, I don't I don't I'm not very optimistic about it because I haven't seen a lot on the law

it. you. Okay, question number seven. You have one minute. John Atkins will answer first. How can the sheriff better communicate with the public about the sheriff's office responsibilities and

services? >> Thank you. I'll tell you one of the things was disheartening throughout this process. I announced back in September that I was running because I knew that there was going to be a lot of work to actually get after the problems and understand how everything is flowing and feeling within the county. So, my first goal was to go to every single city council meeting in the county. Well, unfortunately, they all do it like the same night at the same time. So, that took about four months for 15 cities. But I did that. I went through and I there was two mayors that I spoke with said, "I never seen the sheriff before. I don't even like." And to me, that is wrong. If I am the elected official forever and over Davis County, it is incumbent on me to make sure I'm representing you. And how can I represent you if you don't know who I am or who you can come bring your complaints to? And so, that is the representative that I think that we should have. Additionally, I think things we start talking about ICE, I wish that our sheriff would come out and say this is where we stand and why. That way it clears up the ambiguity, but I like too often people within government, they kind of like to play a little bit in ambiguity because I'll use an example. When I decide to run for sheriff, put myself out there and everybody knows that I'm running. So if I fail, everybody knows I fail. If I come out as elected official and say this is my goal, this is my plan and I fail. Well, that that stinks. But I think that the sheriff should come out at least annually and say, "These are my goals for the sheriff's office. This is what we're trying to achieve. We're working with the city levels and the state levels, and this is where we're driving." That way, everybody knows what

going. So, when you run for office, it's less communication and it's more a one-way interview. People don't want to show their hand because they see they want to see where you stand without showing their hand. If that makes sense ask you questions. So, so if I'm elected, that's got to change. That's got to flip, right? And then as a sheriff, I want to hear the concerns. I want to hear where you stand. So, uh, cottage meetings, in-person cottage meetings and online cottage meetings when we talk about ICE and what we're going to do. That's an example that I would set up an online cottage meeting well in advance with plenty of time. people can jump on probably do some public ones too because you got time to make that decision. So go out to the different cities, do online ones, get the input so that you understand where the residents are, you understand their

the other thing that I'm committed to do, I believe strongly in community policing where we see each other. It's really easy as law enforcement officers to turn people into the next service. think you could do a study on how we handle calls at the beginning of the shift versus the end of the shift when you're ready to go

home. I'm going to lead the charge of community orient policing by walking our contract cities in uniform once a week to meet you outside a crisis to just interact outside of a crisis outside of crisis communication and understand what are your concerns, what are your objectives, what are your needs. I want within my first year of a sheriff, I want anyone in the contract city for sure to say, "Yeah, I know the sheriff. I saw him. I met him. He came to my door. I was working on a sprinkler project. He helped me put it." Whatever. happens, right? That's my goal

communication. you. Question eight, our last question. one minute and Aaron answer first. Take one minute to clarify or add anything and to tell us

you. speed round. I have 24 years in law enforcement. I have nine years executive experience, six years at a jail at the sheriff's office managing every aspect from administrative perspective that the sheriff is I'm a graduate of the FBI National Academy and I have master's degree I just my wife. Throughout my career, she's helped me serve throughout my career as an administrator. when we've had officer involved shootings, when we have bad events, I'll call her and I'll say, "Mary," put her on the spot, say, "Mary, can you make a meal for me for a family and she'll say, "Yeah, how much time when do you need it?" I'll say, "How fast can you get it done?" Every time she's had it done and then her and I together or myself, one of my kids, we'll go and we'll meet with the spouse and we'll meet with the family and we'll explain the process. We'll explain, "Here's what the next days are going to look like. Here's resources for you. I know that this is unknown. I know this is unknown ground, but we're family and we're going to take care of you. Goes beyond the education and the experience. I care deeply about the employees that work at the sheriff's county. My name's Aaron Perry and I ask for your

vote. Ladies and gentlemen, my job as the sheriff is to keep you safe now and the future. That is my job. That is my charge. to represent you to fight against bills that are unreasonable, that are heard on the capital that take away from your constitutional rights or tax you in hidden I hope it's been apparent am can be a very much a bulldog or tenacious person. I have three jobs that I've held for the past four years. Two of those career. I am very much interested in trying to get after the problems and solve them. I'm sick of just dealing with the problems time and time again and never really coming to a solution. And I think one of the big failure points on why that's been the case is by and large law enforcement always comes at problems and says we have the answer. We're going to on our own. It's not going to be able to be accomplished on our own. We need to be able to open up and again that is why I've opened up that avenue of developing those wide relationships because this is not a one-man show. I need to be able to listen to the people in all areas of government and to be able to make a decision as the sheriff. What is best for the people, what is best for their future, and how can I help protect them. By and large, I have seen within government itself, people not paying attention to secondary and tertiary effects of those decisions. If I make a decision as a sheriff, I should be wondering and planning out what those trickle down effects are going to look like for everybody in other cities, the state, and individual citizens. I need to be able to make sure I'm paying attention to those things. I need to make sure I'm listening to those experts because I'm not going to know everything. But I will tell you that the experience I have is extremely broad. Too often we have folks in law enforcement. That's the only thing they have ever done. We got to open up our vision and see that there are a lot of I appreciate you coming out today. Thank

Atkin,

much. Thank you so much to our candidates. Thank you to the audience for coming.

private information is going to take two

minutes

Okay, I'm going to pair down a little bit. Um, we'll do two minutes for your introduction, one minute on voters being able to trust that their vote will be counted, and then the rest I might pair down a little bit, too. And I'll I'll let you know ahead of if I can. right. So, we will start with Ryan McKenzie answering first. And I had them doing a stand up and down game. Do you care if you're answering the question first or would Is it fair enough if they just go back

forth? Do they need to say give be able to answer the question first? So, should I have times in a row or should we just go just go back and forth? Okay. So, we won't be doing as much of the sit down, stand up. Okay. Question number one, have two minutes. Tell us why you are running for this office and two or three of your priorities. Brian

first. >> My name is Brian McKenzie. Uh for the past 22 years, it's been an honor for me to serve the citizens of this community as I've worked in the clerk's office. Uh most recently, this uh last few years, I've been able to serve as your elected county clerk, and I'm running for re-election. I'm doing it because honestly, I love my job. I love what I do. Uh it it is a fun and exciting and engaging thing to do. Uh but more than that, uh it's rewarding knowing that what I'm doing matters in my community as we run elections, as we help people with marriage licenses and and beginning lives together, as we have, uh many young missionaries coming in and getting passports and hearing about where they're going or people going on vacations and also helping people gather their records that they're interested in and and really serving the community. Uh so I love what I do. Um, I work really hard to be good at what I do and to make sure that we're serving our community the very best possible. I've got a bachelor's in business administration. I'm a certified elections registration administrator certified through Weber State's vote Uh, currently working on certification in in uh privacy engagement, privacy management. I'm also a certified records officer with the state of Utah. So, I've got the time in the office, the education, and the skills to run in this office. and I would love to continue to do a great service and job for the

>> Hello everybody. I'm Jonno Whitesides. Um I'm running for Davis County Clerk because I live in this county. I love the way of life that we have. And so you've heard a lot about, you know, taxes, how that affects us, how that impacts us. Well, so does the role of the county clerk's office. We look at elections. as we look at, as Brian had mentioned, some of those other things, records, privacy. And so what my goal is to bring a continued increase level of transparency, accessibility, and accountability to the clerk's office. Um, now, while I do not have any experience in elections, I come from a background of 18 years of auditing state, local agencies, at times having to go in and question whether those programs, so not just the finances, but programs, do they benefit the taxpayer? or do they benefit in this case the voters? And so my goal would be to go in there as an objective eye and say what are the things that have been done? What are the things that could be improved and are we doing this? Everything we do should be based upon serving the public. And so that's kind of my reason why I'm running. I have a um background in business as well. I have a masters in business. I'm also a notary public and um I again I live here in Davis County. So I think the quality of life that we can continue to have is unparalleled with a lot of the other state, the rest of the state, a lot of the nation. And so I want to do my part to ensure that we have that quality of life as it pertains to our records, our elections, the daily things that we have to do as citizens of this great county and this

you. >> Okay, question number two. We'll cut 1.5 minutes. So, question number two, we'll have Brian go first. Can Davis County voters trust that their votes will

not?

You >> absolutely you can have confidence that your vote will be counted. Uh we have a number of things in place to help ensure that. Number one, we make sure that our voting systems are secure. I'm a certified technician on our voting systems, so I know how they work. Uh they're never connected to the internet. They don't have the capability of being connected to the internet. Our voting systems go through rigorous pre-election tests. Those tests are open and public uh to where you can come and observe that. In fact, my opponent came down and observed that process when we did that uh just last week. Uh we maintain strict chain of custody of those voting systems and we make sure after the election that they're certified and and tested with our post-election audit. I implemented a citizenship audit of those voting systems to ensure that we can have our system. I focus on transparency in election because I tell you not only can you trust that your ballot is going to be counted but you can verify that your ballot is be is being counted. You can come and have a personal experience in elections. I believe that that's the best way to learn. I'm a strong advocate for transparency in elections making sure there. I have the knowledge and understanding and experience to make sure that that happens and you as a citizen can come in and check that and verify yourself. Whether it's watching the counting process or signing up to get notification when your ballot is received and counted or in some cases it's rejected, you can get that notification as well. Uh that's a really important component of our election

>> All right. The question was can you say that one more Can Davis County voters trust that their votes will be counted? Why

why not? >> Yes, I think that you can trust that your votes are being counted. And what I would say is that I think there's about 200,000 um registered voters at least based upon the official canvas report from last year. Um that's how many ballots were sent out. So that's a pretty big undertaking. So as you look at those things um you should trust the process. But one of the things that the roles of government is what are can we do to provide an an increased level of transparency. And I'll give you an example. You look at the canvas the official canvas report from last year from mun municipal elections. There about 68,000 ballots that were cast. About 66,000 of those mail in. And unless you drop down to I think it's about page 31, you're not really going to know where ballots delivered in person at a dropbox where they actually sent in through the US US Postal Service. So I think there's some things you can do within the already existing budget and resources, understanding that we have to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and being able to just proactively provide more information to public. Um I was grateful for the opportunity to go down and look at the pre-election test and see how that's one of the things that I think could increase the participation for voter um for the voters here in Davis County is by moving that to an evening. I think the last couple years it's been in the morning. And again, as we have all kind of heard previously with the commission meetings, a lot of us work or go to school or have other responsibilities. So there those are some of the things that I can talk

you. >> Thank you. Question number three. Brian will go first. You have one and a half minutes. Is Davis County counting fraudulent votes? If so, how is this

happening? I'll say this, there's no election system that's 100% perfect. There never will be. Uh when you have 200,000 plus moving parts, it's always a challenge. But what I will tell you is we have a number of safeguards in place to number one prevent fraudulent votes from ever happening. Number two, detecting fraudulent votes. uh so that when those do come in, my staff are able to identify them, review them, and in some cases, yes, prosecute them. Uh so we can have confidence uh that we have ample safeguards in place to ensure that our elections are secure and preventing fraudulent votes from being cast in

County. >> Okay. And if you ever want the question repeated,

me know. >> Okay.

I think kind of going off of what Brian said, there may be instances when there has been the attempts to do fraudulent votes. Again, I use the example going back to the municipal elections. I think again past those 30 some pages, I think it was 46 in total. Uh, there were some votes that were handed in that, you know, the person was deceased. I think there was three in total. Um now whether what the what the intent on that was um it did get c it get caught but you can see that in a big system with a lot of voters that there's could be attempts on fraudulent um activities and probably with a bad intent. Um what I can say though is as we review you know the publicly available information again it's what are we doing to proactively provide as much information allowable in the law through the whole process to instill confidence in that system. Um the things I'll say one of the things I'll talk about is while not the the election itself in 2024 there were three state audits that talked about signature verification. So you can um kind of put those two together in the sense that you have the same office, some of the same systems being used. And in those things, there were recommendations that came from those uh chain of custody, a level of transparency, adequately chain uh trained staff. And so just always being able to talk to the talk to the residents, talk to the voters and say, "Listen, these are these are the things that have come up. This is how we're going to change them." And then to be able to report back and be accountable again to the voters to say these are the steps we've taken I think creates a lot of um confidence in the voting system and again can instill confidence just in our bedrock of the foundation of this

elections. >> Thank you. Question number four. Brian will go first. You have one and a half minutes. How will you protect voters

information? You know, I love it when uh we have an opportunity to have independent reviews come in and check on on my office. Um my opponent rep me or mentioned a couple of audits. Uh we we regularly receive audits. I'm pleased to report to the citizens of how those audits look. We consistently have 95 96 97 98 99.99% accuracy depending on the audit. Uh so we continue to have this high level of audit in the work that we do whether it's voter registration or ballot processing as it relates to protecting your your privacy in your voter registration uh uh records. That's really important. Uh we had a recent law change SP 153. Uh many of you probably received some notifications. I oppose that bill. I I think it was a poorly written bill. Uh it did not move us in the right direction. Believe you as a citizen have the right to determine if your private. So what I'm doing now within the within the parameters of the law, my job is to make sure that you understand how this law impacts you. Make sure that you understand what your options are and make sure that you understand where your choices are. Uh that's the most important thing for me as it relates to protecting your privacy in voter registration. Now, I will make sure that uh we will release records according to the law. Uh we're bound by the law. It's important to respect the law. Um, but I'm also there um answering the phones when you call and you have questions about those type of things where we can

process. Okay. Kind of has already been mentioned, protecting private information, personal information is probably one clerk's biggest responsibilities. A lot of things that maybe we don't hear about because elections do always take the forefront. Um, what I will say though, again, there is state law, so clerks are limited to what they can do within their statutory authority. However, that does not preclude a clerk, if I were to be voted in, to again start forming coalitions, working on Capitol Hill with legislators to see the trickle down effect of how legislation affects everyday citizens. And so that would be one of my priorities to get up there and not only speak to the bills, but to be working way ahead of the legislative session to say what are the things that we can do to the laws that are already on the books to be able to improve it for the benefit of citizens, voters in our communities. Um, so yeah, I I want to be clear that do have to follow state law. I there's probably a little bit of wiggle room in there with county policy. uh if I was voted as county clerk, all policies would be on the table to be looked at. Does it serve a purpose of serving the people here in this county? And if not, then we need to look that. But one of the things I just want to close with is transparency is a big deal, but so is privacy. And I think you can balance those things as long as you are always including, communicating, and talking to the public about what the what you're going to do about it, and then reporting back and being

accountable. Thank you. Question number Brian will go first. I'm reduced that to one a half minutes. Are there any voting process changes you would bring to the

>> As it relates to everything that the clerk's office does, there's always room for continued improvement. One of the things that I do with my staff is after each election, we get together and we talk about what went well and what we need to improve upon and we take those things and we implement them. So, a couple of things that we've just recently done that you that you can see as it impact impacts the citizens. Uh, we've revised some of the instructions that come out in your in your ballot. You'll see those as they arrive uh Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday this week. It helps you better understand some of the legislative changes and how they impact you. Another thing that we did is we implemented a new voter insight portal. If you've been to our website and you've seen the listing of candidates, you can now sort those by races. You can search them by name. Uh you can see all of the candidates information there, their photo, their bio, things like that. You can also it links to their financial disclosures. So those are just a couple of areas that as we look through every election, we find ways to improve and we continue to try to implement those. Now the possibilities for improvement are endless. Unfortunately, resources and time are not and so we do have to pick and choose some of those things. I think that's why it's important uh taking some track record, some history of administering elections and knowing how decisions and how choices can make a meaningful impact for our citizens to improve processes, improve the experience while still keeping costs and

limited.

>> Okay. >> Yeah, there are processes that I would change in the clerk's office. One of the things too though I would understand is I need to go in and understand what I don't know. And I think that's very important to not come in again with maybe a sledgehammer and really try and understand what are the policies again. What are those things that are maybe ordinance so I can work with the commission and either changing, modifying or eliminating eliminating altogether. And then um part of it too is I kind of already talked about this a little bit. There's a pre-election test. there's a post-election audit, moving those things to the evening again and then doing a hard hard PR push to let citizens know that what it is that it's going on. Um it would have been great to have, you know, more of our citizens there last Friday because it was even for me as a candidate and opponent, it was very enlightening to understand all the processes that go through to to check um our basically our election, our bedrock of this country through the systems and things that have been approved to do that. So, um, again providing more opportunities. I would also really reevaluate, um, the county's role in performing statewide signature verification. Um, I know that fiscally we get reimbursed for those things. However, it is still a burden to be able to do that on behalf of the other 28 counties. So, is it a benefit? Does it benefit our taxpayers and our voters here in this county? If the answer is no, then my goal would be to cancel that contract, put the onus back on the other counties, and for those candidates that are gathering signatures, the onus is on them to be able to provide that to if they're crossing over into multiple counties.

you. >> Thank question number six. Brian will go first. I've reduced it to one minute. That will be okay. We'll give you a little needed. Is the county clerk's office adequately funded and staffed for the increased scrutiny on voting as well as the other duties it performs such as public records requests, marriage licenses,

>> The county clerk's office runs extremely lean. Uh over the 13 or 14 years or so that I've been in leadership roles, uh we've actively worked to uh reduce our staffing where we can uh to try to save resources. Uh we've currently function at about 18% less staff today than we did in 2013. Uh we've been able to do that through cross trainining um utilizing technology and bringing that in to help us. Uh just this last year uh we were able to reduce our budget in the clerk's office by 10% in our operating budget. We were able to do that through thinking outside the box and finding ways to do more efficient uh things. Finding ways to do more efficiently. Um that's important in county government. We have to do more with less. Now there is always this concern. The legislature continues to run bills. 40, 50 or 60 bills are the average each legislative session impacting the clerk's functions. Each one of those comes with some sort of a fiscal impact. Somebody has to do that work. So it is a concern. It's something that we should be aware of. Uh we work very proactively with our legislative partners to help them understand that process. Uh sometimes we're able to convince them. Other times we're not. We recognize that, but currently we work very lean. Uh we work very efficient to make sure that we're providing great services with the

have without actually being in the office and kind of seeing how those operations work. Um I would say that based upon reports that we just heard now and we we heard I think previously in April that they were able to cut a full-time equivalent down. And so, um, adequately funded maybe, um, oversaturated, unfunded mandates probably, again, that's an opportunity to go up and make a little bit of noise at the legislature. I'm not afraid to do that. I'm not beholden to anybody. I'm not looking at being a career politician either. And so really um fighting for the people and and saying you know we need and building coalitions with other county clerks, with other commissions, mayors um willing to do all of that if it means a better outcome for the people here in Davis County. Um one of the say that um again looking at I am a big proponent of going in and auditing systems and seeing what their effectiveness is and so I would put everything on the table and say can we

better? Thank you. Question number seven, one minute. Brian will go first. How can the county clerk better communicate with the public about the clerk's

services? >> Methods of communication are limitless. We could use social media. We could send out flyers. We can send out mailers. We can send out emails. There's so many things that we can do. Uh and there are so many things that different people would be interested in. Uh we have a large room of people here and if I asked each one of you what is something important that you want to hear from the clerk's office probably get half a dozen or more different ideas and all of those are good ideas. Um but government is limited. We can't do all of those ideas. So I've taken the approach the most important thing in communication is making sure that available. When you call my office a real person answers the phone. You do not get a message. You get a menu. When you send an email, a real person responds to your email. When you come into our office, a real person is you. You will come and find me. I will be there. And I think that's the most important thing that I can do as a county clerk. That's the model that I've taken. That's the model that I've implemented with my staff is that we focus on service with excellence. When you are contacting the clerk's office because for whatever reason we have not been able to provide exactly what you're looking for on our website and you're reaching out to us, you should be able to get a real life person to answer your question and to be responsive. That's what I believe in. That's what I do and that's what I will

>> Yeah, there's always ways to improve communication. with a background in public affairs and public relations, there's a lot of things that you can leverage with very little cost and time and effort to the county. And that's what I would be looking at specifically to do. Um, always the touch is going to be I don't think you can replace that, but you can proactively let citizens know, voters know things that are coming down the pipeline, how they're going to affect them, and then having that avenue and that medium to which they can come and they can sit down and meet. Um, I'll give one example is that again, it was a wonderful experience to go to that pre-election test, but as I searched the Davis County Commission Facebook page as well as the county clerks, there was no mention of it. I'm not saying everybody uses Facebook. There are a lot of mediums as that we have heard. They're endless. But if we can proactively do those things and let the information get out there through all mediums that we have, then we have a better opportunity to be able to again field questions, resolve concerns, educate, and do those things that again um what government government is not here to be served by the people, but the other way around. And so that's

that. Okay, last question number eight. One minute. Brian will go first. Take one minute to clarify or add anything and to tell us why

>> As I've had the opportunity to answer first on all questions, would it be all

right

to defer to my opponent to answer first on this

one? >> Jonah?

Okay. So, one

minute. All right. You caught me off Brian. Thanks. Brian's a good guy. Um, no. So again, Jonno Whitesides, I I failed to mention at the beginning, I am the Davis County Republican Party endorsed candidate. Again, I believe in the caucus system, which is why I engaged with the delegates to get to know them, understand their concerns. I actually appreciated the fact that while some of them agreed with me, some of them disagreed with me. And I think that's a beautiful part of our country, of our republic, that we can do those things and still have success for our people and for our communities going forward. Again, I think you should run for me because while I don't have the election experience, I have the ability to come in and objectively look at things and how they will better benefit the voters who are who at the end of the day are the taxpayers to be good stewards of those resources and to ensure that nobody is like they're left in the dark. and not because government is trying to do that um by purpose, but typically government has not been a good communicator um as

you. >> Thank you for being here tonight. Again, my name is Brian McKenzie and I I am running for re-election as your county clerk. Um I have truly enjoyed my career in public service. Uh I believe that it's an honorable field to be involved in uh to help our citizens understand how government can function and benefit them and and work for their good. I think it's important that government stays focused on that. Um and realizing that that we are not a separate entity uh from our citizens serve. Uh that's how I've focused, that's how I've worked with my staff uh to make sure that everyone that interacts with the clerk's office has a positive experience uh in any way that we can make that happen. Uh I come to you as as an individual that has extensive experience and knowledge in this field. Uh you as citizens currently are hiring somebody for this position. If you look at the qualifications for the office, uh what needs to be done, the skills, the talents, the knowledge that an individual needs I am the more qualified candidate uh based upon those skills and and that experience. Uh I don't say that in a prideful way. I just say that to share with you. Um I have spent a career working in the clerk's office understanding every facet of that office and I've worked to continue to improve that office to make sure that local government works for you. Uh I would love to have more opportunity to visit with you, answer questions that are important uh to you. I would love for you to come and have that personal experience in elections uh to where you can ask your questions and understand things. Uh we do have an event this evening or uh this week on Wednesday evening. Uh it's our openhouse town hall and tour of elections. Uh no questions are off limits down there. Uh and so please come down 6 o'clock Wednesday evening. Uh you can tour the election facility and learn for yourself what happens in elections. Uh it's great opportunity. Uh reach out to me, ask questions, love to engage with you. Uh, thank you for your time tonight. Thank you to our moderator and to the League of Women Voters for hosting this event.

Appreciate it. >> Yeah, I'd like to have the audience clap for yourselves. You stuck it out the night. Now,

candidates. And again, just to close, thank you so much. Thank you to Davis Technical College and the Business Resource Center. Our website, lwbvdavis.org org to find the recording. Thank you so