Pubdate: Sat, 29 Jul 2006
Source: Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City, UT)
Copyright: 2006 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  http://www.desnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/124
Author: Kersten Swinyard

NO 3RD TERM FOR ROCKY

Surrounded by friends and supporters, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson 
announced Friday that he will not seek a third term in the fall 2007 election.

"I have made this decision because I want to spend my remaining days 
working on grass-roots advocacy," Anderson said of his declaration to 
pursue human rights and environmental causes after he leaves office. 
"It rests upon all of us to lead, to recognize and to make a positive 
difference by pushing our elected officials."

Anderson did not specify what, if any, job he would seek. His term 
does not end until early 2008, when the next mayor will be sworn in, 
and Anderson gave no indication Friday that he would resign before 
then. Anderson's spokesman Patrick Thronson said the mayor had no 
comment; neither has commented to the Deseret Morning News for the 
past 37 days.

The mayor's announcement was met with groans and boos from a 
standing-room only audience, which earlier cheered portions of a 
presentation about global warming that Anderson gave in the City Library.

After his announcement was over, though, the crowd gave him a 
standing ovation of several minutes, and one audience member shouted, 
"Run for president!" Anderson accepted hugs and shook hands with 
several people.

His would-be successors are lining up already. Anderson has said 
previously that if he didn't seek a third term he would support Keith 
Christensen, a former city councilman. Christensen said Friday that 
he is holding a news conference Monday where he will announce whether 
he is running.

"Rocky and I are going to spend some time this weekend, and we'll see 
how persuasive he is," Christensen said. "The groups that we've been 
meeting with are rather extensive, and they all have some input, and 
we're going to finish talking with all of those people this weekend."

Five City Council members have either declared or expressed interest 
in running. Nancy Saxton has already announced her candidacy, and 
Dave Buhler, Eric Jergensen, Jill Remington Love and Carlton 
Christensen all are mulling it.

"I would not be surprised that he has other interests, and I wish him 
well in his future endeavors," Buhler said. "Politically, his 
decision does not have any impact on what I will do. My decision has 
always been independent of what he decides to do."

Goals and battles

Anderson touted his advocacy in a 20-minute speech Friday that 
praised by name dozens of city employees and department heads, 
including each member of his mayoral staff, for their work. Staff 
members who have left while at odds with Anderson did not garner 
mentions in his speech; for instance, the mayor specifically 
mentioned Thronson, who has been his communication director for six 
months, but none of his eight other communication directors, several 
of whom held the position longer.

Anderson started the speech by listing what he wanted to change about 
Salt Lake City when he first decided to run for office and then went 
through the work that he and other employees did to resolve those issues.

"When I first ran for mayor, I considered myself simply a resident, a 
citizen, a community activist with passionate concerns about what was 
happening in our city, our state, our nation and our world," Anderson 
said. "That's how I still view myself."

Among the things that he mentioned were increasing the number of 
minority and female appointees to city boards and commissions, 
establishing the YouthCity after-school program for children, 
implementing changes to make the city's daily operations friendlier 
to the environment, preserving open space throughout the city and 
specifically on the east side of Library Square, negotiating an 
abandonment by Union Pacific of train tracks that ran through a 
west-side neighborhood, promoting the annual jazz festival and 
creating his own drug-education programs.

Anderson inherited a bitter battle over the Main Street Plaza and 
whether to allow free speech on the block that The Church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter-day Saints now owns. In the end, Anderson 
compromised and gave the city's free speech easement to the church to 
allow it to regulate speech, dress and activity on the parcel in 
exchange for land to build the Sorenson Unity Center.

He also gained notoriety by protesting President Bush and the war in 
Iraq last August. He has pledged to participate in protests when Bush 
visits again this August.

More recently, Anderson ordered the city to offer health benefits to 
domestic partners of city employees. The council passed an ordinance 
extending the benefits to all adult designees of city employees, a 
category that included long-term roommates, adult siblings and 
parents, as well as domestic partners. Anderson castigated the 
council for not specifically making the order about domestic partners 
and vetoed the ordinance, but council members unanimously overrode 
the veto and ultimately maintained that their plan gave insurance 
options to more people.

Varied reactions

Reactions to Anderson's announcement from other officials within 
local government were largely positive.

"I've come to respect his passion and commitment to Salt Lake City 
and its issues," said Police Chief Chris Burbank, who had been under 
public scrutiny recently during the kidnapping case of 5-year-old 
Destiny Norton. "His support has just been fantastic."

Archie Archuleta, who worked for Anderson for four years as a 
minority affairs adviser, said the mayor has two personalities -- one 
devoted to "quixotic" causes and the other firmly rooted in reality. 
The two blend to create a passionate leader who has an eye for 
implementing his initiatives, Archuleta said.

"If there were 25 hours in a day, he would work them," Archuleta 
said. "He has chosen to speak out when things are important that 
other politicians wouldn't talk about."

Anderson has made a few enemies during his six years as mayor. The 
Republican-controlled Legislature has shown him little love, and he 
has consistently fought with the City Council over his initiatives 
and their timing.

Anderson took several shots at the council, first regarding 
YouthCity, moving through budget talks with the council about the 
Justice Court and ending with a dig about the redevelopment agency, 
which the council reorganized. He also took aim at unnamed elected 
officials who, he said, rely on polls for political expediency, and 
at his community's "dangerous culture of obedience" where "hypocrisy 
so often prevails."

Soren Simonsen, the city councilman who represents Sugar House, said 
after hearing Anderson's speech that he wasn't surprised to hear of 
the mayor's decision.

"I was under the impression that he's very engaged with grass-roots 
advocacy," Simonsen said. "I noticed a shift in his priorities to 
international affairs, so this is not at all unexpected."

House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, a Democrat who also is 
considering running for mayor in 2007, said that Anderson won't 
easily be replaced.

"He'll leave -- in some respects -- a void just because of the power 
of his persona," Becker said. "There just aren't many politicians or 
people like him in that regard."

Contributing: Josh Loftin
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman