The two candidates for Salt Lake City mayor joined the Deseret News editorial board to answer questions ahead of the Nov. 5 general election. Below is the transcript of an interview with Utah state Sen. Luz Escamilla.
The following has been edited for length and clarity:
The campaign so far
Deseret News: As you’ve been campaigning and gone into the neighborhoods, has your agenda changed at all? What have you heard from the constituents as you’ve gone out?
Luz Escamilla: It’s been interesting to see how the conversation with constituents has shaped a little bit of priorities.
Polling shows, for example, air quality is No. 1. From my experience knocking on doors, air quality is the top one or two. The other one is homelessness and public safety. It has been a great learning process to hear specific pieces of very specific needs. ...
I’ll give you an example specifically on education and having the expectation from the constituents and the residents of Salt Lake City to see a mayor that will be speaking on issues related to K-12. We have talked about education, and we were the first ones in the entire campaign to bring education as part of our conversation. ...
The definition of affordable housing has shifted a little bit for me. From the perspective of someone making $40,000, affordability is different from someone at $100,000. Also how in the conversation of affordable housing, every single resident needs to be part of that conversation in the sense that their profiles should be considered.
It’s also been eye-opening to see the diversity of Salt Lake City. Beyond race and ethnicity and even socioeconomic status, there’s the diversity of thoughts and needs and priorities — how they see and perceive their city hall serving them, or should be serving them. It’s been eye-opening and it changes because we’re knocking on doors and we’re reaching more people.
Tackling education
DN: You mention the importance of education. What can the mayor of Salt Lake City do for preschool and K-12 education?
LE: We have a very specific plan that we released last week. This actually connects very well with the work I’ve done in the Legislature to address early childhood education and after-school programs.
No. 1 is strengthening those pieces. The city does a lot of after-school programs. The city is in a unique place, and I really like where it is. ... What we need to do is, No. 1, make sure we’re securing more programs on the west side, because there’s hardly any providers on the west side. And then combine with the private, nonprofit sector that’s also doing the Boys and Girls Club, that collaborates in a stronger way. ...
I think the city needs to make sure that we’re providing every child in Salt Lake City access to a high-quality after school program. More injuries happen to children between 2 and 6 p.m. Parents are working, more teen pregnancy issues happen, as does gang related activity. It’s all data-driven. And we know that the return investment is high when we invest in these high-quality after school programs.
I think the city needs to make sure that we’re providing every child in Salt Lake City access to a high-quality after school program.
DN: Where would you get that money?
LE: There are places. And then the state has been providing funding. They’re matching funding. So we just need to go and tap into those matching funds that are there.
Early childhood education is the same. I passed legislation to have a pay-for-success model in addressing prenatal and 0-3 programs and services, mostly related to health, social determinants of health. … The counties are the ones that mostly are delivering some of the services. We just want to make sure that the city doesn’t drop. And the current administration with Mayor (Jackie) Biskupski had an education specialist that has been looking to that. So there’s already some models in place that I think are the right approach. And that’s focusing on prenatal care as a way to start addressing early childhood education.
But one of the pieces that I think the mayor can do, and again this is in collaboration with partners like Intermountain Healthcare and others, is nurses at schools. That’s one of our biggest gaps, and it’s not limited to Salt Lake. In the entire state of Utah, we have fewer nurses per capita than any other state. That is creating gaps in services, especially when we have one of the highest rates of suicide, when we can certainly bring in an RN in our schools. The ratio right now is like one for every 5,000. That could really close some of those gaps. And you do that through private-public partnerships with players like Intermountain Healthcare and others.
I think there are ways where we can be creative, and through the state we’ve been exploring funding through Medicaid to put certain providers in community settings, which the school district already does. So there’s ways to do this. And those are things that I’m looking in to specifically.
DN: So you want a nurse in every school?
LE: That would be my ideal scenario. That would be my goal — to put one nurse in every school.
DN: So should the Legislature be giving more money for that?
LE: Yes.
DN: And money from private sectors as well? Do you think you can get enough support for that?
LE: Yes. I’m confident I can get it. And one of the reasons why this is: This is a unique situation for Salt Lake City, and why I think my colleagues in the state Legislature will find this interesting and appealing to contribute as part of this partnership is that Salt Lake City, because of our housing situation, because we’re losing WPU (Weighted Pupil Unit money with the drop in students) like no other district, because a lot of families are moving out of Salt Lake City, it’s become very difficult to sustain living in Salt Lake City.
We think about Utah County. They’re building schools; we’re closing schools. But we’re also the capital city. And this is part of my entire campaign. It’s time to have a capital city approach. And how do you get this capital city buy-in? You have to get the state Legislature to buy in. And we do it by being the education destination that we want to be.
How do we attract businesses to come and invest in Utah and Salt Lake City if our education is hurting and we don’t have education because we’re lacking resources? We’re not going to be that attractive. So I’m going to take that angle to my colleagues and say look, your investment in Salt Lake City will have an ROI. The return on investment is real for the whole state. We’re going to be the first place where you come here in Utah, right? We have an international airport, and the crossroads of freeways and highways has made Salt Lake City capital city strong. And this will be one approach that I want to take on the K-12 piece.
Solving the homelessness issue
DN: Do you support the closure next month of the Road Home? What do you do about the homeless that are on the street and can’t fit into the shelters?
LE: Yes I support that. We’re in a crisis in that situation. One, I do support the resource center approach. I think that was really the correct move in terms of the way we were serving individuals experiencing homelessness versus how we should be serving them. Smaller venues, integrated into communities — way better.
Now, the gap in terms of helping potentially 300 people that will be left? One, I’ve had some conversations with Catholic Community Services, which has some of the buildings across the street from the Road Home. Because many of those services now have been spread into the resource centers, there’s space there, with some retrofitting, to just be an emergency shelter for this winter. We are going to need something for this winter. So as you’re reporting in your newspaper, there is already a crisis. We’re already at capacity at the women’s resource center.
Now the goal is that with the resource centers, you should be pushing people on into more permanent housing within two or three weeks. I mean, that’s how a good resource center should operate. So we need to keep an eye on this. And I know that there are better metrics, there are better coordination of services in this new model. But we need to start moving families, especially women. People who are not necessarily in need of very strong wraparound services or case management and mental health and substance abuse, we put them in housing. For them, it is an issue of housing first.
When we’re dealing with the chronic homeless community, the ones that are mostly on the street camping — they’ve been homeless for 10, 15 years, many of them due to trauma — won’t even knock on the door for help. And those are very unique cases. On those, obviously putting a place that will keep them safe and warm during this cold winter that we’re going to be entering here pretty soon. We need to have very strong case management and background services.
We need the Medicaid component, which right now is in the drama that’s happening in the Legislature. We will be OK for this specific population. But mental health and substance abuse, those are provided by the county, they’re not city provided services. So we better have that collaboration in place, we better have very defined roles and responsibilities between the state, county and city.
On the new plan that will be released, and I understand this should be released any time as I saw one of the drafts, addresses homelessness as a citywide process. I think it narrows it to these points I’ve been talking about. And obviously having the semi-permanent housing ready for them is critical. They may look like single unit occupancy units, for example, where you have one room for privacy. They’re still sharing restrooms and kitchens with very strong case management surrounding them. For many of those individuals, they will need case management, potentially for the rest of their lives because of mental health and disability.
Affordable housing
DN: What does affordable housing downtown look like to you?
LE: In our eight points for affordable housing, we talk about having affordable housing across the entire city. And in some areas that’s pretty challenging because a piece of land is expensive. So one of the pieces we have is to use all our entire inventory. We have inventory within Salt Lake City corporation of buildings that we own that are not utilized or are underutilized. We should start looking at them as a potential place for affordable housing.
We have inventory within Salt Lake City corporation of buildings that we own that are not utilized or are underutilized.
Then make sure that, in order to incentivize developers — here’s the tricky part — they’ll say, “OK, we’ll bring in X number of units for affordable housing. Everything else is market rate.” You basically are just covering two groups in the community, forgetting the middle class again. How do we get to a point where we have a real mix of affordability across all the units that we’re developing in Salt Lake City? I think it will require true partnership with those developers.
And how do we incentivize them beyond just your regular RDA funds? We need to start talking about expediting the permitting and licensing process that tends to be, as I call it, a “game of thrones.”
People ask what will you do in your first couple of months in city hall? I want to bring the administrative services department back. Let’s start expediting looking into real communication and true communications within all the departments and have processes really making sense. Salt Lake City gets more demand than any other city for these types of permits. We’re the capital city. But it doesn’t mean we cannot serve correctly, and we don’t have the resources to do it.
At the beginning of this whole campaign I was thinking, we’re lagging on how there’s a gap of technology. Actually, Salt Lake City has really good platforms and technology in the city for some of these processes if you go online. So I started looking more into it. There’s certainly a void in terms of how they communicate between those departments. I’m looking forward to just getting to that management, operational, production piece, and really making sure we’re expediting and helping. That will become a strong incentive in our toolbox for developers. I want to really look into true affordability for all communities and also moving into a net zero approach — more green, environmental sustainable development.
I want to be the mayor that’s helping them through that process. We will have one person helping those developers navigate the whole system.
The first 100 days in office and retrofitting City Hall
DN: What would your first 100 days be like?
LE: One, the operations and bringing back the administrative services piece and that restructuring, because there will be some restructuring. Two, homelessness. That has to be a big one. No matter who the mayor is, they’ll be facing that crisis as they walk into that office.
This administration includes my opponent in the leadership right now as a councilwoman. If this administration has not tackled this emergency sheltering piece, that would be the first thing I will do walking into City Hall. And like I said, I’m going to partner with those individuals that are there. There’s need for retrofitting. It’s not about having places where people spend six months or a year in those resource centers. We need to start circulating them, getting them into housing. So those two, those will be in the first 100 days, absolutely.
I’ve created this notion of having navigators in City Hall. I want you, all of you, to experience something different when you go to City Hall.
I want you, all of you, to experience something different when you go to City Hall.
Right now there’s the sense that you’re lost. All you see is police officers. They’re trying their best to explain to you where to go. We’re going to have navigators, we’re going to have a culture of customer service, in the sense that the city is there for me and I want to partner with the city. I feel as a business owner, I’m going to get help. As a constituent, as a resident, I will get help in knowing where to go and what to do, whatever the situation is.
Those will be my priority within 100 days.
Live, work, play
DN: Life downtown it seems isn’t the most conducive to family life. How do you retain these families that are vital to the lifeblood of the community? How do you keep young couples here so they can put down their roots and grow the community?
LE: That’s a great question. I’ve been living for the last 20-plus years in Rose Park on the west side of Salt Lake City. Sometimes there are challenges as I’m raising a family and I have a 3-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old. My adult kids are gone in Arizona. So different challenges at different stages of life, but I’ll tell you what — education is one and transportation is another one.
Safety on the roads makes it really appealing or not for parents. The Community Council, their No. 1 reason why they’re having that community meeting was because their kids cannot wait for the bus because of all the needles. And many of them are just experiencing homeless, and the crime that is preying upon those individuals experiencing homelessness is so wrong. So safety, public safety, hands down — that’s how you keep families in Salt Lake City.
There’s a uniqueness to downtown. We are in the capital city, ... but if you cannot feel safe, that’s where everything breaks apart because that’s the No. 1 responsibility of the mayor of the city.
This is how we get to this homelessness piece. People are compassionate and we want to help. How do we make it so I can still be safe walking at 7 or 9 p.m., which many are not doing anymore? I found myself in the same situation in Rose Park. I used to walk with my little ones because I had to take them out for a walk before they destroyed the house, and we used to go to the Jordan River Parkway, literally two minutes away. We can’t anymore unless my husband walks with us because we’ve had some incidents. Again, where are the services? Why are we not helping these individuals who are in need of help?
To answer your question, it will be public safety, communities feeling safe. And then education is critical. You have to have an appealing part for those parents to say, we’re going to sacrifice maybe a lot of open space, right? Because now we’re losing a lot of that open space as growth and density takes place. But we’re going to provide them with great activities for our kids. We have great museums here. I think in that sense we are very lucky to have a lot of great amenities for families. But we have to make sure that you feel safe walking to those amenities.
Approaching community policing
DN: What will you do to solve the situation?
LE: How we tackle homelessness is going to completely change the conversation with public safety.
The other one is with regards to law enforcement. Chief Brown, I really like his approach to community policing. We have to shift that community policing piece. This is the largest law enforcement force in the state, larger than the highway patrol — 500 and something police officers. What is the way we get more police officers, firefighters and teachers to live in Salt Lake City? It’s affordable housing. It’s all combined.
You realize the intersectionality of all these issues. One of the things you do is one, I like that Chief Brown continues to support community policing more, officers inside the communities. And then creating that pipeline so officers are coming from one community. When you talk about lack of diversity in law enforcement, how do we create a pipeline? You create a pipeline in grade school, not in high school. Create the dream of having children be part of our law enforcement community. There’s some trust issues sometimes between some communities, especially communities of color. As a member of one of them, it’s real. In Rose Park there are different conversations happening with regards to our law enforcement, which are not unique to Salt Lake City. This is happening all over the country.
Chief Brown — and I talked to him personally multiple times — is moving in the right direction. He’s putting police officers coaching kids as part of the work they’re doing. That’s great community policing; you build trust. Right now we need to do more to build trust so people feel more comfortable coming forward and reporting any type of activity.
But the second part is an administrative part. We need to respond to every single request that comes with regards to law enforcement. And I’m hearing that there’s a gap there, that people are not getting responses when they call. Not 911, because 911 goes through its own process, but if they call the police department and say, hey, I want to file a complaint or something is fishy over here. ... And of course, we’re in a backlog sometimes. We have to obviously prioritize. But everyone should get a response back from our police department.
Transportation
DN: What kind of transportation issues do you see in the city that you want to solve?
LE: One — we have a mass transit plan, and that, as you know, was released in 2017. I like it. I know the current mayor was thinking of seeking reelection because she put a lot of effort into these plans. The mass transit plan, cooperation with the city council, UTA, UDOT and then ... affordable housing. She did plans for all of them. The mass transit plan I think is the best of all the plans put out by this administration. … But they haven’t had a transportation plan since 1996. Maybe it’s time we actually get into a transportation plan. And, you know, looking to the mass transit piece is one.
Creating more equity to east and west on the circulation and the grid of our buses is critical. If it’s not convenient, if it’s not accessible, it’s not going to happen, even if it’s free. I mean, convenience and accessibility is what makes it. … Think about the families, communities on the west side. Many of them have to juggle multiple jobs. It happens across the whole city now, people have to have more than one job. I’ve done it a couple of times coming from Rose Park to downtown where I have my full time job. It takes about an hour and 25 minutes. Just the way it’s on the grid, right? So kudos to this plan to try to fix that. They have tried to say we’re going to close up that gap. That’s great.
Creating more equity to east and west on the circulation and the grid of our buses is critical.
We want to make sure that where you’re waiting for the bus, whether it’s 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 10 minutes, if you don’t have cover, which most of those don’t have cover … If it’s raining, it’s snowing, it’s 100 degrees — it’s not an amenity.
I think we need to work with UTA and say, look, we want to be this strong capital city and have our mass transit be strong, let’s really look into making sure people are going to be, if it’s already freezing, there’s going to be a place to cover. So that cover component, again, that’s part of the accessibility and being convenient. If not, it doesn’t make it.
The other one is as we promote more active transportation, that active transportation needs to be safe. And that is more of a tricky piece. I get it because our routes are already planned and now we need to make sure we’re sharing the roads. And we’re sharing them with bicycles and with scooters. I know we’re working on moving there, and it’s obviously a tool that we have to deal with. But we need to make sure that they’re safe and that we know how — we continue to do more education sharing with others the road.
The key for me is our values of Salt Lake City, as a capital city and with the growth that we have, we need to start percolating and making sure people get out of more vehicles and getting to more healthy ways, and more sustainable ways, of transportation. We need to work very closely with UTA and UDOT, because the department of transportation deals with the state roads. We have multiple state roads — Redwood Road, State Street. We need to work so we can make sure that they understand where our vision is coming from and they have a buy-in for that vision. It’s going to look very different from West Jordan, it’s going to look different from Provo, and that’s OK. I think having those partnerships and those relationships already is what gives me a better place to start those conversations. And that includes UTA. We just have to make sure that as we’re moving and using all the tools, that they’re sustainable and that we can take more people from cars into any other types — whether it’s active transportation or mass transportation.
DN: How would you pay for transportation improvements?
LE: Some of that, in terms of those state roads, they’re already in the pipeline, and UDOT has a lot of resources that I’m familiar with, obviously, as a state senator. And I know that part of where they are is they do want to help cities get there. Right now there’s a conversation happening about the exit at 900 South. UDOT has a different perspective on what needs to happen, the community has a different perspective, the city and their staff have a different perspective. I was in a community council meeting for two hours, looking at scenarios and everyone had a totally different way of seeing the city. Price tags of $36 million to $40 million. UDOT didn’t seem to say that there’s any need for that conversation right now at this point. The community feels like it’s critical as we continue to develop that industrial part of 900 South and 900 West. I found that interesting — there is funding, it’s just a matter of prioritizing where you want to start working on those changes. I mean, having a community engaged will make a big difference, and sometimes there’s a lot of experts on a lot of things. But when you listen to the community that walk the streets to take their kids to school … we’re talking about decisions for families of whether I can let my kids walk alone or not.
So, to me, there is already part of that funding for those changes. I think it’s just how do you utilize them and how do you ensure that the state invests, versus what they think may be the right thing.
DN: There’s an old argument that a lot of wear and tear on the streets downtown comes from commuters who live outside the city. Would you support any sort of proposal to tax those commuters?
LE: I will explore all of them. I think that’s a valid conversation. And we’ve had this conversation in the Legislature for the canyons and trying to get to our ski facilities and so forth, which is another issue, right? I think all of those conversations are valid. We almost double our population every day.
That’s my whole point on why Salt Lake City can’t do it alone. And you know, I’ve been criticized by my opponent who’s saying Salt Lake City does not need the state or anybody else. Yes, I see our tax base, and can we sustain more bonds and anymore increase on taxes? I don’t know if that’s the answer. We really need to make sure that the state realizes that we may need more help, because we’re welcoming all those people and that’s great — you want your capital city to be that busy, to have all this movement — so there’s a chance of investment. People say, “They’re a great place for business and economic development. They’re taking care of all their open space and taking care of development and making sure it’s responsible, sustainable.” I think there are opportunities not only for looking whether there’s a fee attached to it, or tax or whatever it is for people to come, but also for the state to say we’re going to invest in Salt Lake City, and part of that investment is infrastructure.
Working relationships
DN: There’s a divide between the Legislature and Salt Lake City. How can you get cooperation when there have been some outstanding political divides?
LE: I think it’s an issue of styles. Look, in 11 years of being part of the minority caucuses, ... one thing I learned is it doesn’t happen overnight. I learned a lot of it is in incremental steps. I have a master’s degree in public administration. And I remember learning about incrementalism. And it was not my favorite thing. Like, why are you waiting? In practice, sometimes it takes time to build consensus. I believe those changes happen with time, and people start buying in because they see results.
If you look at my chart, some legislation has taken me smaller bills to get to the bigger piece. Adoption is one. We just had a huge story of this incident with a gentleman from Arizona. So I got a call from Fox TV … saying, “Hey the AG’s office said that if your bill would have passed as it was presented originally, we could have had a stronger case against this guy. So what happened?” I didn’t have the buy-in. Because the communities, the adoption communities, felt I was going to make it very cost prohibitive for private adoptions. But I passed legislation to start a truth in advertising and moving toward creating a group that will now review whether getting a special type of training and licensing for some of these providers that are not registered as adoption agencies, but are providing services for adoption. Is it frustrating? Yeah. Because I knew that there was a problem. But I know how to navigate the system.
The next session, and I’m not trying to be there ... I’m bringing it back right? It’s not over. I’ve learned to work that process, and through that process I’ve learned to build relationships. So my job at Zions Bank, literally, I get paid to build relationships. I love it. All I do is connect people — connect businesses to state to communities to municipalities, and I see myself as a relationship builder. I know my colleagues, I know their families, we know each other, we have a relationship of trust.
DN: How would you see your interaction with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints downtown as mayor of Salt Lake City?
LE: I see it as I will see any other interaction with any other faith organization that is here in Salt Lake City. And like I’ve had with the Catholic Diocese that is also downtown ... with some of the synagogues in this area, the Muslim community. With that said, I recognize how big of stakeholders they are. Not only from an interfaith conversation, but also as property owners and owners of different pieces within the city. They’re a critical part of our community.
And they are a very important piece for many of our residents, including myself, from a religious perspective. I have to say, I was born and raised LDS. So it was interesting to hear that people were saying, “Oh, she was hiding her religion.” This is odd to me. There have maybe been a lot of people who were making assumptions about my religion somehow. I don’t know, maybe based on my ethnicity? I don’t know. It’s just been odd. Because to me it was never a mystery because I teach Sunday School. I was in a Primary presidency for eight years. Where is the mystery here? So the whole time I’ve been elected, I’ve been active in my ward and my community. It’s been painful, you know, the type of comments that have been coming out in 2019.
I also think that Salt Lake City and the residents of Salt Lake City are way better than that. A lot of people say, “Oh, is this the end of the campaign for you?” I’m like, no. It’s good for the conversation. It’s been difficult to talk to my children about this because they’re like, “Whoa, how come this is bad, mom?” You know, especially the ones, because they’re listening to our conversations and saying, what’s going on? But, you know, I’ve learned that people are incredibly supportive of those individuals that stand up for what they believe. I think the foundation of this country is freedom of religion and being able to practice religion without having to be afraid or ashamed. The process has been interesting. It’s distracted a little bit from the issues that most people care about in Salt Lake City, but it’s been a good process of a conversation.
I have my own mind, I’m very data-driven and evidence-based. I like to make policy decisions or executive decisions based on that process.
The mental health crisis
DN: What can the city do to help address mental health issues?
LE: We know we just ranked 50th out of 50 in the country with regards to mental health for adults. So it’s a state issue. There is a lot of legislation that’s being tackled right now. And the good thing is the hospital association and the medical association have decided to make this the top priority for the next couple of legislative sessions, so that’s a plus. Because many of these issues are related to providers, whether we have a gap in our pipeline, what people are qualified to provide services. ... So it’s an issue of access. We have the coverage, even from the Medicaid perspective, but without enough individuals to provide services, it’s an issue.
I think for Salt Lake City, mental health is a big problem of our homelessness situation. So we need to be making sure that is being addressed right away. So I would say for the mayor, the No. 1 priority should be mental health services for individuals experiencing homelessness, because that is now a crisis that is creating a public safety crisis.
Moving forward, having nurses at schools will address the youth component, with the suicide rates we have that is one of the highest in the country. We’re at, I think, No. 7. The state Legislature is already addressing some stuff, but you need an advocate. So maybe as part of this conversation for my piece is, whether it’s education, homelessness, affordable housing, air quality — which all have an interrelationship with the state — by having a mayor that can work with a council and your state legislators from Salt Lake City in that coalition, and in the case of education, with your elected school board, all as a coalition, making the case for why investing in Salt Lake City to the state Legislature is critical.
All the other municipalities do it very successfully. Salt Lake City hasn’t done it. They’ve always been behind doors, which makes it really hard sometimes, even for me as a legislator that represents Salt Lake City, to see the city. We share the same constituency. We can get better results by coming together as a coalition. That’s one thing that we’d love to see.
The decision to run
DN: Why do you want to be mayor?
LE: I think we’re at a very critical point where the city can really send a strong message, not only to the state or the rest of Salt Lake City, but to the world that in Salt Lake City we are truly about inclusiveness.
I think representation matters and when I look at our school district, we’re a minority-majority school district. When I look at our country and a White House that has a president that is not kind to many groups, including my community, I mean, that would be a great message to have representation like that. But more importantly, we’re at a point where if we don’t become a sustainable Salt Lake City, this is really going to hurt us. I have a 3-year-old. I’m thinking 25 years from now because I want her to live and experience the great quality of life I’ve been blessed with.
I think we’re at a very critical point where the city can really send a strong message.
Coming to the United States as a new American 22 years ago was Salt Lake City. It’s what welcomed me to this great country. Salt Lake City is what made it so appealing. It was such a great place. Things are changing. Our quality of life is decreased because of that. Either we do something fast, and as a legislator I was making change, I can tell that we were moving the needle. But a lot of things were getting stopped here. … We should not be fighting; we should be working together. So to me, it was this issue of urgency, that if we don’t become a stable Salt Lake City for all, we’re not going to be having this conversation 10 years from now, where there’s still some magical pieces here. I think I have the tools to help the city with the correct direction, the right direction.