SALT LAKE CITY — A week before her inauguration, Mayor-elect Erin Mendenhall got a thick, 131-page packet of recommendations — likely enough to formulate a 100-day, 500-day or four-year plan.
“There is enough work in these wonderful reports that you’ve put together to keep (us) busy for years to come, and yet it’s just the beginning of the conversation,” Mendenhall told her transition steering committee Monday at the conclusion of a three-hour meeting where they pored over the reports.
“There is so much more work to do.”
Mendenhall and her transition committee — including teams of housing, homelessness, environmental sustainability and economic development experts — met at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the Thomas S. Monson Center to review reports drafted from feedback gathered from community councils, neighborhoods, experts, residents and thought leaders from across the city to help Mendenhall form short-term and long-term goals of her administration.
The result? More than 100 pages of recommendations for immediate and long-term actions on economic development, environmental sustainability, ways to promote “equity, inclusion and belonging” across the city, homeless services, how to create a Salt Lake City “tech ecosystem,” transportation and more.
“There are so many takeaways that it’s difficult to even rattle off a few,” Mendenhall told reporters Monday, noting that she’ll spend the next week formulating exactly which recommendations she’ll target for day one.
She’s not yet ready to say exactly what she’ll be implementing immediately.
But what people can expect, she said, is a “reimagining of a lot of the processes and the ways that Salt Lake City has worked in the past that are not working and are not serving our residents as they should be.”
That includes simply how people access services across city government, which can be a daunting and complicated system of departments the average citizen likely does not know how to navigate with ease.
“This will be a new undertaking really of figuring out how do we do this in a better way for efficiency sake, effectiveness sake and for inclusivity so that Salt Lake City is serving all of its residents across the board,” Mendenhall said.
“Whether it’s from a new business owner trying to open up a taco stand or someone expanding their home and adding a bathroom and a bedroom, I have heard every day on the campaign trail and I continue to hear it as an incoming mayor about people’s difficulty with accessing services,” Mendenhall said, noting that about 40% of the city speaks Spanish, and yet most don’t even necessarily know what translation services exist.
As for one of the first priorities Mendenhall said she’ll probably take immediate steps on is what came top of mind due to Monday’s frigid winter temperatures: a quick-action plan to help address gaps in homeless services.
Mendenhall said she’ll seek to perhaps develop an app or online page to help ensure bed counts at all of the new homeless resource centers can be more easily tracked. She also said she’s considering a new “transportation option” to help people and their belongings off the streets and into a new resource center. Currently, there’s only a shuttle running from Catholic Community Services’ Weigand Center downtown to each of the homeless resource centers.
“Getting people where they’re at into services is difficult, particularly when it’s cold,” Mendenhall said. “So those are some immediate takeaways that we should be talking about as a city with our partners in that regard.”
Mendenhall applauded the work of her transition team — which is headed by Maria Garciaz, executive director of NeighborWorks Salt Lake, and Natalie Gochnour, associate dean of the University of Utah business school — and urged them to stay engaged with her throughout her administration.
Mendenhall said she doesn’t want to support “institutional, systematic separation and disenfranchisement of people in our community” and it will take a complete “unpacking” of city departments and processes to find improvements. At times, it may be “painful,” she said.
“I’m going to crack a few eggs as I make this omelet with you,” she said, urging her transition team to “stay with us” throughout her administration. “My vision and my most fundamental hope that we’re about to begin is that we make Salt Lake City a better place, a stronger place for everyone who lives here. Everyone.”
Mendenhall promised plenty more will come of her team’s recommendations over the coming weeks and months as she works to finalize her 100-day plan and more.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” she said.
But now that she’s equipped with public feedback and over 100 pages of recommendations, Mendenhall said she’s rearing to go when she’s sworn in on Monday.
“I am so excited,” she said. “I’m ready to go.”