Holbrook bows out of Salt Lake mayoral race

The race for Salt Lake City mayor is now less crowded by one.

Former state Democratic Party chairwoman Meghan Holbrook said Monday that she is dropping her bid to replace Mayor Rocky Anderson. Instead, she will accept Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s request that she serve on the state Transportation Commission.

"I can't do everything," she said. "I've thought it over a long time, and I've decided this is the best way to serve the state and Salt Lake City."

That leaves eight candidates in a field that once had 10 contenders.

The governor also nominated former state Rep. Stewart Adams, R-Layton, to serve on the commission. Their nominations now must be approved by the state Senate.

State law is unclear on whether a commission member can also seek or hold elected office, Holbrook said, "but the bottom line is the enormous amount of time it takes. You can't do both."

As members of the commission, Adams and Holbrook will be part of a seven-member panel that decides where to spend money on transportation projects. Those projects range from safety programs and funding for new traffic signals, to money for big-ticket projects such as highway reconstruction.

"They look at our entire budget and decide how much to spend," said John Njord, executive director of the Utah Department of Transportation. "That role and responsibility is really quite significant when you consider the amount of resources being spent on transportation."

He agreed the law doesn't seem to forbid a mayor or mayoral candidate from serving on the commission, but he added, "it would be difficult to be mayor of any city and serve on this commission and make unbiased decisions."

Holbrook's former role as head of the state's Democrats had given her some name recognition in the mayor's race, but many of the other candidates are widely known through their political and business history in the city, and Holbrook had not been a front-runner.

A Dan Jones & Associates poll conducted last week for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV showed Holbrook as the favorite candidate of only 2 percent of respondents. That put her in sixth place, although fully 44 percent of respondents remained undecided in this early stage of the campaign.

In the first round of campaign fund-raising disclosures, filed Feb. 15, Holbrook ranked seventh in the amount of money raised. She had raised $18,470, compared with the top fund-raiser, former City Councilman Keith Christensen, who had $257,176, and City Councilman Dave Buhler, who was second, with $123,026.