Rocky has new target — all-LDS City Council

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson wants greater religious diversity on the all-LDS City Council, and with four council members up for re-election this year, the mayor will try to persuade voters to make some changes.

"Next election, I hope we have more diversity in terms of religious affiliation on the City Council," Anderson said in an interview.

He added that "religious affiliation should not be a criterion in any particular race, but overall we need more diversity in almost every respect."

In Salt Lake City, all seven City Council members at least nominally belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but poll data show only about 45 percent of the city's population belongs to the LDS Church.

To effect some change, Anderson is backing lesbian lawyer and Equality Utah chairwoman Jane Marquardt to unseat incumbent LDS Councilman Eric Jergensen, whose District 3 includes much of the Avenues. If Marquardt won, she would be the city's first openly gay council member.

"I don't want to make it sound like I'm entering this race because I'm not LDS, but that is a difference," Marquardt said. "I'm not heterosexual. I'm not LDS, but there's a lot of people in this district that don't fall into those categories, and they also should have a voice."

Anderson said he may back other challengers depending on who decides to run.

"He's going to be active in some (council races)," council chairman Dale Lambert said. "Probably the mayor is looking for people he perceives will support his agenda."

As he has in the past, Anderson maintains there are some LDS council members who will never vote against the LDS Church's wishes.

"I know some people are offended that I say this, but at the same time everybody knows it's true," he said.

Such "blind" following of the LDS Church's wishes builds resentment in non-LDS residents, Anderson says, so he wants more religious diversity to lessen non-LDS disenchantment.

"This contributes more to the sense of disenfranchisement and resentment on the part of those not of the LDS faith than anything else — the sense that elected officials blindly follow the instructions or recommendations of the LDS Church," he said.

Four council members — Carlton Christensen, Jergensen, Jill Remington Love and Lambert — are up for re-election this year. Of those, Love and Jergensen plan to run again while Christensen and Lambert are still mulling their options.

Of the four, Lambert was the only one who didn't endorse Anderson's opponent, Frank Pignanelli, in the 2003 mayoral race. Now the mayor may be looking for some payback.