Salt Lake City Council race heated

Experience or new blood?

It's a familiar question for voters and one Avenues residents will be kicking around as they head to the polls Nov. 8 to pick a City Council representative for the next four years.

In one corner is one-term incumbent Eric Jergensen. In the other is Janneke House, who is seeking to win in her first bid for elected office.

Jergensen, 45, is touting his experience — four years on the City Council and several years as chairman of the Capitol Hill Community Council before that. That's compared to House, who at 23 has held jobs or internships at the city, county and federal levels beginning when she was 16.

With Jergensen pushing experience, House is touting her status as a Democrat and maintaining she is someone who can get things done quickly.

While city council races are officially non-partisan, House has been highlighting the party issue. Her fliers are covered with donkeys and note she has a "proud Democratic legacy." The fliers also play up the fact that House's grandmother worked "in the Carter White House."

Not to be outdone, Jergensen has mailed letters listing several big-time Democrats who are supporting him. Notable Avenues and Capitol Hill politicians like Rep. Ralph Becker, former state Sen. Paula Julander and former Rep. Frank Pignanelli have all thrown their support behind the incumbent, a Republican.

House has a big-time endorsement of her own — Mayor Rocky Anderson, who recorded a message for House encouraging District 3 residents to vote for her in the October primary.

Anderson's former spokesman Cliff Lyon is now working on the House campaign, and several other Democrats — including the four Democratic members of Salt Lake County Council — have endorsed House.

Whether the Democrat-Republican issue will sway voters remains to be seen.

Jergensen has made several votes that would belie his Republican status and many say if people just looked at Jergensen's voting record they would think he is a Democrat.

He supported spending money to lobby in favor of the city's living wage efforts, worked to create the city's first Human Rights Commission, helped push the city's initial Open Space Fund and was the lone City Council member who voted to front a multimillion-dollar loan to put a sprawling private club on Main Street.