Christensen joins mayor's race

Businessman and former city councilman Keith Christensen opened his campaign for the 2007 Salt Lake mayor's race Monday morning with an endorsement from Rocky Anderson.

The current mayor spoke well of Christensen, 55, at a news conference at the City Library, giving a kick-start to Christensen's 15-month campaign and cementing their public friendship.

"Keith Christensen will be a mayor who will make us all proud," Anderson said. "Keith is a person who really gets it."

Christensen, a Republican, is part owner of a gas station chain and started a company that manufactures military-airplane parts, while Anderson, a Democrat, is known for his environmental causes to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution and for his anti-war stance. The two have had their differences: Christensen said, for example, that he never would have protested President Bush's visit to Utah last summer as Anderson did.

But both said Monday that partisanship doesn't belong in municipal races, where the focus should remain on good governance.

Christensen said that he wants to make Salt Lake City one of the most liveable cities in the world. Building on a slew of accolades from magazines such as Money and Outside, he wants the capital to be everyone's zenith.

"Why aren't we on everyone's top-100 livable places list?" Christensen said. "I'll tell you what, we're going to be."

Christensen broadly outlined the bullet points of his campaign: transportation, beautification, community and neighborhood development, public safety and city administration. He has few specific plans now — a brief mention of pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets, for instance — but he told voters to watch for more details in coming months.

Christensen is a one-half owner of Wind River Petroleum, the company that operates 31 Top Stop convenience stores and gas stations in Utah and Idaho. He also started Christensen Industries, a company that manufactures airplane parts for private and military aircraft. Christensen owns two planes — one for business and one for personal use, a Cessna Skylane.

Salt Lake City has an ordinance that allows candidates for mayor to voluntarily limit themselves to contributions of $75,000 or less from their own accounts and to overall expenses of less than $375,000 throughout the course of the campaign. Christensen has declined to follow voluntary contribution limits for the mayor's race. He said that he doesn't plan on using any of his own money in the race and that he plans to start fund-raising soon.

"We have enough that I can afford to give some time back to the community, and that's why I'm doing this," Christensen said. "I intend that others will support me because my part in this is to donate my time."