New team takes reins in Salt Lake County

A new team is taking over Salt Lake County government, as five first-term elected officials were sworn into office Tuesday: a sheriff, district attorney, county council member, auditor and surveyor.

Although Tuesday was officially his first day on the job, Sheriff Jim Winder — who upset Aaron Kennard by overcoming a 30-point deficit a month before the election to defeat the 16-year incumbent — has been working hard since the day after the election.

When asked what he planned to do Tuesday, Winder said, "It's just going to be a lot like the last 50 days," with management meetings and planning sessions. One of his first acts as sheriff will be to convince local mayors that "we can work together" without creating a Unified Police Department. County officials and local mayors have been working for months on establishing a county-wide police agency to pool resources instead of contracting with the county sheriff's office for services.

"I want them to know the Salt Lake County sheriff wants to be a full partner with them in the future," Winder said. Although the idea of creating the agency doesn't sit well with him, he said, "I'm going to continue to push all options."

New district attorney Lohra Miller has also been hard at work the past two months. Departing district attorney David Yocom packed up his boxes shortly after the election and has been spotted on the golf course in St. George.

Miller's first order of business is to completely revamp the district attorney's office. She wants to organize the office so teams of prosecutors are assigned to specific locales in the county. That way, the same prosecutors would be working with the same police officers on investigations, she said.

Under the current system, police are rarely notified if the district attorney's office chooses not to file charges against an offender, Miller said.

"I've met with the chiefs of all the cities, and there has always been a great response," Miller said of the new management model. "I'm excited to get started on it."

Jeff Allen, a Republican who won the election to represent District 5 on the County Council, sat through budget workshops throughout November and December, although he couldn't vote on the outcome. Now he's happy he'll finally have a say on negotiations.

He said he wants to use his position on the council to solve transportation, safety and growth issues. He also would like to trim the county's estimated $800 million budget.

"Right now the county is running fairly well," Allen said. "Our job is to keep it running well."

Even so, outgoing Council Chairman Cort Ashton asked Allen and the other newly-elected officials to bring "a desire to change the status quo."