Text of Rocky Anderson's State of the City Address

State of the City Address

Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson

January 16, 2007

Progress through dialogue and action, strength through diversity. That, along with an uncompromising standard of excellence, has been the guiding principle of our administration during the seven years we have had the honor of serving the people of Salt Lake City.

In this, my last State of the City Address, I am pleased to report that our great, richly diverse city is extremely safe, healthy, and strong - a place where the quality of life is unsurpassed. I am pleased to report that, although the road is not always smooth, the progress in Salt Lake City continues.

We tend to expect progress, and some even assume that, somehow, it will necessarily occur. However, progress is not at all assured.

In so many ways, the people of our great nation are in the midst of regressan appalling retreat, a stupendous movement backwards. Most Americans are worse off than at the beginning of this century, with an enormous, and growing, disparity in wealth. The number of Americans in poverty has increased, as has the number of Americans without health insurance. The income of most families has not kept up with inflation. Adjusting for inflation, the hourly wage of the

average non-supervisory worker in the US is lower than in 1970. That is egression. As "CEO

pay [in the US] has soared from less than thirty times the average wage to almost 300 times the