Demo Becker boasts a wealth of experience

Running for elected office was not on Becker's agenda. He saw the best and worst of it after he was hired by then-Gov. Scott M. Matheson, a Democrat, to start and run what came to be called Project BOLD.

BOLD was Matheson's attempt to group together thousands of acres of the state's scattered public school trust lands and trade them out for blocks of federal land in Utah.

It was a huge project that saw only limited success under Matheson — who soon came up against former President Ronald Reagan's environmental philosophies.

"BOLD was sitting there, ready to go. But (former GOP) Gov. Norm Bangerter didn't really want to do anything with it. But when (former governor) Mike Leavitt came along, it was the basic BOLD proposals he used to trade out federal lands," Becker said.

When Matheson retired from state government in early 1985, so did Becker. "I started from scratch my own consulting firm. There were no others like it in Utah" and not many in the United States, Becker says.

Becker's first clients were in Washington, D.C., but later he brought on local governments that were struggling to write their own federal grant applications for various land-use projects or trying to comply with federal land-use laws.

Later, Bear West would help the Utah Transit Authority with planning rail corridors.

In 1996, former Utah House Democratic leader Frank Pignanelli decided to retire from his Avenues/Capitol Hill district. With little thought, Becker decided to jump in. He was at first considered a long-shot — the district had basically been promised to a private-club owner who had long helped raise money for the Salt Lake County and state Democratic parties.

But Becker visited all the delegates, spoke about his experience on the Salt Lake City Planning and Zoning Commission and his work on the Greater Avenues Community Council. He upset the favorite on the first convention ballot.

"Most of the party insiders thought I would lose," Becker recalls.

Representing a heavily Democratic district, Becker has not had to worry about re-election in recent years, turning his political eye toward helping other Democrats get elected and working as leader of the small, but vocal, House minority.

Besides his years on the city's planning and zoning commission, Becker says he's immersed himself in a variety of city issues, including working to get better traffic control in the Avenues.

"I thought last year, 'If I'm going to stay in elective office, where is the best place for me?' And I decided that was the mayor's office," he says.

With his planning and political experience, he says, "I think I can guide this city to its future."