West Valley City banking on young leaders

WEST VALLEY CITY — Young blood in city government, tempered by generations of ties to the land, could be this city's path to reputation redemption.

First-year Mayor Mike Winder turned 34 late last month. Newly elected City Councilman Corey Rushton reached that same age milestone about six months ago.

"It kind of gives you an insight into the people of West Valley, that they are traditional and there are family values, but yet they're forward thinking, progressive enough to have younger leaders and elected by wide margins," Rushton said during a recent interview with the Deseret News.

Fresh from a trip to Utah's state Capitol, the new mayor agreed. Winder added that while younger than their counterparts in other Utah cities, both men come from families that helped settle West Valley City.

The men want to bring young families and new businesses to their suburban city of about 125,000, but they're hampered by widespread perceptions of the city as unclean and dangerous.

The Rushton family started farming corn and tomatoes after homesteading in West Valley in the 1860s. The family still holds several plots of land in the Hunter neighborhood near 4100 South and 5200 West and still sells vegetables during the summer.

For all of recent memory, the left-leaning Rushtons have gotten their milk from the well-known and much more conservative Winder Dairy family that settled in the Granger neighborhood in about 1910.

"The Winders and the Rushtons have literally known each other for generations," the mayor said. "Our grandpas are friends."

The families have even intermarried and have long been prominent in politics at local, county and state levels. Rushton's father, for example, was a social studies teacher, and the mayor's cousin is Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder.

"We just want to give back to the community," said Mike Winder's father, Kent, who sits on the board of the Hunter Granger Improvement District.

For both families, holiday get-togethers always turn to politics, Rushton and Winder said. And despite being at odds in some political matters, both families want more people to know that West Valley is Utah's "best-kept secret."

Winder's wife, Karyn, says her husband is just the man for the job.