Don Jarvis announces candidacy for seat being left open by Clark in Provo

PROVO — Don Jarvis has announced he will run for election this year for a seat in House District 63 as a conservative Democrat.

The Monday announcement, held at Wasatch Elementary School in Provo, followed the news that current Rep. Stephen D. Clark, a Republican, has been called to serve as a mission president for the LDS Church in St. Louis, Mo., and will not be running for re-election this year. Jarvis, who has lived in Provo for more than 40 years, is a former mission president in the Moscow, Russia mission.

This will be Jarvis' second time running for this position. He won 36 percent of the vote in 2008, but lost to Clark.

Jarvis said he will focus his campaign on the "Three E's" — economy, education and ethics.

Jarvis discussed the correlation between the economy and the environment, sharing that the brown haze that settles in during the winter often causes business people investigating Utah to change their minds. Jarvis also noted the negative effect on people's health that poor air quality can have.

"A very simple, immediate thing would be to make more compressed natural gas filling stations available up and down the Wasatch front," Jarvis said. "It's a very simple, doable, cost-effective plan."

Jarvis said these stations would benefit many different aspects of life in Utah, like providing jobs to build the stations. Additionally, compressed natural gas costs less than half of what gasoline costs.

Jarvis, a former teacher at BYU for more than 30 years, has placed a large focus on education in his campaign.

"Strong economies require good education systems, and educating our children is a real Utah value," Jarvis said in his announcement.

Since retiring, Jarvis has focused on his work with Utahns for Ethical Government. The group focuses entirely on the ethics of the Legislature, and Jarvis plans to continue his focus on ethics if elected to office.

"Utahns clearly understand that ethics are crucial in interpersonal relations, so it's high time that we demanded high standards of ethical behavior in Utah politics," Jarvis said.

Jarvis said he is running for the same reasons he ran in 2008.

"I am doing it for my children, grandchildren, neighbors and friends," Jarvis said. "I want them to be able to live in a state that supports real Utah values, a state where education is excellent, money doesn't run the Legislature, and families aren't one paycheck away from disaster."

e-mail: ejames@desnews.com