Comments about ‘Mike Winder officially a candidate for Salt Lake County mayor’

I'm excited for Mike's announcement. He's been a great mayor here in West Valley. He really made a good effort to get that dump Valley Fair up to what is now one of the best malls in the valley. Especially once we get the largest IMAX theater! It will be awesome!

After the embarrassment Winder caused West Valley I for one will not vote for him to be county mayor. He needs more time to prove he will not conduct those actions again and build up people's trust in him.

Salt Lake County can't afford Mayor Winder. Taxes have increased 18% under his leadership. This is not the conservative principle I believe in. He has also openly supported public funding for a hotel as well as supporting UTOPIA, a publicly funded internet provider. Government should not be supporting what should be done by the private sector. If this is the type of "leadership" he will show as county Mayor, I don't want him!

Hi, courthousesnitch,

For the record, I opposed the 18% tax hike and advocated each department cut 5.6% of their budget instead. The Embassy Suites Hotel in West Valley City is not being funded by the city, it is being built and paid for by the private sector. The city's Redevelopment Agency did loan them the money to help make it happen in this tight credit market, but there are two years of payments in escrow in case the hotel developers miss their payments. As for UTOPIA, it came into being before I was an elected official, I voted against the refinance when I was a council member, but now that we are on the hook for it and can't get out we better all be cheering for their success so that the taxpayers won't have to put more into it than we already have.

I like Winder. He has a lot of guts to run and to go after some of the difficult county issues. I've got to admire someone with that kind of courage - especially with courage to admit to his pen name on his own. I think he would dare tackle the ridiculously out-of-control spending in the county and we really need that.

So Mayor Winder, what you just described to me is a lack of leadership! You did not have the ability to influence the council to vote against the tax increase? How on earth will you ever be able to get a deeply divided County Government to cut? Same with UTOPIA, are you arguing government needs to continue supporting failed projects that continue to come back to the taxpayer trough time and time again. It would be better to say NO, would it not. Take our losses and move on? No - you say, let's keep dumping money into a program that should not be in existence anyway. I'm not buying the snake oil you have up for sale. I just don't think we need your kind of conservatism, and I pray the delegates will see it the same way.

Are we going to get letters to the Editor from another phony identity now touting the greatness of SL County?