Meet the candidates of the City of Logan municipal election
Here, you will find interviews with the City of Logan municipal candidates for the 2021 general election. All interviews were conducted by Utah Statesman journalists. Candidates are listed in the order they will appear on the ballot.
Mayor
Holly Daines
Campaign Website: hollydaines.com
What motivated your decision to run for office?
I stayed home to raise three children and was active in the PTA and other community organizations. During that time, I lived in a newer area. The city had land for a park, and they hadn’t done anything for years and years. I just wanted a park for my kids and so did the other people in my neighborhood. We banded together and started going down to talk to the city council members. We learned more about the process, and it wasn’t fast but we finally got a park in our neighborhood. Later, I was at a point in my life where I had some time. My children were a little older, and I just really wanted to give back to my community. I’ve been involved in a lot of different nonprofit organizations, like Cache Arts and the Deans Advancement Council in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences before they split. It was an opportunity to serve my community, and to give back to my community.
Why did you want to stay in office?
I just love being involved in the community. I’ve served in the community for the last 20 years.
What is your favorite Aggie Ice Cream flavor?
Oh, chocolate toffee I think.
How will you represent Logan’s large college student population?
We have neighborhood councils in each of our school districts, and we’ve always had a seat for USU for student representation. It tends to be challenging when that position changes yearly. Some years the leadership is more engaged with what we do, but we understand they’re busy as well. We are alway open, and sometimes I have groups that come down and meet with me. Sometimes I have students that come to city council meetings, and of course, they’re always welcome to do that. I’m an Aggie and proud of that, and I love Logan. I’ve spent most of my life here. I call this home, and I’m happy to be a part of creating a positive future for all of us in the valley.
How will you connect with college students?
One thing that students really love about our community is the parks and trails, and that’s really been one of my focuses, expanding and connecting our great trail system. The section from USU to the First Dam was something we wanted to do for a while, and we were finally able to put together the funding to make it happen. That’s a great connection. There are so many different trails and parks that I think students enjoy. I’m also trying to create the downtown I think students want with more activity. Downtown retail is changing because you can have anything delivered right to your porch. What draws people downtown is entertainment, dining and activities. Center Street was one of my big initiatives to start to revitalize downtown, and I think it’s been a great success. We’re just about ready to start demolition on the Emporium and start to build a new plaza there. It’ll have stage concerts, ice skating, and a splash pad in the summer. We’ll have a giant chess board and other different activities. We want to have that programmed all time, and we’d like to have Utah State activities down there. Bring the cheerleaders down before a big game and do a procession up to the stadium. There could also be yoga in the mornings, and Halloween events, and all kinds of fun things. It’ll just create more life for the community and especially for students.
What are your interests outside of politics?
Outside of politics, I love to hike. I love to cook and to garden. I really like to read when I have time.
What makes you stand out from your competitors?
My experience, and I like to say my vision for downtown. I’ve been around long enough to know how to get things done, and I think I’ve been very successful in getting things done, the government does move very slowly at times. We’ve accomplished a lot in a number of areas, everything from infrastructure to downtown to even the trails and outdoors. I think I have a good track record.
How will you continue to be involved in the community if you are not elected?
Again, I served in the community for the last 20 years. Before I was even elected to city council, that was my platform. I just love being involved in volunteer organizations and helping in that way. I would continue to be involved with various volunteer opportunities in the community.
What was the last book you read?
I have a book on my desk about making cities walkable and places that people want to be. That’s a work related book. I don’t have a lot of time for fun reading these days. Seems like it’s all work related. I’m actually reading Beneath the Scarlet Sky right now. I read one called “Perestroika in Paris” by Jane Smiley. She’s a Pulitzer Prize winner, but it was kind of an entertaining book. Anyway, those are a few. I mostly read when I’m on vacation.
Dee Jones
Campaign Website: https://www.djones4mayor.org/
What motivated your decision to run for office?
It’s been something that’s been on my mind for quite some time. I feel like I can really do a lot for the city, especially as far as, you know, Logan City has extremely high utility rates and that’s what really got me jump-started. I was just getting too many high utility bills in my house, and I couldn’t figure out how people in a less fortunate situation than me are paying for those because we have the highest utility rates in the state from what I understand. And that just kind of started the whole ball rolling, and as I started to gather information and the more people I talked to, the more excited I got, and then I decided to file because there’s a lot of things that need to be done. Some of the things that I really want to get done would be, first of all, we got to bridge the gap between Logan City and Utah State. That’s something we need to do sooner rather than later, and I think we could do that with community events that involve students.
What is your favorite Aggie Ice Cream flavor?
Aggie Blue Mint.
How will you represent Logan’s large college student population, and how will you connect with college students?
We have to bridge the gap with community events. I attend all the athletic events. I’ve been a supporter of Utah State for years. I’m in the Old Main Society. I’m in Aggies Unlimited. I think Logan City has more to offer the students of Utah State than what we are offering them right now.
What are your interests outside of politics?
I like to be outdoors. I like to hike. I have my dogs who I love, and I have the event center downtown that we just opened. So running that and getting that open has been quite an experience, but it’s done, and we’re open. It’s been a three-year project, but we finally got that done, so outside of that, that’s probably what I enjoy the most. I like to travel. I like to go to beaches every chance I get. And of course, Aggie Football and Aggie Basketball.
What makes you stand out from your competitors?
My energy. My energy, my willingness to go out and about and meet the people. I will have an open-door policy. If I’m elected, there’s going to be transparency in the mayor’s office. The citizens of Logan and the students will know what’s happening with their tax dollars. We need to revitalize downtown, but not in the way that the current mayor is wanting to do it. I don’t know. I think we could do without the destruction of historical buildings.
How will you continue to be involved in the community if you’re not elected?
Just keep doing the same things that I’m doing — opening businesses, going to Aggie games. I’m always out and about. A lot of people know me around town, and I help with nonprofits too. I like to get involved with nonprofit organizations like the Cache Valley Food Pantry. Every year I get a couple friends of mine, and we donate 300 turkeys at Thanksgiving time and 300 hams at Christmas.
What was the last book that you read?
“Calypso.” My friend Niel Abercrombie gave it to me, and it took a while to finish, but I did read it.
City Council
Amy Z. Anderson
Campaign Website: Aza4logan.nationbuilder.com
What motivated your decision to run for re-election?
There are so many things that are going on right now in the city that I was part of the decision process for that I really would just like to see completed. And more than I think we could do as a city and more than I think I can contribute. So that was really the main reason.
What is your favorite Aggie Ice Cream Flavor?
It depends on the day, I do like to go and get a scoop, hopefully this doesn’t make me sound boring. But I like to get just the Aggie vanilla, and then I get hot fudge and caramel on it because that’s like my favorite. And then they have those big waffle cones, you can get the small scoop in it and can actually put the hot fudge inside of it.
Wouldn’t the hot fudge run out of the cone?
Not if you eat it fast enough.
How will you represent Logan’s large student population and how will you connect with the college students?
That’s been a challenge and I will admit that we used to have a city council member who was assigned to the ASUSU, and we have not done that for the last couple years, and that is probably something our council should re-address because we don’t have any real direct way for the council to link with the campus. It would probably be a helpful idea to have the elected leadership of the university students to even come to council meetings and vice versa, so that we have a better understanding of what students’ concerns are, but that students also have a better understanding of the issues that the city deals with. I think those intergenerational priorities can kind of get in the way. I think of students feeling invested in Logan and maybe people in Logan feeling invested in the students because your priorities are school and the forward thinking and people who reside here have another different focus. But I would love to see more students actually register to vote in Logan as well. I think that’s a difficult thing because so many students vote where they live because those are the communities, you know. It might be the people that you know that are running. It might be your parents’ friends, you know, or you’re just more acquainted with those issues cause it’s been a community, spent more time, and there is a little bit of a bubble on campus I think that doesn’t always extend. One of the ways I think that I have a better understanding of is ironically working with the Downtown Alliance because they do try to do events to draw students downtown. So that is one way of ensuring that, and maybe we need to have a student on the Downtown Alliance that goes down and talks about what they enjoy about downtown Logan and what kind of activities and events they could see that would be of benefit to them. Student date nights or what would work for students.
What are your interests outside politics?
We moved to Utah because we loved to ski. Skiing is a big part of my life outside of work. I enjoy reading, I’m in a book club here in Cache Valley with a lot of other women. And then I have a book club with my sisters, sister-in-laws and nieces where every Christmas we each choose a book, and we call it a book flood, and we mail them out to everybody, and then over the course of the year we have those. The number changes as people get married, but we’ve got 10 books that we read, and then we can stay connected since we’re scattered all over the country. It’s a really neat way to stay engaged besides just, “Hey, what’s going on in your life?” We can actually talk about a book, and I think when you discuss a book, it helps you understand in some ways somebody thinks. So, skiing and reading, and I love cooking. It’s how I relax.
What’s your favorite book?
Ever? One of my favorite books to reread — and I probably read it over and over during COVID — is “The Secret Garden.” It’s by Frances Burnett. It’s a children’s book and it’s just, I just love it. There’s just something about that book that always resonated with me.
What makes you stand out from your competitors?
One of the things I believe I brought to council is I have — because of my work background and just professional background — I have my certificate of mediation from BYU. And part of my work here is I’m a counselor for our hospice patients, a spiritual counselor. So, I talked to people about a lot of their fears and questions and concerns as they get to the end of their life. And so, I think between those two things, I’ve honed my ability to listen well to people and to ask really good questions. Because people are not necessarily always super open about those very personal, intimate, thoughts and concerns and fears that they have. So being able to learn how to get somebody to trust you and to talk to you about those things and for them to trust that you’re going to keep them confidential is, I think, a skill that I have. That’s why I do that through my job. So, carrying that over to council, I think when residents have a concern or a question or staff have an idea, I think I’m good at listening to what they want, why they think it’s a problem and then asking good questions and helping to find that solution.
If you were not re-elected, how would you still engage in the community?
I would hopefully still be able to continue to serve on some of the committees that have a community member component. For example, the Public Arts Committee is primarily people in the community that are on that one. Like, the Homeless Coordinating Council has public members. Some of those areas that I’m passionate about as a council member. That passion is not going to go away.
Keegan Garrity
Campaign Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/keeganforlogan
What motivated your decision to run for office?
I was actually at a neighborhood meeting one night, talking to someone about some things that I think could improve or how our neighborhood meetings could improve and I said, we just need, you know, more reasonable normal people involved in this stuff, and so I was challenged to put my money where my mouth is, and that was two years ago. I ran two years ago, and this is my second time running.
Why do you want to stay in office?
I have a few different things that I’d like to accomplish, but I’ve really narrowed it down to three major things that I want to do. So one of them is Logan’s expected to grow quite a bit. One of the things I want to do is, as we grow, I want to, you know, make sure we grow the way we want to grow, and so I want to make our downtown walkable. When I talk to people, some of the biggest things they complain about are traffic and parking. To me, the best way to eliminate those issues is to put the people close to the amenities. And so I think if we grow up instead of out, then we can preserve the integrity of our neighborhoods as well as the open spaces that a lot of us in Cache Valley love.
What’s your favorite Aggie Ice Cream flavor?
Probably caramel cashew.
How will you represent Logan’s large college student population?
One of the things that got me interested in local politics that I hadn’t really previously been is I was a student who took the bus a lot. I lived kind of over in the Lundstrom neighborhood, not too far from the cemetery, so I’d always take that bus. Sometimes it was inconvenient because it comes every half hour, so I’d have to plan 45 minutes or an hour in advance, and one of the issues on the ballot was running the bus system every 15 minutes and that would have helped me personally. When I saw how few people voted and participated — it was only about 3,000 people in a city of 50,000 — I thought, wow, if students got involved, even if 1000 students voted, we might have been able to get this issue across. I think what it comes down to is just finding out what issues matter to students and telling them that, you know, if there is something like that, that this affects your life, and it could impact you.
How will you connect with college students?
We have an event coming up in a couple weeks at the TSC, so I plan on attending that town hall. And then, because I went to school there, you know, I feel like I can relate to what it’s like being a student, and especially, I think the real critical time for students is joining the workforce, which, it’s a different workforce. I graduated in 2008, almost at the height of the financial crisis. I can relate to what it’s like trying to find work, and so I think those are some ways I could connect and relate to some students.
What are your interests outside of politics?
I obviously like to enjoy our valley, so I do backpacking and mountain biking. I play hockey up at the ice arena about once a week, so that’s a hobby of mine and spending time with my family outside.
What makes you stand out from your competitors?
One of the things that I’ve taken a stance on is I want to see people elected by geographic area. I actually served on a committee that looked at 20 years of voting history to see how council members have been distributed throughout the city, and we found that half of the city — the west half of Main Street — has only ever had one representative at a time on the council out of five council members. Certain neighborhoods produced more candidates than dollar neighborhoods. I want to see us implement a system similar to a county council or a school board or a state legislature where you have geographic boundaries to give a better distribution of representation from the city.
How will you continue to be involved in the community if you are not elected?
A few committees that I serve on right now — one of them is the Bicycle Pedestrian Advocacy Committee, so usually someone from Aggie Blue Bikes comes. What that committee does is basically talk to people and decide when we’re planning and doing urban planning — what type of things we can do to make sure that it’s bicycle and pedestrian friendly, as well as existing infrastructure and how we can improve that. That’s something that I plan on continuing to serve no matter what. I’ve served on the Dual Language Immersion Committee for the elementary schools. So what that is, is they’ll basically take kids, and they’ll be completely immersed in a class that speaks a language exclusively. I was on a committee that helped decide which schools that should be in and what languages they should do. So I plan on staying involved in things like that. I serve as the chair of my neighborhood, the co-chair of the Woodridge neighborhood, and I still plan on doing that. So, yeah, I’ll absolutely still be involved in the community.
What was the last book that you read?
I’m actually still in the middle of it, but getting closer to the end is “The Brothers Karamazov.” It’s a really long book.
Ernesto Lopez
Campaign Website: https://ernestolopez4logan.wixsite.com/home
Why do you want to stay in office?
I consider myself more of a public servant than a politician. The reason why I want to continue to serve is to inspire all kinds of minorities to see themselves in those seats and say, “If Ernesto could do it, I could do it.” And so, in the end, I’d like to encourage and inspire others to serve. And I feel like I’m at a point where I can make even more meaningful contributions now that I’m familiar with the processes and the things that we’re doing.
What is your favorite Aggie Ice Cream flavor?
Across the board, whether it’s Aggie ice cream or not, it’s vanilla. But I do like the Aggie Blue Mint. I tried that one recently and I was like, “Yeah, I could get used to this one.”
How will you represent Logan’s large college student population? How will you connect with college students?
I feel like I connect very, very well with them. I personally am the kind of person that feels like a lifelong learner, meaning that I try to learn pretty much from any experience that I have. And I feel a little more in touch with the technologies that maybe students are used to using. I am probably also closer age wise to the demographic, which is a large demographic here in the valley. We are still a college town.
What are your interests outside of politics?
I love photography. I have been getting more into landscape photography lately. I love music, I play the guitar and I sing. I love spending time with my family and supporting my kids’ involvement in different programs, including sports and other academic programs.
What makes you stand out from your competitors?
We talk about diversifying our government, right? I’m a Latino. I’m an immigrant. I moved to the United States when I was 15 years old to southern Idaho, then to Logan to go to school. I am the youngest on the council right now. I work for the biggest employer in the valley, which is Utah State University, and I’m the only one that currently lives on the west side of Main Street from all the city council members. And sometimes the city council has taken some heat for that — that most of its representatives come from the east side of Main Street. So, what makes me unique is a mixture of a lot of those things.
How will you continue to be involved in the community if you are not elected?
If I’m not elected, I’d say I’d continue to do what I was doing before, which is to still work with organizations like the library, like the schools, to identify ways to improve how we serve minorities in the valley. I love what the Cache Immigrant and Refugee Connection is doing for the valley. I can see myself probably looking to help in that regard as well. But I was recently asked to join the Cache Chamber of Commerce, so there are all kinds of ways for me to continue to be involved in the community.
What was the last book you read?
This may not be the last book I read, but one of the ones I wish I would re-read because I enjoyed it quite a bit was “Tuesdays with Morrie.” I wish I could find the time to re-read that book. But I mean I do read the Bible regularly also.