Tag Archives: mayor

Provo’s General Election Results for 2017

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America’s general election was held yesterday and, in Provo, that included elections for both mayor and three councilors.  Election results are not yet finalized, since our county clerk has not yet counted all ballots cast; but, if present trends continue, then here are this year’s election results…

For mayor, Establishment candidate Michelle Kaufusi, who seemingly wants a municipal government “strong” enough to decree grocery stores into existence, has defeated both fellow Establishment candidate Sherrie Hall Everett, who apparently wants to keep Provo “moving forward” toward the statist Vision 2030 future that she helped plan for it, and write-in candidate Odell Miner, who didn’t seem especially likely to either continue or reverse such trends.

For city council, Provoans re-elected incumbents David Sewell and David Harding, plus seemingly-like-minded newcomer George Handley.

These candidates were elected by only about 8,000 participating voters, who together constitute about 19% of Provo’s 42,000-ish registered voters, as well as less than 7% of all 117,000-ish current Provo residents.  This is an unusually large turnout for an odd-year election in Provo, but such high turnout likely resulted entirely from this year’s special election for U. S. Representative.  Altogether, these 8,000 participants, by majority vote, upheld Provo’s increasingly-statist status quo of higher taxes, deeper debts, increased spending, multiplied ordinances, disrespected rights, et cetera, which is tragic for one of America’s most “conservative” cities.

We Provoans who value our rightful liberty can do no more for it in this election, but can only start preparing for our next one.  We need to engage our neighbors in conversation, identify and/or proselytize like-minded ones, educate them, inform them, activate them, and organize them for perpetual victory.  And also actively seek out worthy candidates whom we can encourage to seek public office, and then uphold in doing so.  Which will hopefully avert a bleak future like Detroit’s and perhaps render Provo’s best days yet-to-be again.  Will you commit to engage in such political activism over these next two years—and beyond?

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Provo Mayor 2017: Miscounts and Write-Ins

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For those who haven’t already learned about it, Utah County’s clerk has discovered that at least 150 Provoan’s votes for mayor this year were never counted; also, Odell Miner (who placed third in this year’s primary election for Provo mayor) has now officially filed as a write-in candidate in this year’s general election to provide an alternative to statists Kaufusi and Everett.  We still favor Miner best of these three, but not enough to endorse him at present.

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Provo Mayor 2017: Kaufusi versus Everett

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Provo’s primary election (whose results were mostly certified this week) has determined that Provo voters will choose between Michelle Kaufusi and Sherrie Hall Everett for their next mayor in this year’s general election on November 7th.

Michelle Kaufusi was asked by Provo’s political/economic elites to run for office, and advocates a “strong” Provo—so strong, some might say, that it can wrangle our municipal economy into submission such that, when she says “dance,” it will dance, when she says “jump,” it will ask how high, and when she says “let there be a grocery store in west Provo,” it will produce a grocery store according to her will.

Sherrie Hall Everett wants to keep Provo “moving forward,” which presumably means moving in the statist direction that she helped to expound in Vision 2030—a vision that includes “sustainable development,” “Smart Growth,” homeowner subsidies, restrictions on rental housing, mandatory neighborhood diversity, city-run business monopolies, business subsidies, Internet censorship, socialized medicine, health regulation, and an expanding array of city-run recreation facilities.

Between empowering the state and subjugating the economy, there aren’t any good mayoral options this year for Provoans who cherish America’s wonderful political heritage of rightful liberty under Constitutional law.  Which means that we’ll need to work hard over these next four years to produce such options in 2021.  If you’re both willing and able to help with this task, then please visit our website for a proposed gameplan of what to do between now and then.

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Provo’s Mayoral Candidates for 2017 (Part 2 of 2)

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Provo requires all residents seeking city office to register their candidacy between June 1st and June 7th, and so (as we post this blog entry) it’s been clear for 20 days now what this year’s electoral options will be for us Provoans.

Provoans campaigning in 2017 for mayor (now that John Curtis is retiring after two terms) include an unusually-large group of nine.  The initial four to enter this year’s mayoral race were featured in a previous blog entry, of whom one (Stephen Cope) has since withdrawn.  The latter six are as follows:

  1. Edwin Odell Miner, who served as a Provo city commissioner during the 1970s before Provo adopted its current mayor-council system during 1982.  He hasn’t yet shown much interest in significantly changing Provo’s current status quo (which, as Ronald Reagan once quipped, is Latin for “the mess we’re in”),
  2. Larry Walters, who is a passionate public servant/manager who wants to balance Provo’s budget while renewing its infrastructure, and who seems poised to highly-competently maintain Provo’s present status quo—except that we need a principled champion of rightful liberty instead.
  3. Kevin Wing, who believes in wielding political power beyond simply defending rights to actively foster both prosperity and happiness, and who wants to expand Provo’s current array of city-run businesses to include both an events center and a veterans’ center—which are all fine goals but NOT for political systems.
  4. Elliot Craig, whose views are not widely known yet.
  5. John Fenley, who is an intelligent futurist whose views go beyond libertarianism into anarchism, which is why he is interested in completely disincorporating Provo. We at Free Provo view anarchy as an unwise overreaction to tyranny, and instead prefer rightful liberty under Constitutional law, and perhaps also a revised city charter for Provo.
  6. Howard Stone, a humble-but-tenacious serial candidate who isn’t especially interested in ruling over others, but expresses relatively libertarian / Constitutional views instead.  We presently believe that, despite any arguable inadequacies that he may possess, he’s the best choice overall for Provo—and, as such, we endorse him in this election.

Whether you agree with our assessment of these 9 candidates or not, we nevertheless urge you to identify the best champion of rightful liberty under Constitutional law who runs among them, and then to uphold that candidate as best as possible for as long as he/she remains in this race, including by activating like-minded neighbors.

If we liberty-lovin’ Provoans can build our ranks to become at least as numerous and/or effective as our statist adversaries, then we can help a rights-defending champion to achieve electoral victory, both in Provo’s primary election this August 15th and in Provo’s general election this November 7th.  Which is one reason why Facebook ads began inviting Provoans to this website yesterday, and will continue to do so for the next 7 weeks.  So, what are you waiting for?  Let’s get to work…

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Provo’s Mayoral Candidates for 2017 (Part 1 of 2)

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Provo requires all residents seeking city office to register their candidacy between June 1st and June 7th, and so (as we post this blog entry) it’s been clear for 10 days now what this year’s electoral options will be for us Provoans.

Provoans campaigning in 2017 for mayor (now that John Curtis is retiring after two terms) include an unusually-large group of ten.  The first four to enter this year’s mayoral race were, in order:

  1. Michelle Kaufusi, who has told the Provo Daily Herald that she was asked to seek office by some of Provo’s political/economic elites.  She seems to be an experienced central planner who proposes to exert political control over our economy such that our economy grants west Provoans a grocery store.
  2. Sherrie Hall Everett, who is another seemingly skilled central planner who was highly involved in developing Provo’s Vision 2030 central planning guidelines, and says that she wants to encourage more Provoans to involve themselves in Provo’s central-planning process.
  3. Stephen Cope, who is a young artist with “liberal” political views who considers himself neither male nor female, but something in between.
  4. Eric Speckhard, who wants more honest open inclusive cooperative government that will continue some (if not all) of Provo’s current central-planning policies like subsidizing businesses, incentivizing shoppers, and dictating land usage.

It’s arguable that both Sherrie and Michelle are this year’s two Establishment favorites, intended to survive Provo’s mid-August primary election (which will eliminate all but two candidates for each office) and then face each other in November.  Whether that’s true or not, none of these four initial candidates seem to be principled champions of rightful liberty under Constitutional law and, as such, none have earned our support.

We solicited additional candidates for 2017 through Facebook advertising that reached over 2,000 Provoans with libertarian and/or Constitutional interests in late May.  Perhaps partly in response to those efforts, six more Provoans registered to campaign for mayor at the figurative last minute in early June.  We will feature those final six in a subsequent blog entry.

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