District 4 city council candidates Luke Garrott and Nancy Saxton debated possible plans for making downtown more vibrant and how best to support and encourage local business in Salt Lake City.
Saxton said that the city never extends grants to small businesses — only big businesses, which typically receive lower interest rates. Salt Lake City has a small percentage of locally owned businesses because the capital to start a small business is so large, Saxton said.
“I would be bringing my expertise as a small-business owner to reduce the interest rate for loans and encourage the administration to market and let small businesses even know these loans exist,” Saxton said.
For Garrott, the question on small business brought Sugar House to mind and how the city failed to protect its local businesses and historic buildings. The current city council, on which Saxton served, failed when it voted for the master plans that enabled the upcoming massive development and didn’t vote for the master plans that called for historic preservation, Garrott said.
“We need to do something dramatic for small business in Salt Lake (City),” Garrott said. “I have a plan. We need a mentoring program for small businesses, we need to expand the micro-loan plan Nancy talked about and we need to create a trust fund to help small businesses.”
The open-floor event was moderated by Run Politics, a website that allows the public to generate and vote on the questions that were most important to them. The moderator asked candidates the questions with the highest number of votes. The debate was structured so the candidates wouldn’t debate or contest one another, but instead direct their responses to those in attendance, both in the room and online.
Other questions from the public asked candidates about solutions to make Pioneer Park safer and how they would encourage policy makers to improve air quality. While Saxton relied on her past experience and voting record to answer how she would continue to deal with the issues, Garrott, a newcomer to local politics, offered what he believed to be much-needed solutions.
Toward the end of the debate, the candidates were asked about the biggest complaints they had received against their campaigns. Saxton said she had received criticism from the political scene for continually asking the tough questions to policy makers, while Garrott acknowledged some had criticized him for not having prior experience in politics outside of being a professor of political science at the U.
“I am somewhat of an outsider because I’m not a seasoned politician,” Garrott said. “But what I can bring is not only ideas, but persistence. I have vision, and it’s a persistent vision.”
Saxton continually referenced her previous eight years of experience on the past city council, saying that she would continue to ask the hard questions as she had in the past.
“I am a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done girl,” Saxton said. “If you want results, ideas are great, but ya gotta have a practical application to it. I have done that.”
The debate is available in its entirety online at www.runpolitics.com.
Jarad ReddekoppFourth district city council candidates Nancy Saxton and Luke Garrott prepare for their final debate at the Salt Lake City Downtown Library on Friday.