Nestled between three cities and some of Davis county’s largest outdoor environments, West Bountiful’s community has been known to cling to tradition. A small town, many in the area preach about strong values, as well as the unchanging characteristics that have remained present since its founding. 

Some of West Bountiful’s qualities are timeless. For individuals like Mark Preece, though, the transformations that have occurred in the last two decades are easy to acknowledge.

Throughout his 16 years on the city council, Preece became one of the most recognizable figures for meeting attendees. Now with his run over, he’s assessing what his civic responsibilities will look like for the future. 

“It was the biggest honor of my life to have 700-800 citizens vote for me and allow me to be their representative,” said Preece. “I will stay involved, and I’ve told the mayor this. You’ll see me at city council.”

Preece paid attention to the city’s happenings long before he decided to run. Rooting his profession in the printing space, he moved to West Bountiful in 1979 with his wife and began to attend three to four council meetings each year. After becoming a long-time resident, he decided it was his time to give back and campaigned for a spot.

According to Preece, the state of West Bountiful today is far different from when he joined. At the time, the city had a reputation for being poorly funded. Preece says that even his brother-in-law, a housing developer, used to ask why the city was always broke.

“The city had been poorly managed for a very long time,” said Preece. “When I started, we had a lot of equipment, police cars, tractors and public works trucks that didn’t work. They were all parked behind the city, and we couldn’t afford to fix them.”

Over the next few years, the city began to remedy these issues, primarily through personnel changes. As one of the individuals on the council when Mayor Ken Romney’s tenure began, he weighed in on decisions to replace city administrators, police chiefs, public works directors and leadership at Lakeside Golf. Today, Preece praises the people who serve in these roles, especially current City Administrator Duane Huffman. 

Part of bringing West Bountiful out of the red also involved rate changes. According to Preece, the city tax change ushered in at the beginning of the 2010s was the first to occur since the 1970s, and while it was met with frustrations, it provided the community with the funding needed to make necessary change. Additional alterations included ones to the water rate, which helped build essential infrastructure. 

During his time, Preece sat on the board for the South Davis Sewer District as well. While in that role, he played a part in pushing forward ordinances for new projects, such as the ongoing renovations being made to their facility.

Despite serving several years on the council and being involved in a variety of changes, Preece doesn't consider a lot of the decisions he made to be “hard.”

“There were some hard things we did, but the ones I felt I made were the right ones,” said Preece. “Like we always say [on the council], you’ve got to count to three. We always had to have three, and there were a lot of votes that were split three-to-two. But, I was always on the three side, I have to say. No decisions were hard. You just have to make the right ones.”

Preece’s tenure on the council came to an end during 2025’s election season. On Jan. 6, his successor, Julie Thompson, appeared in her first meeting with the city. 

While Preece is unsure of what his next responsibility will look like, he has let Mayor Romney know that he’s open to new projects – and that he hasn’t ruled out a second run.

“I think if one day something happens that really makes me angry enough, I might run again,” said Preece. “I can see myself saying ‘hey, wait a second. That doesn’t make sense,’ and I’d try to run again, but I don’t really plan on it. My thing will just be if the mayor calls and he needs help with a committee, or he needs help with something, I would be the first guy to say yes.”