KAYSVILLE—The primary election is coming up on June 23 and ballots were mailed out Tuesday, June 2. Before that, voters had the opportunity to listen to county candidates at a Meet the Candidates night hosted by the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Davis County, June 1. Topics that kept coming up throughout were transparency and the budget.

Voters heard from candidates for Commission Seat A, John Adams, Scott Fletcher and Kendalyn Harris and Commission Seat B, Lorene Kamalu and Susan Lee. For Sheriff, Jon Atkins and Aaron Perry and candidates for Davis County Clerk, Brian McKenzie and Jona Whitesides.

“Our mission tonight is to help others learn about candidates and issues by hearing from the candidates themselves,” said Nickie Nelson with the LWV. “The candidates are competing in the Republican primaries. The reason for doing a Republican primary is that the winner of these primaries will be unopposed in the general election.”

Ballots will be postmarked when they are processed not when they’re mailed or when they are received, said Nelson. “So don’t wait until the last moment to mail your ballot.”

Each candidate was asked a question and given time to answer.

“I’m running because I don’t want to see taxes increase,” said Adams. “That's a big problem for me because for my family, we live paycheck to paycheck and as taxes have gone up each time we’ve had to sacrifice more and more.”

Adams said he’s seen the county spending too much and not doing enough to cut taxes. “So that’s going to be my goal.”

“There’s a 14.9% tax increase which originally was 30%,” said Fletcher. “We’re all running for that specific reason – to look at taxes. You can all say that but the question is how are you going to address that? I will give plans directly on how to do that.”

“The exact problems that Davis County is facing right now is what I’ve been working on successfully in Bountiful for the last 12 years,” said Harris. “So that is a big part of why I’m running.”

Bountiful City has one of the lowest tax rates in the county, she said. “That’s under my stewardship. Also, I know how local government works. I’ve been in the trenches of it for 12 years.”

Harris said her goal is to keep the level of service without raising taxes or fees. “I have experience doing that. “Bountiful is a very successful, very lean and conservative city.”

Davis County has one of the lowest tax rates of any county in the state of Utah, said Kamalu. “Utah is recognized around the nation as a best managed state. It’s very important that everyone understands that almost all of the services we receive come from our city and come from our county.”

A little bit of property tax goes to the city, she said. “A little goes to the county and all the rest to other areas."

Kamalu said she is running on empowering the people. "I believe very much in the power of the people of the United States. I believe in the Constitution and I believe in we the people very much."

“I served on the Kaysville City Council for four years,” said Lee. “I had no plan to run for the commission but when I got a notice in the mail saying 30% tax increase I was like ‘what?’ I have an accounting background so when you see that big of a jump it’s usually a red flag.”

Lee said if the county doesn’t start correcting, which she considers a spending problem in the county, the county is going to have a lot more problems and it’s going to be a lot harder for so many that live within the community.

Another question that the candidates were asked was about honesty and integrity.

“Honesty is part of transparency,” said Adams. “Oftentimes when you aren’t transparent or you aren’t aggressively transparent like I like to be, it comes across as dishonest. We want communication so that people feel like we’re not just waiting for them to come to us to find things out, that we’re being out there and that’s honesty.”

Harris said in her 12 years of service in Bountiful she has acted with integrity. “I can honestly tell you that every time a resident came to me with a problem, I always tried to respond and tried to act with respect and kindness even if they were not kind to me. So I firmly believe in acting with integrity, honesty and respect.”

The evening ended with the candidates for Sheriff and Clerk. For the complete recording of the event go to https://youtu.be/qSlH-bjA2R4?si=NhrtGkElELxDoCLM.