SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah, Dec. 3, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams submitted his official resignation letter to the Salt Lake County Council Monday morning.
McAdams is resigning his position as Salt Lake County Mayor to serve in his new elected position as representative for Utah’s 4th Congressional District. McAdams’ resignation is effective on Jan. 2, 2019, at 5 p.m.
McAdams’ resignation letter reads, in full:
Dear County Council members,
I am writing to inform you that I am resigning my position as Salt Lake County Mayor, effective January 2, 2019. As you know, I have been elected as the representative for Utah’s 4th Congressional District to serve in the 116th Congress.
I am honored to have had the opportunity to serve as Salt Lake County Mayor for the past six years. During that time, I worked hard, together with the employees of the county, to support an opportunity agenda for Salt Lake County residents. We focused on the county’s role as a regional government for the more than one million residents living in our thriving metro area. We supported greater local control for residents living in the metro townships, with their own elected representatives and budgeting authority. We partnered with the private, nonprofit, and education sectors to establish a high-quality pre-K education program, specifically serving the kids in low-income families to close the achievement gap with their better-off peers. Working with World Trade Center Utah, we helped pave the way for small and medium sized businesses to expand and reach global customers through the Global Cities Initiative.
I am particularly proud of our work on homelessness and criminal justice. We took bold, bipartisan steps to reform homeless services through unprecedented collaboration. In forming the Collective Impact on Homelessness committee, we convened numerous stakeholders and took a data-driven approach to a complex issue. We also worked in bipartisan fashion to bring many people together to address criminal justice reforms. Our bipartisan effort resulted in jailing dangerous criminals as well as offering an alternative path to those who want to turn their lives around and become self-reliant, contributing members of our community.
At the county, we come together in a bipartisan fashion to ensure responsible financial decisions that best serve taxpayers. Each year as mayor, I worked with my fiscal management team and a bipartisan County Council to present and adopt a fiscally sound, balanced budget. Our financial discipline consistently results in a AAA bond rating resulting in lower interest payments and tax dollar savings.
I am humbled by the opportunity to continue serving Utahns in my new elected position. I look forward to future opportunities to work together to both sustain our gains and advance our progress on behalf of the county and state we love. As I leave my job as mayor, I take the experience gained from working alongside you and will build on it to find bipartisan solutions to issues we must address.
It has been a privilege to to serve as Mayor of Salt Lake County.
Sincerely,
Ben McAdams
Those that have announced they are running for McAdams’ vacated position of Salt Lake County Mayor include Shireen Ghorbani and Jenny Wilson. Council member Arlyn Bradshaw said he will decide after the holiday, while council member Jim Bradshaw says he will run, but will not seek re-election in 2020.
