As the 2023 municipal election season rolls along, local political groups have officially taken sides.

The political action committee Stand for Orem announced its endorsements for Orem City Council candidates on Friday.

The local political group will be endorsing Spencer Rands, Crystal Muhlestein and Matt McKell, according to a Facebook post by Stand for Orem.

“We feel Spencer Rands, Crystal Muhlestein, and Matt McKell will best represent Orem homeowners, businesses, and the future for our city,” the post read.

The main issues driving their endorsements were housing, support for fire and police departments, and traffic, said Karen Adamson, a primary officer for Stand for Orem.

The PAC’s committee is wary about high-density housing, Adamson said, as they believe Orem currently doesn’t have the infrastructure to support it.

“We don’t have the infrastructure for that amount of people,” she said. “We don’t have roads, we don’t have waters, we don’t have sewers, we don’t have electricity, we don’t have policemen, we don’t have firemen to handle that kind of a population.”

As campaigning was underway for the primary election, Adamson said her organization has hosted “cottage meetings” for citizens to get to know the candidates. She said some candidates heavily participated in the forums while others didn’t, and the candidates they endorsed were ones who participated often and the group got to know them well.

Adamson said two of the three candidates who they did not endorse didn’t participate in any of the meetings they had, so the committee wasn’t able to get to know them well.

She said when the candidate pool was reduced to six candidates after the primary, it came down to “three on one side of the coin and three on the other.”

“We’ve endorsed the three on the side of the coin that we think are going to listen to the citizens the best and try to keep Orem city as Family City U.S.A.,” she said.

According to its website, Stand for Orem was first created in opposition to the State Street Master Plan, which included new apartments and a bus rapid transit system.

“We wanted to really get involved in the election process and find the candidates that we felt were going to listen,” Adamson said. “We felt a lot of citizens were being ignored.”

Meanwhile, the Stronger Orem PAC has endorsed the remaining three city council candidates: current council member Jeff Lambson and hopefuls Jenn Gale and Chris Killpack.

JoDee Sundberg, a primary officer with Stronger Orem, said their main motivation in selecting who to endorse came down to whether they supported the failed Proposition 2 last year, which would have created an Orem-only school district.

“Besides being the only three candidates that did not support (Proposition 2) and the processes on (Proposition 2), they have a great desire to work collaboratively, respectfully, with the full council and members of the community, business leaders, other partners, surrounding cities, which is very key because that has been an issue,” Sundberg said.

During the primary election, Lambson, Gale and Killpack were in the top three, amassing a combined 19,868 votes. Rands, Muhlestein and McKell followed them with 12,200 votes altogether.

Additionally, Sundberg said these candidates also support the Cultural Arts & Recreation Enrichment (CARE) tax, city employees and managed growth with limits on high-density housing.

“These candidates also understand that there needs to be vision to ensure Orem is a place that welcomes all people and keeps our community safe and vibrant,” Sundberg said.

The general election will be held on Nov. 21 and mail-in ballots will be sent out on Oct. 31.