In my opinion, a mayor and city council are supposed to come together as individuals and decide what is best for the city. If 4 out of 7 of those people who are voting have already agreed between themselves to vote a certain way on certain issues, it robs citizens of impartiality and fairness in the decision-making process. It also leaves 3 of our city decision-makers out of the process.

If we can’t hold elected officials to a higher standard, we are not creating the environment that we want in Orem. You can’t build a strong city on a weak foundation. Ethical behavior is needed to build a strong and unified community.  

The city website states that transparency is “one of the pillars of good governance.” You can’t have collusion, hidden agendas, and transparency at the same time.  

A public relations firm and a communications specialist have been hired to work specifically with the Mayor and City Council. These resources will be used to promote the issue of splitting Orem schools from Alpine School District. The issue will be on the ballot in November, so be prepared for an onslaught of publicity favoring the split. Reasons given to support the split are designed to evoke an emotional response in voters. They want to motivate us to rush into this decision without knowing all the facts.  The truth is that they don’t know how much this split will cost. We do know that property taxes will be raised to cover financial shortfalls. And there will be shortfalls! Also, we have no guarantee that educational experiences will be better than they are now. Some aspects of education will probably be negatively impacted if we split from ASD.  

Virginia Sokolowsky, Orem