Recently we received a campaign flier in the mail with content that personally attacks a founding member of Stronger Together. The organization was attacked earlier in the campaign season and now they are going after an individual founder. Their desire is to discredit the candidates who are endorsed by Stronger together, but this kind of brutal personal attack is uncalled for. It comes across as desperation on the part of opposition candidates and their supporters.

Sending an anonymous attack through the mail is a covert move that shows a lack of respect and fairness toward other human beings. The intention is to harm and subject someone to public humiliation while she has only sought to serve the community. It’s as if she is being punished for taking a stand against what she perceived was unethical and wrong. It seems only fair that people who send things like that through the mail should be required to include their names on the flier.

Stronger Together saved us from Proposition 2 (the Orem-only school district) which would have inevitably caused higher taxes and fewer services in our school district. The elected officials who proposed Proposition 2 (Young, Millet, Spencer, and Peterson) also overstepped their bounds by sending a letter to everyone in Orem urging citizens to vote for Prop 2.

As you can imagine, they were not happy when Stronger Together helped citizens of Orem band together to defeat Proposition 2. In addition, Stronger Together endorsed candidates in 2023 who were elected and took the majority vote away from the officials named above. You can see why they would be a little perturbed with Stronger Together.

Some moot issues in this campaign and one that might be a problem are:

1. Republicans versus Democrats: This is a non-partisan election. Democrats are not trying to take over our city government.
2. High-density housing: No one is advocating for high-density housing. Instead all candidates are focused on single-family dwellings.
3. Higher taxes: Both groups of candidates will keep our taxes low. They have pledged to do so.
4. Transparency: This may be an issue with the incumbents who are running for re-election as they have had problems with transparency in the past.

And then there’s the issue of Wilkerson Farm. On one side of the question is a popular agro-tourism facility that provides recreational activities and on the other side is Tabitha’s Way, a local food pantry that fights food insecurity.

This issue was made controversial because of the “must reserve green space at all costs” agenda of some candidates and their practice of creating issues to criticize people endorsed by Stronger Together.

Here’s the real story: The landowner, Al Switzler, wants to sell the land for development to fund his charity, Tabitha’s way, a food pantry. The Wilkerson Farm property was purchased by Switzler’s charity with the idea of having Wilkerson Farm pay rent through food donations to Tabitha’s Way food pantries. Unfortunately, the farm’s revenue was not sufficient to make maintaining the farm feasible. Switzler now wants to sell the property to fund his work in combating food insecurity (according to KUER). The land was originally zoned 0S5 which is a holding zone intended for future re-zoning to residential use. The question is whether green space and recreational activities are more important than Mr. Switzler’s property rights and his desire to provide food for hungry people. The morality of the situation clearly favors Mr. Switzler. In my opinion, Jenn Gale, Chris Killpack, Jeff Lambson, and Tom MacDonald did the right thing in voting to rezone this property so the owner could sell. Some of those who voted to rezone the property were endorsed by Stronger Together in 2023.

After so much Negative Campaigning, this election comes down to one issue for me: Which candidates have promoted and or condoned Negative Campaigning and which have not? It’s a matter of honesty and transparency versus secret anonymous acts done in the dark so voters don’t know who is responsible.

The goal of Negative Campaigning is to confuse people and manipulate the vote. I think there’s enough evidence to show which candidates have engaged in Negative Campaigning and which candidates have remained honest and positive during a barrage of attacks against them.

There has been so much damage done to our community, but if anyone can bring us together again it is Karen McCandless, who is running for mayor. I will also vote for Quinn Mecham, Doyle Mortimer, and Angela Moulton for City Council so we can have a more civil government in Orem.

Virginia Sokolowsky is an Orem resident.