It is only by chance that I know the answer to this question, so I’d like to begin at the beginning. It was proposed that a student housing complex be built adjacent to UVU in 2018. The building site was surrounded by UVU property on all sides and the project was designed to provide on-campus type housing so students could walk to school instead of driving. The Orem city engineer suggested that the housing complex would ease the traffic in the area.

The neighborhood where this project was to be built had previously formed the Southwest Orem Neighborhood Association, or SWONA. The group was organized in about 2016 to fight encroachments into their neighborhood by UVU. SWONA fought hard against the housing project and the contention that ensued captured my attention even though I live on the opposite side of the city. I followed the situation with interest. The city worked with residents for a year to put in place compromises intended to make the project more acceptable to the residents. In the end, the City Council voted 5-2 in favor of the housing project and that decision was upheld by a referendum vote. The project was completed in 2020 and seems like a benefit to the neighborhood and to UVU students who live there.

I feel as if everything that is happening now is just an extension of the battle that SWONA fought with the City Council back in 2018. Some of the residents (SWONA), were unwilling to accept the result of the housing development issue and decided on an alternative plan of action. They acted on the idea that if city government won’t do what we want them to, then we’ll take control of the city government.

People from this neighborhood combined with other disgruntled citizens to form an agenda that addressed their individual concerns and needs, rather than act in the best interests of all the citizens of Orem. In 2021, it was almost as if Dave Young and LaNae Millet were recruited to join Dave Spencer and Terry Peterson, both already on the Council, in what amounted to a takeover of the Orem City Council. The Southwest Orem Neighborhood Association paid for fliers for a Meet the Candidates Night featuring Spencer (running for re-election), Young, and Millet. Also, after they were elected one of the first things they did was take control of the planning commission by ousting three commission members and appointing three members who were more compatible with their point of view.

If there are any questions about them having a pre-planned agenda and voting as a bloc, note that they took the first step in changing the planning commission on January 11, 2022, which was eight days after they were inaugurated. Before they could expel planning commission members, they had to change the commission from under the City Manager to under the City Council, which they also did. That didn’t happen by accident. It was a complicated plan where those officials had to carefully follow the agenda step by step. In Utah it is illegal to have a pre-planned agenda as a City Council member. I’ve always wondered how they got around that.

These public officials continued to follow their agenda and vote as a bloc until they were stopped by Stronger Together and their grassroots supporters in 2022 (Proposition 2) and again in the 2023 election, when they lost the majority vote to elected officials who were endorsed by Stronger Together. The idea is to turn the city government back to good people, who will make good decisions, as they consider all the alternatives, without an agenda.

However, our incumbent officials running for re-election and their supporters are a very determined group. They are set on winning back their majority vote in this 2025 election by any means necessary including Negative Campaigning, deceit, and personal attacks on good people like Karen McCandless and Angela Moulton. By the way, the person who wrote a recent brutal attack on Karen McCandless (published October 29), is a member of SWONA. So, you see, The Southwest Orem Neighborhood Association is still very much with us. We hear regularly from a member of their leadership in the form of letters to the editor that are critical toward Stronger Together and the candidates they endorse. The negative attacks seem very orchestrated to me.

It’s almost as if SWONA members and those that have joined with them are running a sort of shadow government, which means that actual power is not only wielded by publicly elected representatives but also by private individuals who are exercising power behind the scenes. This makes sense when you consider all the resources that are being used against their political opponents, but I hope that’s not the case because that would also be illegal.

Trust in government is lost when officials are more interested in pursuing personal agendas than in serving the best interests of all the citizens. When this happens, we no longer have a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Our counterculture group claims to promote “family-centered values.” Using Negative Campaigning including deceit, is a very twisted way to promote “family-centered values.” Once again, the idea is to turn governance in Orem over to good people, who will make good decisions, as they consider all the alternatives, without an agenda. In my view that means Karen McCandless, Quinn Mecham, Doyle Mortimer, and Angela Moulton.

Virginia Sokolowsky is an Orem resident.