We were out of town at the time, so I recently watched the recording of a controversial Orem City Council Meeting (September 19, 2023). During the public comment period, 6 speakers voiced similar complaints about alleged wrongdoing on the part of a Political Issues Committee (PIC), and the top three vote-getting candidates in the recent primary election for city council. I am an analytical thinker who habitually looks for underlying motives. I wondered why 6 people with the same complaint would want to speak at this particular meeting.

Later, the Mayor/City Council were asked to certify that the vote count for the primary election was correct — look at a spread sheet and see if votes were counted correctly. Councilman Peterson took this opportunity to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the votes received by the top candidates, based on the complaints voiced earlier in the meeting. Aha! Another question: was this a setup, an orchestrated attempt to discredit the three candidates who received the most votes? If I’m right about that, it probably means that certain members of our mayor/council group are backing the other three candidates who got fewer votes in the election. If so, the four people who have dominated mayor/city council decisions, may be desperate to get one of their candidates elected so they can continue to exercise control over what happens in Orem.

Later in the same meeting, the mayor took 20 minutes of council meeting time to criticize a reporter from the Daily Herald, including her coverage of his million-dollar legal problems in Alabama. He wondered why his case was newsworthy. When you are an elected official accused in court of wrongdoing, it is always newsworthy. When new information is revealed, new articles appear. Am I seeing this correctly? Is this the second attempt in the same meeting by someone on the council to discredit someone?

More peace in Orem? In the upcoming election for city council, vote for people without the agendas, misinformation, politics, controversy, contention, and negative tactics that seem to be currently a part of our city government.

Virginia Sokolowsky, Orem

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