(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Bird costumes are distributed to 6th graders as they participate in a call to action to save the bird during a rally at the Great Salt Lake on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025.
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Note to readers • This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Rep. Sandra Hollins is retiring from serving Utah’s House District 21 after holding that seat in the Legislature for more than a decade.
Aaron Wiley and Stephen Otterstrom, both Democrats, are vying to take her place in this month’s primary.
Their district includes a big portion of the capital city’s west side, including Poplar Grove and Rose Park, along with a large swath of the Great Salt Lake, including parts of the drying Farmington Bay. The dire state of the lake surfaced as a key concern for the two candidates. Issues like housing affordability and the cost of living are also top of mind.
Otterstrom is a human resources consultant who ran for Salt Lake City Council in a close race last year. Wiley works in software and is a University of Utah alum.
The Salt Lake Tribune posed the following questions, based on a reader survey about the issues Utahns felt were most important this election season, to each of the four candidates. Their answers — listed in alphabetical order — may have been edited slightly for length, style or grammar.
Otterstrom: They are concerned because politics in Utah is corrupt. The influence of money in politics is pervasive at all levels and across party lines. When billionaires ask for public subsidies for their private profits, politicians in Utah fall over themselves to accommodate, whether that be a data center or a sports district. But when it comes to money to save the Great Salt Lake, educate our children, assist disabled people, or house our population, they have nothing for us. I support reforms such as Hawaii’s SB 2471, which effectively removes a corporation’s power to make political contributions.
Wiley: This isn’t a secret — our government should work for all of us. Right now it works great if you’re wealthy and connected. Not so much if you’re a senior on a fixed income, a working family, a student or from a marginalized community. On the west side, we feel it every day. No emergency room, but we have an ICE detention center. No high school, but we have a prison. People see that. Rep. Hollins fought to change it. I’m continuing her work, with her support, until this system works for everyone.
Otterstrom: Utah has one of the fastest-growing economies. However, most Utahns are not benefiting from this. As the state gets wealthier, life gets more expensive. The state can positively impact general affordability by removing sales tax from food; providing free school meals to every child; allowing cities to enact reasonable rent restrictions; promoting cooperative housing through a first-right-to-purchase law; deferring property taxes for seniors until they sell their home; and increasing wages by repealing anti-union laws and tying the state’s minimum wage to inflation measures.
Wiley: On the west side, affordability isn’t a talking point. For many people it feels like we are surviving instead of thriving. Rent is up. Groceries are up. Gas is up. The middle class is the foundation. We have to raise wages. I will fight for a minimum wage increase that actually reflects the cost of living. We need real policy that invests in working-class families: tax relief, protecting programs that our seniors and our children depend on, and wages that actually keep up. Every budget decision gets one question: Does this strengthen the west side?
Otterstrom: The biggest threat to the Great Salt Lake is a lack of leadership. It is time to call a special emergency session and take immediate action. There is no time to wait for another legislative session where it will compete with hundreds of other bills for attention and funding. The legislature must create a generous option for leasing water shares and updating wasteful water resources. It will be very expensive, but nothing in comparison to the cost of insufficient action. Ultimately, new legislation must prioritize water entering the Great Salt Lake over all other interests.
Wiley: Let’s be real, we all have to change. This isn’t just a government problem, it’s all of ours. Communities like ours on the west side have been last in line for water infrastructure investment for too long. We need a comprehensive water strategy from how we use it at home to how the state invests in protecting our systems. That means holding big wasters accountable, transitioning away from water-hungry grass and modernizing our infrastructure. Our drinking water and the Great Salt Lake are not negotiable. The state needs to step up and invest like our future depends on it, because it does.
Otterstrom: Our air is too polluted to expand fossil fuels. Our water is too scarce for methods that require evaporative cooling. Decentralized models, such as rooftop solar and wind, greatly reduce water consumption and will be more effective if we invest in upgrading the grid. Future solutions must have near-zero emissions and water use. University of Utah researchers have demonstrated [nuclear] reactors can be cooled more safely with helium, which does not burn, corrode or react with fuel. The state must regulate future power generation to require the adoption of technologies that protect our air and water.
Wiley: Utah has to be smart and comprehensive about energy. We can’t afford not to be. We are sitting on some of the best solar, wind and geothermal resources in the country. Nuclear is part of the conversation too. But with our water limitations, every energy decision has to account for what it costs our environment and our communities. That means investing in grid modernization, energy storage, and geothermal development so clean energy is reliable, affordable and built for Utah’s future. We have the resources to lead. It’s time we act like it.
Otterstrom: All governments exist at the will of the people, and the Legislature must respect that the people fired them from the job of drawing these maps. The independent commission, established by Proposition 4 with public input and transparency, is now the party that must draw these maps. It is worth noting that Prop 4 passed in 2018, and we have not yet seen the benefits of fair maps. We finally have a fair map for congressional races, but the state-level maps continue to be severely gerrymandered.
Wiley: The people should. That’s exactly what voters decided when they passed Better Boundaries. Political boundaries should be drawn by an independent commission that prioritizes communities and fair representation, not protecting incumbents or political parties. When politicians draw their own maps, they pick their voters instead of voters picking their representatives. That’s not democracy. The west side has been carved up and overlooked for too long. Independent redistricting is how we fix that. I will always defend it.
Otterstrom: There was not an imbalance until the Legislature and the governor created one. SB134 was a court-packing bill that expands the Supreme Court specifically to add justices that are more likely to side with the Legislature. It is another example of a supermajority legislature doing anything to maintain absolute power.
Wiley: Yes, and Better Boundaries proves it. Voters passed an initiative. The Legislature spent years trying to kill it anyway. That’s not a glitch, that’s the system working exactly as some people want it to. The courts stepped in because someone had to. That’s checks and balances working as intended. No branch of government should have unchecked power. At the Legislature, I will always protect the will of the voters. The power belongs to the people and I’ll fight to keep it that way.
Otterstrom: Lack of funding for education is harming our children. Salt Lake City School District let six of its 16 social workers go. Amid a youth mental health crisis, we cut access to the only care many of these children will receive. Early mental health intervention reduces violent crime, yet the state will gleefully waste billions of dollars on prosecution and incarceration when prevention is a fraction of the cost. We are a wealthy state with a growing economy. A tiered tax system could lower taxes for most Utahns while generating more than $1 billion annually for education and disability services.
Wiley: The most pressing issue is simple: Utah isn’t working for everyone, and it’s time to change that. Healthcare, water, wages, energy, education, the Great Salt Lake, clean air, representation, affordable housing — these aren’t separate issues. They’re all connected. And they all come back to one question: Who is this state actually being built for? I’m running to build the foundation for a Utah that works for all of us: working families, seniors, students and communities that have been overlooked for too long. That’s what I’ll fight for.
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