Salt Lake Crawler

Stan Penfold, suffering from a cold, nevertheless toasted his Salt Lake City Council victory with champagne. Looking at the white board at Em's Restaurant in the Marmalade District where his supporters tracked the vote as he edged ever farther ahead of Phil Carroll, he said:

"We thought it was going to be close. . . and it wasn't that close."

Penfold told me that walking the neighborhoods and talking to residents has given him two goals. One is to improve communication between neighborhoods and city administrators.

"There's a perception of the city as the enemy."

His second push will be for more resources and energy being put toward developing small businesses.

"We need to support small businesses in a realistic way — not just look for big boxes. It has to be more than lip service, there has to be real resources behind it."

Didn't Ralph Becker say stuff like that when he was elected mayor? So, what do you figure? Six months before the city's primeval bureaucracy grinds Penfold down?

And yes, Penfold is the first openly gay person elected to the Salt Lake City Council.