Mayor of Salt Lake City
Anderson ran for Mayor of Salt Lake City in 1999, defeating 10 other candidates in the primary campaign, before winning 60% of the vote in the general election against opponent Stuart Reid. He won re-election by a 7% margin against Frank Pignanelli in 2003.
Anderson's two terms in office were extremely eventful, with Anderson playing a leading role in hosting the 2002 Winter Olympic Games; He organized and co-hosted dozens of mayors for three consecutive years at the Sundance Summit. He also founded the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival, as well as providing national and international leadership regarding climate protection, conducting a successful national campaign to require that airports across the country screen all checked luggage, expanding the area's light rail system, significantly expanding protected open space, implementing an innovative and highly successful Restorative justice program and creating a city-wide after-school and summer youth program. Many of Anderson's achievements were described in his State of the City addresses and listed in a document provided to the public shortly before he left office.
State Senator Chris Buttars of West Jordan publicly denounced former Mayor Rocky Anderson for having "attracted the entire gay community to come and live in Salt Lake County" after a Dan Jones poll indicated strong support for allowing domestic partnerships. In the 2004 election, 63% of the city population voted against banning same-sex marriage, in agreement with Mayor Anderson.
Anderson chose not to run for a third term in order to be able to push for reforms of U.S. human rights policies and practices through grassroots organizing.
Read more about this topic: Rocky Anderson
Famous quotes containing the words mayor, salt, lake and/or city:
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and and not by a but.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“Such were the first rude beginnings of a town. They spoke of the practicability of a winter road to the Moosehead Carry, which would not cost much, and would connect them with steam and staging and all the busy world. I almost doubted if the lake would be there,—the self-same lake,—preserve its form and identity, when the shores should be cleared and settled; as if these lakes and streams which explorers report never awaited the advent of the citizen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1965)