Lee, who has a degree in accounting and helped run and operate a trucking business by doing the bookkeeping and payroll, called it a red flag.

She started attending town halls that explained the tax increase proposal and said things weren’t adding up. She said she went to commission meetings and met with Scott Parke, the Davis County controller, and came to believe there was “a major spending problem.”

Ultimately, the Davis County Commission passed a 14.9% property tax increase.

Because the 30% wasn’t passed, she said the county needed to find a way to still cover a $6 million dollar shortfall, Lee explained. Solutions were presented, including offers of early buyouts for retirement, according to Lee, but that left her wondering why those cuts weren’t implemented from the start and why there was even talk of a 30% increase.

Ryan Comer, Standard-Examiner

“And so anyway, just looking at all this and who I am, I thought, ‘I have to do this. I have to throw my hat in the ring,'” she said. “I have the knowledge. I’m very good at getting in and taking care of problems.'”

As a result, Lee is running for the Davis County Commission Seat B spot against incumbent Lorene Kamalu in the Republican primary.

City Council experience

Lee believes she has the experience to get things done because of her work on the Kaysville City Council from 2014-18.

One of the reasons she ran for Kaysville City Council was because of the infrastructure, which she said was in disrepair.

“And so there would be a light wind and you’d have a brown out; a big wind, you would have blackouts,” she said. “Transformers would catch on fire because they were old and they needed to be updated. Power poles were rotting. In fact, there were a couple of incidences where an actual power pole fell over … two of them in the yards of people. I mean, things were really bad.

“So when I got elected, I asked the mayor, ‘Can you please let me be over the power department?’ Because Kaysville City has its own power department. We’re part of a co-op, which is called UAMPS. And so he said, ‘Yes, you can be over that.'”

Lee said she went to the first UAMPS meeting and the head lady took her back to her office and pulled up a spreadsheet of all the cities that were part of UAMPS. The woman, Lee said, told her that UAMPS’ power to purchase is only as strong as the weakest city, and the weakest city was Kaysville.

Lee said she was told Kaysville was supposed to have $5 million in reserves, but the city had less than a million.

“So … I went back, I talked to the mayor, I talked to the City Council about this issue, and I said, ‘I want to get a power commission formed. We don’t have a power commission. We need a power commission for oversight. We’ve never had one,’ and see if we can’t get these problems fixed,'” she said.

She said a power commission was put together and she served on it while she was on the council. She said the first thing they did was they got rid of the superintendent of the power department. She said “a big chunk of land” on Kaysville’s west side was then sold.

“And that was enough to build back the reserves back to the $5 million that we needed,” she said. “And then from there, we went to town as far as getting a layout of fixing the infrastructure on the on the east side of Kaysville. And so we got everything put into place, everything going, everything running smoothly, changed the way that the billing was done because at the time, I think there was like five tiers.”

Davis County spending

Lee said if you look at the Davis County spreadsheet, almost 70% is spent on employees, which shocked her to see. If elected, she would like to have a service-level solvency test, which she explained as where you go into a company and see if there is duplication of services or positions mandated at one time but no longer needed.

She lamented the salaries of those who work for the county and said private businesses just learn to cut back.

She acknowledged that there are constraints because most employees are merit-based employees, which means more protection, but she said there are ways to be creative and better overall stewards of the money collected.

“Government needs to make hard choices, too, sometimes, and they’re not,” she said. “Instead, they go to your wallet, your wallet, my wallet and say, ‘We need more.'”

The aging population

Lee said the number of older people who showed up to the meetings when the 30% increase was being discussed was overwhelming. She cited the fixed incomes many of them are on and said they can’t afford to take on tax increases.

She pointed to her parents, who she said just turned 90, and noted that her dad was talking about getting rid of Dish Network.

She said if her parents are able to make hard decisions, government needs to as well.

“Shouldn’t we make those hard decisions instead of always saying, ‘No, let’s just raise the taxes?'” she said. “It shouldn’t be that way. People that run the government that (have) that responsibility should be responsible for making decisions that will have a better, long-lasting impact for those that are most affected every time you raise taxes. And so that’s what drove me. That’s what put me here.”

Animal care facility and dispatch centers

Lee highlighted two areas where she believed that money has not been spent wisely: an animal care facility and dispatch centers

She said the animal control center is three times larger than the previous one, which requires more costs for employees and food. She said there’s also a desire for a full-time veterinarian, which she said presents not just a cost issue but an issue of competing with other veterinarians.

She said Commissioner John Crofts noticed it was going to be built on a fault line and made a motion to put a pause on it. She cited his expertise in that field. Crofts was Utah Earthquake Program Manager for the Utah Division of Emergency Management for over 20 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. There was no second, Lee said.

Regarding dispatch centers, Lee said there should only be one dispatch center because it costs less. As of now, plans are for there to be two dispatch centers in Davis County – one in Bountiful and one in Layton.

Bringing back prayer

One specific change Lee mentioned she would like to make is for prayer to be brought back into the Davis County Commission meetings. She noted the uniqueness of not opening with a prayer.

“Right below where they sit, it’s big, bold letters. It says ‘In God, we trust,'” she said. “And … I’m looking at that and I’m thinking, ‘Why don’t they want to start with prayer?’ I don’t get it.'”

She said Crofts made a motion a while back to put prayer back into the commission meetings and there was not a second, so the motion died.

“One of the first things that I promise to do is to second that motion or make that motion to bring prayer back into the commission meetings,” she said. “And I think that’s super important that we always, always bring that perspective into the meetings, especially now because they say there’s a lot of dysfunction going on with the current commissioners … so that’s important to me, and I think it’s important within our community that we do that.”

Closing statement

As part of her closing statement, Lee said that she will represent the people of Davis County and be wise with her decisions. She said she knows she has to work with people who she doesn’t always agree with but said she has proven over a long marriage that she can work things out even if there are disagreements.

“And it’s not just the way I think, but it’s the way that the people of Davis County think, and that’s what I will do if they elect me,” she said.

“I also want to bring back fiscal responsibility, and I really mean that when I say that. I think that spending has been out of control, and I want to rein it in. I want to get it back into a course where there might even be room for making a tax cut. I mean, wouldn’t that be great? You never hear that with government. But if that’s possible, I would love to take that on, but also make sure that all of the services that are provided, all of the things that the county does is done well, and that we provide the best services possible for the people that live within the community.”

Contact Standard-Examiner editor Ryan Comer at rcomer@standard.net.