OGDEN — As Luis Lopez has settled into his new job as Ogden City Community Engagement Director, the last six months haven’t passed without challenges.

He said part of this stems to his two terms serving on the Ogden City Council.

“Probably the biggest obstacle was to overcome some of the preconceived ideas people had of me because I used to work for the city as a council member in the other branch of government,” he said. “Moving into the administrative, executive side of government, a lot of people had preconceived ideas about me.”

He said that he’s quickly been able to win over support in the last few months.

“When I started, I felt like I started at zero trying to overcome that and now I feel I’m very close to 100% with the mayor’s cabinet and his directors in collaborating and helping each other and being accepted as a member of their team to be effective and to get the support and help I need to be successful,” he said.

Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski, himself an elected member of the Ogden City Council prior to being elected mayor, said he could relate to this as he transitioned into his current role.

“People develop these ideas about us based on what they hear or read or whatever,” he said. “All we said was, ‘Understand who we are based on your own experiences, because that’s what we do for you.’ That’s what we’re doing for everybody in our work. We’re not basing our opinions based on rumor. It’s about experience.”

Lopez relayed a story of what can happen when these preconceived ideas explode into politics at the expense of public outreach efforts.

“When I was a council member, I tried to suggest and introduce ideas for programming  and for things that we can do to help the community,” he said. “I was faced with 100% complete resistance from a lot of people. It was all politics. That’s all it was, it was politics.”

He said one such example came when he tried to implement a boxing program.

“Part of what I bring to the table in this community engagement work is my experience as an immigrant and being able to relate to one-third of our population who are Hispanic — most of them of Mexican descent,” he said. “Boxing, as you can imagine, for Mexicans is a big deal. It’s one of our national sports, and in the area here in Ogden, it’s somewhat underserved and we don’t have the support for the kids.”

Lopez said he looked at implementing a boxing program.

“I brought an idea to the administration at the time and we had some conversations,” he said. “What ended up happening out of that conversation was, because of politics, some people started a campaign against me to accuse me of wanting to profit from starting a business in boxing.”

Lopez said even bringing in supporters to speak for such a program did little to move the needle towards implementation.

“I brought members of the community to meet with people from the administration,” he said. “My friends left feeling very frustrated and berated because of the way they were treated by the administration. … They killed any opportunity that we could’ve had to develop this program.”

Nadolski said this is the biggest problem when politics seeps into local government.

“When we’re in the job of local service, these are non-partisan positions and it is not about left and right,” he said. “It is about people and serving people. These are real barriers that have happened in the past and they’re part of the why and purpose for me running (for mayor) — I want to do this different, and if others won’t, I will.”

Lopez said it was obstacles like this that drove him not to run again in 2023.

“I have dozens and dozens, potentially hundreds, of examples of work that we tried to do in the community engagement space before, and that’s why I didn’t run for office anymore, because I encountered resistance and politics,” he said. “I wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t fulfilled.”

However, he said that there is a positive outcome for the idea of a boxing program.

“Fast forward to now working for the mayor and the work that I’m doing, we brought back the idea of a boxing program and it’s like night and day,” he said. “The previous administration, because of politics, killed this initiative and shut the door completely. Now we have a partnership with a local gym — with Foley’s — and we just started a program to help serve underserved kids.”

Lopez said the current political climate in Ogden is far more fulfilling.

“We’re putting politics aside and focusing on helping people and doing whatever needs to be done to make sure we’re serving people,” he said. “That’s my passion.”