Council Chair Richard Hyer responded with a dig at Lundell before the meeting adjourned, and afterward, Lundell, Peterson and Hyer all spoke to the Standard-Examiner.

Peterson was appointed after receiving four votes in the first round. Flor Lopez, Ken Richey, Vice Chair Dave Graf and Hyer each voted for Peterson. Lundell and Alicia Washington voted for Arlene Anderson, current Ogden School District Board member, while outgoing Council member Shaun Myers voted for Jeffrey Heiner.

“To Mr. Peterson, he’s a neighbor of mine and, you know, I got to watch him as I watched a recording for a young person who passed away in our neighborhood,” Lundell said as he started his remarks toward Peterson. “I watched him be a thoughtful person and a well-spoken person and I reached out to him and commended him for the way he handled that extremely difficult situation.”

That was the extent of the niceties.

“That being said, I am stunned that this council voted this way today, and I’ll tell you why,” Lundell said. “We just had an election. One of the major issues was the Aspen House, and I believe it was a turning point for the elections and whether we were going to house people in our neighborhood, and Mr. Peterson was a adamant opponent of that. He also was a big proponent of the status quo candidates who got voted out of office because of that not by a small margin. So I think the people of Ogden as they think about the vote and how it went tonight should think about that as they move to the electoral process in 2027. That being said, Mr. Peterson, I will look forward to – hopefully you’ll return my phone calls and my texts this time as we try to work together, so thank you.”

Hyer made sure to respond before the end of the meeting.

“It was kind of brought up that perhaps we all ought to defer our votes to Council member Lundell since he was recently elected,” he said.

Replied Lundell: “That’s not what I said.”

Said Hyer: “But all of us represent a constituency and need to vote our heart, our mind, our conscience, which is what happened here today. So, I think it’s important that we give each other the respect that each of our elected offices are due, and with that, I’ll look for a motion (to adjourn).”

Following the meeting, Peterson told the Standard-Examiner that he’s not inflammatory, that he’s not a bomb thrower and that he can work with most people.

He said politics is about winning hearts and minds and having a relationship of trust. He said building that relationship of trust and building consensus is how you get things done.

He emphasized finding common ground with people who have different viewpoints.

“What is their core objection?” he said. “And sometimes people are talking past each other, even though they might have a common principle that they’re working toward together, but they may not realize it because they’re talking past each other. Maybe they’re caught up in tribalism. And, so, in the past, I just go get to know them – you know, learn more about them; learn about their history.

“All of us come to our perspectives from our life experience, and I haven’t lived your life experience; you haven’t lived mine, and, so, really just trying to find like a common bridge and then building on that. Even if you might not have the ultimate end goals, you can find… ‘Hey, here’s where we can meet in the middle,’ even if it’s a small amount.”

Lundell defended his comments.

“You know, the people who sit on these seats, six of us now, going forward, have been elected by the people, and I don’t think the people who voted for Mr. Peterson took into account how the people voted in the last election,” he said. “And that’s why I said the words that I said. … You can go back to the tape. Go back to the tape. You can watch what I said and I stand by it.”

He said his words were about the people.

“I represent the people and I will speak for the people … and I felt it was important to say, and I will always speak my voice and my passion and I committed to do that when I ran and I will continue to do so.”

He said he’s always willing to reach out and will continue to do that.

As for potential tension, Lundell said there will always be agreements and disagreements on a body of seven and the council works through those, but he brought up a recent council decision that he thinks might have gone a different way with Peterson.

“I mean, we had a vote just last week that was 4-3 that went towards affordable housing,” he said. “I wonder if that vote passes two weeks from now, and so those are important issues for me and that’s why I’m passionate about who sits in the seats.”

Hyer said Lundell has made statements like he did Tuesday in the past.

“It goes against the grain for our political process – in my mind,” he said. “All of us were elected by the people and it’s our responsibility to represent the people the best we can. He apparently feels that since he was the most recently elected that we need to defer somehow to his viewpoints, and I think he just wishes that we would.”

Hyer said the council has done fairly well in the past handling strong disagreements. He said “it’s just the way the political process works” and that the goal is to find consensus and move forward.

In explaining his rationale for voting for Peterson, Hyer said that candidates will call council members to make their pitch, “just like any candidate would,” and that he talked to a lot of them on the phone and throughout the process.

“I have known Jeremy for I wouldn’t say a long time, but he has been a legislator, and our role in our government is the legislative branch,” Hyer said. “So I kind of felt like he had a little bit of a leg up with the legislative end of what we do. You know, he’s just got those items in his resume. The resume just spoke to me that I thought he was maybe the best choice.”

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