Making Choices, Part II: Did Ogden Elected Officials Choose to Break the Law? The State Thinks So
By Taylor Knuth
OP-ED
A year ago, I wrote in the Ogdenite about courage and how I planned to cast my vote in key Ogden City Elections in 2024, a year after losing my election for Ogden City Mayor. I wrote about my friend Angela speaking in the pouring rain at the old Marshall White Center. About finding my own voice after losing so much of myself and who I thought I was.
This year, I'm writing about courage in a way that I better understand BECAUSE I spent a fair amount of time crying (and planning), terrified of what it meant to lead again after such a public undoing. BECAUSE I did the therapies - hours and hours of it, y'all. BECAUSE I traveled to places where people made choices about resistance, collaboration, silence, and the list goes on. BECAUSE I got my dream job this year, surrounded by people who show up with SO MUCH courage every damn day.
I watched four people make choices, reminding me that local politics matter more than the others plaguing our feeds and news cycles.
I'm voting for Alicia Washington and Kevin Lundell. If I lived in their districts, I'd also vote for Flor Lopez and Ken Richey.
Real talk: I voted for Marcia White and Bart Blair before—multiple times. The thing about elected officials is that they come up for re-election for a reason. And 16 and 20 years in their positions, is too many. This isn't "vote out all incumbents" energy or “f*ck Ogden City” energy. This is about the core responsibilities of local government. This is about if something is broken, you fix it.
And this is also about housing. Yes, housing.
It's the most consequential issue facing Utah, and I know because it's my job to know. And I care because I want to preserve the humanity and dignity of future Ogdenites who wish to call this place home. Period.
What $2.2 Million Buys in Ogden (Spoiler: Not Housing)
The Weber Housing Authority spent FIVE YEARS developing a permanent supportive housing project for 25 chronically homeless disabled adults. Various sources secured $3.79 million in funding to start the project — and millions more to keep it solvent for decades. The former Aspen Care Center at 23rd and Madison is a mid-century modern jewel in our neighborhood, walking distance from every service these future neighbors needed. Some could say it's an excellent location for the use. I certainly would.
The Housing Authority even stated multiple times that they had a 92% success rate keeping people housed everywhere it had implemented this program in a scattered site model. Wayne Niederhauser, Utah's State Homeless Coordinator, backed the project in a public meeting, and every homeless social service expert provider who gave testimony to the council backed it.
And the overwhelming majority of neighbors (actual people who lived in our neighborhood) who showed up at Council meetings saying, "Yes, in my backyard." What a shift in tone for the council to hear feedback on local development, but it wasn’t welcome. In fact, I asked my council member for District 4 to knock 100 doors (in his district) below Harrison before making his decision. When I followed up with him, he still hadn’t done that.
March 2025: Ogden City spent $2.2 million to buy the property—not to house those 25 people, but to demolish it for "neighborhood revitalization."
Y'all. I could not. I cannot.
Housing is the most critical issue facing Utah. When politicians override housing experts with decades of experience (IN OGDEN CITY) AND the receipts to prove their efforts actually work, we're not doing policy. We're doing political theater, especially when their political performance undid years of work by people in our city who do less with more every single day.
Weber Housing Authority knows how to house chronically homeless disabled adults. They've done it. It works. And they got overruled by elected officials who prioritized how things look. They will tell you, “Don’t worry, it’s happening in Roy now.” And as of right now, it’s not. And, as of right now, we are entering the winter months with the same problems we have had for years because we had elected officials who didn’t care to know about the project when it started being planned years ago, but cared to upend it for a few new townhomes and over six months of a neighborhood eyesore surrounded by chain link fence, unkept landscaping, and boarded up windows.
That's not governance. That's politicians deciding they know better than people who actually do this work.
Alicia Shows Up and I Changed My Mind
Alicia Washington won her primary against a three-term incumbent I'd voted for before, and who quietly supported my mayoral campaign.
I have watched Alicia sit through Council meetings during Aspen, during budgets, during every moment when staying quiet was easier. Getting interrupted. Talked over. Dismissed.
She kept showing up.
Alicia has been leading in Ogden City for so many years, and that leadership has never involved performing respectability. She is running on investment in communities instead of replacement. On infrastructure that works, like water pipes or street lights. On restoring balance between Council oversight and a mayor who decides and dares Council to stop him. And to date, the council hasn’t performed their oversight duties on this administration with rigor. Maybe even breaking the law on their rejection of the Aspen project if you ask the State Property Rights Ombudsman. Concluding in the last sentence of their official report with “the denial of the Project, is therefore unlawful.”
I'm making a different choice this year because Alicia gets it: "investing in neighborhoods" means being honest about whether we're investing in people who live there NOW or making it look better for people who might move there later.
Those aren't the same thing. Pretending they are is how you spend $2.2 million to demolish a building that could have housed 25 of our most vulnerable neighbors for decades to come.
Kevin Made a Choice
I voted for Bart Blair in prior elections. He narrowly placed third in the mayoral primary, so I’ve run against him, too. But Kevin Lundell watched Aspen and didn't just disagree privately. He launched a campaign. As someone who'd never run, who didn't have connections, he decided that decision was wrong enough to spend months knocking doors about it.
He also won his primary decisively.
Kevin's talking about infrastructure, city workers, making economic development benefit OGDENITES instead of just developers. But Aspen crystallized it: he'll say when the city's wrong, even when that makes his campaign harder.
Kevin doesn’t mind them calling him names for speaking the truth. Their attempts to dismiss him don't change the facts: Aspen would not have added poverty to our neighborhood as the city council and Mayor have claimed countless times, it would have lifted people out of the most dire circumstances and helped them get back on their feet. Kevin listened, and doesn’t let those trying very hard to not listen forget that this project would have helped SOLVE poverty issues in the area.
That's not calculation. That's actually giving a damn.
The Districts I Don't Live In
Flor Lopez is running for District 1 - Angela Choberka’s seat. Angela showed me courage when she stood in the pouring rain at my launch and endorsed me when no other Council member would.
Flor chose a district facing the exact tension Aspen represents: growth pricing out long-time residents versus development "revitalizing" neighborhoods. No easy promises. Just vulnerability to say "some of what we're doing is wrong" and bravery to say "here's how we fix it."
Ken Richey has been on Council for years. Not flashy. Doesn't give dramatic speeches. Reads the entire budget. Asks boring questions about sewer infrastructure that matter when your basement floods.
Year after year, showing up. Doing work nobody applauds.
Sometimes courage looks like consistency. Ken showed that during Aspen and in many situations before and after this moment and, in fact, I did NOT vote for Ken when I live in his district last time.
What I Actually Learned
Six months ago I was crying in a Warsaw hotel room. Terrified of leading in my new job again after years of such chaos.
I did the therapy. One of my favorite techniques is "parts work,” or healing specific wounds with intentional efforts. You identify what's hurting, why, then build power back in those places.
I walked through Berlin. Places where people chose resistance, collaboration, silence, speech.
I got this job at Better Utah. Work that feels like a life calling. Tracking all things Utah politics, especially housing and growth, because it's THE issue.
Here's what matters: You can't heal what you won't name. Can't fix problems you're too scared to acknowledge. Can't build power back if you're performing like nothing hurts.
Aspen was the opposite. Performed concern while keeping neighbors invisible. Let politicians override housing experts based on aesthetics. Scatter the problem, demolish the building, spend $2.2 million, and then call it neighborhood revitalization.
Kevin, Alicia, Flor, Ken get it: housing policy requires listening to housing experts and the neighbors most impacted by these decisions. Governance means more than performing concern. And it’d help if someone other than council member Choberka knocked a door below Harrison every once in a while. Or ever.
My Five C's
Last year: Community. Connection. Character. Courage.
This year: Choice.
Courage without choice is just survival. Trust me, I know this better than most. Choose vulnerability when you could choose safety. Choose courage when you could choose comfort.
Kevin chose to criticize the city. Alicia chose to challenge an incumbent I'd supported. Flor chose a complicated race. Ken chooses to keep showing up with compassion in a room that often feels cold and disengaged.
I'm choosing them.
The scared moments don't go away, y'all. They just get easier when you're fighting for something bigger yourself.
What You Should Do
Research: ✅ Alicia Washington - At Large Seat A ✅ Kevin Lundell - At Large Seat B ✅ Flor Lopez - District 1 ✅ Ken Richey - District 3
Talk about local politics over coffee with friends NOW. RIGHT NOW. Write your own opinions down and share them. Volunteer. Donate.
Most importantly: Make a choice that requires courage. Be vulnerable about what you care about instead of voting for whoever you know better.
The List: Courage. Community. Connection. Character. Choice.
Pass it on.
I'm still here. Still bein’ a builder while I watch people burn things I know and love to the ground. I’m still proving that being scared doesn't mean we should stop or stall. It means we might just be doing something that matters. When the powers that be, the same that stand to lose in these elections, are talking ABOUT you and not TO you, you know you’re doing it right
It's been a really f*cking hard year, y'all. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
But I got this. You got this. We got this together.
With more love than last year, goddamn I care a lot about this city we call home.
T
Taylor Knuth
P.S. Here is a Quick Checklist on What Comes Next
Register to vote by October 25 (or in person through November 3)
Watch for your ballot in the mail starting October 15
Fill it out and sign the envelope
Return it by mail (by November 4) or drop it off (by November 4 at 8 PM)
OR vote in person on November 4, 7 AM - 8 PM (BRING YOUR ID)
It’s that simple. Now go vote.
Taylor Knuth, at his Ogden City home. Image provided