Members of the Wasatch Democratic party met Saturday morning for their party organizing convention.
Saturday morning’s meetings at Midway Town Hall had three main items on the agenda. Wasatch County Democrats heard a report on the state of the county party, members also elected executive committee officers and heard from speakers from the Utah Democratic Party’s issue caucus and state party candidates.
All county party leaders were reelected to their positions. Terri Goodall as the party chair, Jennifer Lee as vice chair and Steve Hoffman as treasurer.
The party’s vice chair Jennifer Lee said they had no candidates for the secretary position which will remain open until filled. Lee says those interested in filling the position should contact the party chair Terri Goodall.
“State their interest then a conversation just to make sure they understand the duties which for the secretary it's largely record keeping and communication with the members," Lee explained. "We are working on increasing our social media presence. That person wouldn't necessarily be the secretary, but it would be really nice if someone with social media experience could help out in that position. We would love for someone to step forward and help us fill that position. It can be filled temporarily by our executive committee and then when our central committee next meets if we have any candidates, they could fill the position at that time.”
Lee recognizes that there is a Republican strong hold in the county but reports they’ve seen significant growth over the last few years. Around 1,500-1,600 last year and are now have over 2,100.
“Numbers have been increasing slowly, but that was a bigger jump than we've seen for a while," Lee continued. "I think it's in part related just to the growth of the Valley, we have new people moving in and it's probably somewhat related to national politics. It's interesting in Wasatch County as you might expect the Republican Party has the most registered members. The next biggest block with just a little over 6,000 is unaffiliated voters and then we would be the third largest block.”
Lee shared some of the Wasatch County Democratic Parties goals and ambitions for the year.
“We would of course like to elect more Democrats to our local positions," Lee said. "The municipal races are this year. Those positions are nonpartisan, but parties are organizations that can help to recruit candidates. So, we would like to see some candidates step up for those positions. We've been talking to community members. I don't know that a lot of the other issues that face to County are specifically partisan. We really do want to encourage people to get involved in their community and that means serving on community boards it’s just really important that we all participate in our democracy.”
