Victoria Petro named chairperson of Salt Lake City Council; Chris Wharton appointed to vice-chair. 

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The Salt Lake City Council convened on Jan. 9 for its first meeting of 2024 and elected council member Victoria Petro as chairperson and council member Chris Wharton as vice chairperson. The Council also held a public hearing on an ordinance that would amend the city code on landscaping and buffering in an attempt to reduce air pollution and water consumption.

During general comment, the Council also heard requests from roughly 40 residents asking the Council to formally call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Council Leadership
The Council voted unanimously to appoint Petro to serve as Council chairperson for 2024. Petro served as vice chairperson for the Council in 2023. Wharton was appointed vice chairperson for 2024, the second time he’s held the position after serving as vice chair in 2018 and chairperson in 2020.

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• Salt Lake City Council chairperson Victoria Petro

As Council leaders, Petro and Wharton are responsible for managing policy priorities and setting agenda items, among other duties.

In prepared statements, Petro said she is focused on improving community engagement and working on sustainable growth opportunities.

"Our significant growth gives us many opportunities to create, protect and preserve an equitable and sustainable Salt Lake City for many generations to come,” Petro said.

Landscaping Amendment
The Council heard public comment on an ordinance that would amend city code on buffers and landscaping. The amendments would “seek to reduce water consumption, enhance the urban forest, and improve air quality and green infrastructure city-wide,” according to the meeting’s agenda. The ordinance would also simplify these codes to become more user-friendly.

Some of the proposed changes include banning the use of artificial turf in landscaping, creating landscaping standards for parking lots to require more trees and requiring water-wise landscaping.

Jen Colby, a sustainability advocate, stressed the importance of “beautiful, diverse, water-wise xeriscaping” in Salt Lake City and reducing the amount of barren rock used in landscaping, which contributes to the heat island effect. Colby supported the ban on artificial turf, which can contain harmful chemicals that contaminate soil and water, but was critical of a proposed change to how much of an area is required to include landscaping.

Currently, city code requires that 33% of the land in yards and park strips be covered with vegetation, not including trees. The proposed ordinance would allow tree canopy to count towards the percentage.

Cindy Cromer also spoke in support of banning artificial turf and asked that the Council also provide constituents with information about the harms of artificial turf.

“Artificial turf sets emerald green as the year-round gold standard, nothing could be more backward,” she said. “That's a message which will, in the long term, be incompatible with the health of the Great Salt Lake.”

The Council voted to delay action on this ordinance to a future meeting.

Gaza Ceasefire
Nearly 40 people spoke during the general comments portion of the meeting to urge the council to formally call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“We do not want our so-called representatives at any level of government to continue to be passive,” Liz DeFriez told the Council.

Speakers discussed the high death toll of Gazans, which has surpassed 23,000 and includes thousands of children, as reported by Al Jazeera. Many speakers referred to the attacks as a genocide. Those who spoke also expressed anger at the use of tax dollars to fund Israeli military aid.

“This is a humanitarian crisis, and if this is allowed to continue unmitigated, hundreds of thousands more will die,” Stuart Robinson said to the Council.

Speakers pointed to other U.S. cities that have passed resolutions in support of a ceasefire. The City Council of Richmond, CA, was the first U.S. city to formally request a ceasefire in Oct. 2023. Since then, several cities including Atlanta, Detroit and San Francisco have passed resolutions calling for a ceasefire.

Residents had similarly pressed the Council for a ceasefire resolution during its Dec. 12 meeting. And following the public comment period at this week’s meeting, newly elected council member Eva Lopez Chavez requested a moment of personal privilege.

“There are people hurting in our community, specifically here in Salt Lake City, and I seek to acknowledge their efforts and bring attention to these acts,” Lopez Chavez said. “Salt Lake City is home to vibrant Muslim and Jewish communities, and we need to make sure that we continue to stand with them against all forms of bigotry and xenophobia.”

As the Council moved to the next agenda item, shouts of “free Palestine” and “ceasefire now” were yelled out to the council members.