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Salt Lake County Elected Officials Sworn In

Whittney Evans
Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen swears in newly-elected Councilwoman Jenny Wilson.

Newly-elected Salt Lake County officials were sworn into office Monday morning.

Twelve officials took the oath of office Monday, including Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen, Sheriff Jim Winder and District Attorney Sim Gil. Three members of the county council, Aimee Winder-Newton, Arlyn Bradshaw and Steve Debry were sworn in for another term. A fourth, Councilwoman At-Large Jenny Wilson replaced retiring Councilman Randy Horiuchi.  Wilson previously served in this position from 2004 through 2010. She says she’s focused on preserving the canyons and tackling poor air quality as the county grows.  

“We have to collectively as elected officials prepare for that and mitigate that,” Wilson says. “And it’s everything from air quality to ‘do we have enough senior centers as we have an aging population?’”

Republican Scott Tingley was sworn in as Salt Lake County auditor. He’s replacing Greg Hawkins who lost his re-election bid at the Salt Lake County Republican Convention in April. Tingley plans to implement performance audits of county programs in addition to financial audits. That means putting a spotlight on parks and recreation or aging services for instance to determine what the programs’ goals are.

“It looks at those objectives and then analyzes the evidence to make sure that they’re meeting those objectives,” Tingley says. “And then we report that back to important decision-makers like the county council—the county mayor’s office, so that they can make more informed decisions.”

Also sworn in Monday were County Assessor Kevin Jacobs, County Recorder Gary Ott, and County Surveyor Reid Demman. 

Whittney Evans grew up southern Ohio and has worked in public radio since 2005. She has a communications degree from Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky, where she learned the ropes of reporting, producing and hosting. Whittney moved to Utah in 2009 where she became a reporter, producer and morning host at KCPW. Her reporting ranges from the hyper-local issues affecting Salt Lake City residents, to state-wide issues of national interest. Outside of work, she enjoys playing the guitar and getting to know the breathtaking landscape of the Mountain West.
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