Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is not pulling any punches when it comes to criticising current Mayor Jackie Biskupski.
“She’s incompetent at her job,” says the former two-term mayor in a podcast interview with UtahPolicy.com.
Anderson took to social media over the weekend to apologize for endorsing and campaigning for Biskupski during the 2015 mayoral campaign.
“I’ve regretted my endorsement from the beginning,” says Anderson. “It should have been clear to all of us that she didn’t have the experience that someone who was running for the mayor’s job should have. She never really held high position anywhere. Sure, she was a legislator, but what does that take? Look at some of the legislators we’ve had.”
Anderson is particularly critical of Biskupski’s poor performance in handling the homeless crisis in downtown Salt Lake City. The situation required the cooperation of state and county leaders and led to “Operation Rio Grande.”
“I don’t think she has one original idea,” says Anderson bluntly. “I don’t think she studies anything. Someone needs to ask her what her ideas are.”
“She has completely defaulted leadership on that issue to Speaker Greg Hughes, of all people, and Mayor Ben McAdams,” he added.
Anderson also says Biskupski is failing to deliver on other issues she promised to address during the campaign like clean air and climate change.
“A lot of us held out hope she would have the passion and bring in the kind of people on her staff to help her do the kind of things she said she was going to do and address the very serious problems she pointed out that we were facing as a community,” he said.
Anderson says he had not spoken to Biskupski since before she took office in 2016. He did reach out to her after she took the step to demand resignations from all existing staffers before she took office, but Biskupski never responded to that overture.
Anderson says his frustration with Biskupski’s apparent missteps led him to post his apology on Facebook.
“I raised all this money for her. I wrote an op-ed in favor of her. I thought it was time to let people know I regret supporting her and I’m sorry if I pushed anyone into voting for her.”
When asked about the prospects for the future of Biskupski’s administration, Anderson put it bluntly.
“I don’t think it’s salvageable,” he said. “I hope she’ll do better because if she doesn’t, then the city will suffer. I just don’t think she has the necessary experience or the mindset to take this on.”
In the end, Anderson says he spoke up because Salt Lake residents should expect more from their leaders.
“I hate to come off as so negative, but we want a lot better for our community and a lot more from our elected officials.”
