Salt Lake City Councilman Charlie Luke says the city needs to focus on rebuilding critical infrastructure, like municipal services and streets.
"Those are the things that people, when they think about how government impacts them.," says Luke. "Those things tend to get prioritized lower and lower on the scale, so we start doing fun pet projects and different things. I have no problem with bike lanes and some of these other things. What my concern is that we continue to fund a lot of these things at the expense of our critical infrastructure that we need to be spending more money on."
Luke is seeking another term representing District #6. He says another critical need for the city is neighborhood streets.
"Where we need to see more money going is to our neighborhood streets that are in front of people's houses. The timeframe that we are working on these streets is so far into the future. We keep digging this hole deeper and deeper. If we don't start putting money into it, we're never going to get to where we need to be."
Luke also says he opposes relocating the prison to Salt Lake City because the city is already shouldering a huge burden when it comes to criminal rehabilitation.
"All of the halfway houses are in Salt Lake City. A lot of the services are in Salt Lake. This is not a Salt Lake City problem, but we're the ones who end up having to shoulder that responsibility. "
He says the same thinking applies when it comes to the city's homeless problem. He'd like to see more of the burden shared by other cities.
"A lot of what we see right now is problematic with issues surrounding the homeless population – drug use, drug sales, things like that. We need to see other communities stepping up and doing their part.
