With a cautious eye on what she called “scary” developments out of Washington, Salt Lake City’s mayor vowed Tuesday night to use every available tool to protect residents, defend their dignity and keep Utah’s capital a place “where the doors of opportunity remain open.”
Mayor Erin Mendenhall, now in her seventh year in office, called ongoing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids underway in other cities “completely and utterly deplorable,” saying they were sowing chaos, making communities less safe and eroding trust in law enforcement.
“But I refuse to let fear and cynicism set the limits of our ambition or diminish our values,” Mendenhall said in her State of the City address, delivered this year at The Leonardo downtown.
Salt Lake City police will not participate in ICE operations, Mendenhall said, and city officials will continue to oppose attempts to locate an ICE detention facility within its boundaries after weighing in against a potential move to place one in a warehouse in the city’s northwest quadrant.
“This isn’t just about zoning restrictions,” the mayor said of her letter written in opposition. “Such a facility has no place in our city, whether at that site or anywhere else.
“At a time when divisive politics and dangerous rhetoric dominate headlines,” Mendenhall added, “the work of effective and representative local government matters more — not less."
Recent tactics used by the U.S. government in Minnesota, Maine and elsewhere were resulting in “the death of Americans exercising their constitutional rights,” she said, “and have no place in the America I call home.”
“Nowhere in the United States is this acceptable,” Mendenhall said, “and I will not stand for that here in our city.”
No city police participation in ICE efforts
Police in Salt Lake City, in contrast, are focused on residents’ actual public safety needs, Mendenhall said. “And so am I.”
“What our police do is prevent and stop crime. They protect residents and visitors. They work to ensure the freedoms of speech and protest,” she said. “And how they do that job matters.”
She said the city would lean into existing programs and collaborations with Salt Lake County officials and others in supporting new Americans along the path to U.S. citizenship, and would continue to offer resources to immigrants and refugees.
Mendenhall recounted the stories of some of her own ancestors — Lithuanian immigrants Jonas Morkunas and Janina Racyte, along with Civil War veteran Delos Robinson — and their journeys to build lives in America starting with virtually nothing.
“Every one of us is here because of courage, sacrifice, migration and belief in a future that did not yet exist but was possible here,” she said. “That is the inheritance of this nation. And of this city. That is our debt.”
The mayor said the city had an obligation “to protect those seeking a better life — to ensure those who arrive are not persecuted for their beliefs, like so many of Utah’s first pioneers, but that they are embraced."
Property tax increase likely this year
On the financial front, Mendenhall repeated her past assertion that the city “most likely cannot avoid” a property tax increase in the upcoming budget, though she did not give additional details Tuesday. Such an increase, if passed, would come on the back of hikes by the county.
Mendenhall will unveil and submit her latest budget to the City Council in early May for final adoption before June 30.
Summing up the past year, Mendenhall said 2025 was marked by “decisive movement” in the city.
She highlighted her public safety plan released last January; extensive work on repairing miles of city streets; and the opening of phase one of Glendale Regional Park, the city’s first substantial public green space on the city’s west side.
This coming year, she said, will be “consequential” — while describing the state of the city as “determined.”
While Utah’s capital marked 175 years this month since its incorporation and America will celebrate 250 years of independence this July Fourth, Mendenhall said the city’s history is not written solely in moments of celebration.
“It is written in how we treat our neighbors,” she said, “how we care for what we’ve built; how we make room for more voices.”
Advances on public safety, housing
Mendenhall touted advances made through her public safety plan, saying more than half of its 27 strategies and 23 recommendations to other governments and agencies had been enacted. Any given day, she noted, some 5,000 Utahns experience homelessness and more than 4,000 of them are now in shelters or transitional housing.
The mayor outlined a new concerted effort called Project CONNECT, focused on the Police Department’s 50 most-arrested individuals to match them with tailored services to help them with disability, illness, mental health issues, addiction or, she said, “all of the above.”
Based on its success so far in lowering persistent arrests, Mendenhall said, the city and its partners among law enforcement, prosecutors, public defenders and others in the system will now expand that to additional chronic offenders living on the streets.
“We will do this even though it is hard,” the mayor said, “because it is critical to reduce the demand on our officers so they can do their jobs.”
Mendenhall highlighted the city’s nearly $135 million in spending to promote more affordable housing, saying it had spurred construction of nearly 7,600 dwellings since 2020. That, she added, has helped the city’s affordability for working residents who might struggle to live here.
“When teachers, service workers, caregivers, elders and young families are pushed out,” the mayor said, “we all lose stability.
Preserving, beautifying public space
Her speech gave a nod to efforts to save the ailing Great Salt Lake, noting a city contribution in 2025 of 12 billion gallons of high-quality treated wastewater to the lake — the equivalent of 18,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
“There is no Salt Lake City,” she said, “without the Great Salt Lake.”
Mendenhall said the city’s rapidly growing population — up 9% since 2020 to roughly 222,000 residents or more today — brought with it a heightened mandate at City Hall to preserve and beautify its resources and public spaces.
Under her vision, that means expanding the trail system in the eastern foothills; more cleanups along the Jordan River; additional tree-planting; making streets safer; adding transit service; and beautifying the city “block by block.”
That also includes advancing pieces of what was once called a proposed Green Loop of interlinked open spaces, Mendenhall said, but “you won’t hear me use that phrase much going forward.”
Instead, the city will focus on its parts, according to her new plan, centering on a major face-lift for the concrete-laden spaces connecting Library Square across 200 East to City Hall on Washington Square, an area envisioned as a new green-filled Civic Center.
That $2.2 million to create construction designs for the Civic Center, she added, will come from capital improvement funds and won’t be part of any proposed tax hike.
The rejuvenated and more welcoming space will be a candidate to become Utah’s Olympic legacy park, once the city hosts the 2034 Winter Olympics.
Along with that, there’s to be a capital infusion for the old Leonardo building to pay for renovations, followed by filling it with government offices, arts programs, a home for retailer Ken Sanders Rare Books, after-school programs and more — while avoiding the cost of building a new administrative building.
“You can call this building ‘City Hall East,’” the mayor declared.
Work on the four district corridors that made up the Green Loop, meanwhile, will hinge on finishing a stretch along 900 South, the mayor said, and move this year to public input and design work on another pillar: 500 West.
She said after the 2027 open house for the renovated Salt Lake Temple, the city would enter discussions with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints toward revamping segments of South Temple.
She also said the city would start or advance more than 20 projects on public lands in the coming year.
“At its core,” Mendenhall said, “this is about beautifying downtown and embedding interconnectedness into our very streets and sidewalks,” while also adding heat-absorbing trees, promoting local businesses and drawing residents and visitors downtown.