Mayoral candidates
Stone Fonua (transcribed from phone interview)
Occupation: Retired police officer.
As the Salt Lake Valley continues its booming growth, what are your solutions for affordable housing, preserving community character and creating a high quality of life for city residents?
My take, and I’ll use it on all your questions, teaching people how to fund themselves. So you don’t live payday to payday.
[Fonua has a plan, in which South Jordan residents who make less than $250,000 a year, would pay a monthly sum of money to the government. The city would then be in charge of making payments for their housing, auto loans and health insurance. A single person would pay $750 for access to these services, Fonua said.]
Housing, it’s got to be included. Everything that I’m doing is included in the funding. The reason I’m doing it in South Jordan, is because I need a pilot program. Once you pilot a program, everybody can use it. Funding for everything, then there’ll be no more deadbeat dads. No more poverty, there’ll be no more homeless, there’ll be no more repossessions of homes. No more repossessions of cars. The funding I’m doing is actually going to wipe all that stuff out.
Besides affordable housing, what are the two biggest challenges facing the city in the next four years, and what are some specific programs or policy changes you will introduce to solve them?
I’d like to introduce that any immigrants or anyone who comes into my city have to take anger management. We got to have that for any immigrant that wants to come live in South Jordan. Don’t bring your anger issues, don’t bring your illegal stuff. Go by the books. Because most people who come in here think they’re entitled to something. You’re not entitled, dude, you’re entitled to living peacefully, helping the community, the children, we don’t need any of that anger and being upset. Because I’m going to have a program that teaches children how to be kind to one another.
[Another challenge is] Education. Number one. That’s why my kids and my grandkids are doing so well. Because of the education that we receive.
What are your ideas for investing federal pandemic aid in the city, including funds left over from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act as well as funds from the American Rescue Plan Act?
Like I said before, I’m going to do funding without using taxpayers’ money. So you don’t have to worry about any funding from the federal government, any funding from the state, any funding from anywhere. If people learn to fund themselves, you don’t need credit, you don’t need credit scores, you don’t need any of that stuff. Because that’s what suppressed people from trying to get ahead. [...] The CARES Act, if people learn how to fund themselves, they really won’t need the CARES Act.
What is a fun or unique fact about you?
I’m all about family, my kids, and my grandkids. I’m all about them. I want to leave them something. It’d be fun for me to see this program work.
Dawn R. Ramsey
No response.
City Council candidates
District 3
Don Shelton
District 5
Jason McGuire
