Lehi City News
Lehi voters show support for current City Council candidates. Only 20% return ballots.
Lehi voters headed to the polls last week to show strong support for incumbents seeking another term. Lehi City saw Utah County’s largest field for City Council, with 14 candidates campaigning for three seats. Incumbents Paige Albrecht, Johnny Revill, and Mike Southwick led the primary election with 48% of the votes, while the remaining field of 11 combined received only 52% of the total votes.
Councilwoman Albrecht, the leading vote-getter for the primary, won an election-leading 16 precincts with strong support from Lehi’s Southwest and Northeast precincts. Councilman Southwick continued to receive unwavering support from Lehi residents in “Old Town,” winning the precincts surrounding Wines Park and east toward the Lehi Cemetery. First-time candidates Montane Hamilton and Tahnee Hamilton, each won a Traverse Mountain precinct, as they were supported by clean air advocate groups in the area. Outsider candidate and leading campaign spender, Katie Koivisto, advanced in the primary after a strong showing in the West. Koivisto won every precinct west of the Jordan River, including her current neighborhood in the new Holbrook Farms community off 2100 North.
Some of Lehi’s top issues recently have included Peck Park development and Traverse Mountain mass grading/mining, but residents in those neighborhoods didn’t vote for change. The precinct surrounding Peck Park (LE3) voted a show of confidence for incumbents, with Southwick, Albrecht, and Revill taking the top three spots, respectively. The precinct closest to the recent dust concerns surrounding Geneva Rock in Traverse Mountain (LE20) was the only precinct to vote two non-incumbents to the top two positions but had the City’s second-lowest voter turnout with only 14%.
Lehi saw a low voter turnout with only 5,913 ballots cast but that didn’t stop candidates from opening the checkbook during the primary. Fifth place finisher, Katie Koivisto led the entire field by spending $4,743.15. Second place finisher and current Councilman, Mike Southwick, spent the least ($912.75) out of primary advancers.
Campaign cost per vote was as follows (in order of top vote performance):
Paige Albrecht: $0.73
Mike Southwick: $0.37
Johnny Revill: $0.80
Cody Black: $0.75
Katie Koivisto: $3.34
Matthew Hemmert: $3.48
Among Utah County’s eight other municipalities with city council elections, only Eagle Mountain’s 14% voter turnout was lower than Lehi’s 20%. Mapleton saw the highest countywide voter turnout of 37%. The average turnout for all Utah County cities was 25%.
The General Election will be held on Tuesday, November 5.
