Politics & Government
County commission candidates clash over taxes, transportation
Rob Shelton | Lehi Free Press
Five candidates for two seats on the Utah County Commission squared off on May 19 in a debate hosted by the American Fork Chamber, trading pointed arguments over property tax increases, bloated government and who’s best equipped to lead a county of nearly 800,000 residents.
The debate covered Seat A, where Brent Bowles and Michelle Kaufusi are competing, and Seat B, which features a three-way race between Carolina Herrin, Isaac Paxman and David Spencer. The June 23 Republican primary will determine who advances to the general election in November.
Taxes dominated the first half of the night. And it didn’t take long to find the fault lines.
Bowles, a retired anesthesiologist, laid out the case that put him in the race: property tax increases totaling more than 100% over the past several years, coupled with commissioner salaries that climbed from around $119,000 to nearly $170,000, or more than $230,000 with benefits. The commissioner’s office staff, he said, ballooned from six employees to more than 20.
“I thought, this is ridiculous,” Bowles said. He promised flatly to cut commissioner salaries, reduce staff and not raise taxes. He enters the primary with a notable edge: Bowles said he received 64% of the caucus votes, which he called his endorsement. “I trust the people who went out, vetted, talked to me,” he said.
Kaufusi pushed back on Bowles’s characterizations without naming him directly. She pointed to eight consecutive balanced budgets as Provo’s mayor, delivered, she said, without a single truth-in-taxation hearing. In her closing statement, she cited a national recognition she received while in office. “They said, ‘Mayor, no mayors even come close to this in the Western United States,’” she told the crowd, explaining the award recognized delivering the highest level of city services at the lowest tax cost for a city of Provo’s size. “Look at my record,” she said. “It speaks for itself.”
Bowles challenged Kaufusi’s fiscal record. He noted that Provo’s bonded debt roughly doubled during those years, from around $112 million to more than $200 million. “If that isn’t a tax increase, I don’t know what is,” he said. “It’s just another way of funding something.”
On the Seat B side, Spencer and Herrin both made firm pledges against tax increases. Spencer, a 12-year Orem City Council veteran, put the sharpest numbers on the table: a 67% property tax increase in 2019 followed by another 48% hike in 2024. “That’s too much,” he said. “It’s killing the citizens and the homeowners and the businesses.” He confirmed the salary figures, starting around $117,000, now at $170,000, and called the increase self-serving. He also pledged never to vote himself a raise. “I will not raise my salary. I want to decrease it.”
Herrin, who spent years in law enforcement, the department of corrections, the State Bureau of Investigations, the attorney general’s office and undercover assignments before moving into government affairs, said her experience gives her a ground-level view of where county money actually goes. She now serves as legislative affairs director for the Utah Department of Corrections. She took aim at the current commission’s attendance record. “We have not had commissioners that are fully engaged, fully active,” she said. This will be her only job if elected, she added: no side interests, no other positions.
Paxman took a different tack on taxes. The former Provo deputy mayor and current assistant attorney general declined to make an absolute promise, saying it wouldn’t be responsible. “There may be a time where I have to,” he said, citing obligations to the county sheriff and attorney’s office. He did say he wasn’t planning to raise taxes but acknowledged reality might eventually force the issue.
That answer didn’t sit well with some in the room, though it stood out as the most candid response of the night.
The candidates also waded into a question that has been discussed for years in multiple forums–should the three-commissioner structure be expanded? All five said they’d support exploring it, most pointed to a failed 2020 ballot measure, Proposition 9, as proof that change is possible, but they differed on urgency.
Herrin was among the more direct. Three commissioners, she said, is simply too few for a county this size. She’d support a resolution to put the question back before voters, though she made clear she doesn’t want more staff, just more elected representation.
Paxman urged caution. “Go and experience it for a year without making dramatic changes,” he said, citing advice from a former executive. He’s open to the idea, particularly geographic representation, but wants a deep dive, not a knee-jerk reaction.
Spencer had a sharper take. He wants to visit all 22 cities personally, get a handle on each community’s needs and then go to the legislature as a unified front. “Utah County is fragmented,” he said. “We need to become one, and then we’re powerful.”
Bowles, notably, said he was the one who first raised the five-commissioner idea publicly, pointing to voters in Eagle Mountain, Saratoga Springs and the county’s west side who feel left out when all the commissioners come from the central area.
Housing and transportation closed out the main questions. Bowles zeroed in on affordable housing, not high-density housing, he was quick to note, and raised concerns about public infrastructure districts, which he described as a workaround that lets developers pass infrastructure costs onto homebuyers through fees those developers shouldn’t legally be able to impose.
Herrin and Spencer both flagged Eagle Mountain as a pressure point. The city has more than 76,000 residents and, according to Herrin, dangerously limited evacuation routes. Spencer put the number of already permitted but unbuilt homes there at 26,000. “That’s 100% gridlock,” he said.
Kaufusi, who served as president of the Metropolitan Planning Organization and represented a multistate federal district covering Utah, Oregon, Idaho and Arizona on roads and bridges, said she has the transportation relationships to make a difference. “There is a way to get out ahead of the infrastructure,” she said. “I have not seen it, and we have got to get to it.”
Paxman argued the county needs to become the most respected government entity in the state and that reputation, more than anything, is what unlocks outside funding without raising taxes. He pointed to securing money for the Provo Airport as evidence of what legislative relationships can deliver.
The primary is June 23. Both debates from the evening were recorded and will be available on the American Fork Chamber’s YouTube channel. You can also read about the candidates’ profiles and answers to previous asked questions at https://lehifreepress.com/2026/02/26/utah-county-commissioner-seats-a-and-b-candidates-profiled/.
