Each member of the American Fork City Council sat down with me this month, one on one, for half an hour or more, at my request, to discuss how things are going in the city. I thought their perspectives might be useful background for the municipal election season which starts June 1, with the opening of the one-week candidate filing period.

Two of these interviews happened in my living room. Two were at the City Administration Building. One was on a council member’s back porch on a pleasant weekday evening. I thank each of them for willingly making time for me in their busy schedules.

American Fork Administration Building

Many of us don’t have — or take — time to pay close attention to our city government from week to week. Lately that includes me. I haven’t attended a city council meeting in person in at least several months. I’ve watched parts of only two or three meetings on the live stream or later, and I’ve only occasionally looked at an agenda.

I don’t always pay careful attention to the City’s monthly newsletter. I haven’t been on a committee or task force since 2019, and I’ve had less contact with City officials and staff in the past year or two than I’m used to. (That’s on me, not them.) So part of what’s happening here is that I’m catching up.

No two interviews are ever the same, but I sent council members Rob Shelton, Staci Carroll, Ryan Hunter, Clark Taylor, and Kevin Barnes the same list of likely questions, and we mostly stuck to that list.

This report is spread over several posts, divided by topic. I’ve made no effort to give each member of the council equal time in each post, but in all the posts combined, we’ll hear from each of them quite a lot.

I’ll be reporting answers to questions I didn’t ask everyone, and even when I did, their answers overlapped but went in different directions, with varying degrees of detail. But the primary goal here is a broad view of the city, not a profile of five city councilors.

I’ll provide some context along the way, but I’ll mostly avoid inserting my own thoughts and views until a final post with a few of my own thoughts. And while I’m not aware that I’m reporting any errors, I haven’t taken (or had) time for rigorous fact-checking of every answer from every candidate.

Here’s a link to the next post:

And here are links to the other in this series:

Here’s official contact information for all five members of the council and the mayor.

Thanks for reading!