S1,E35: Rev Road Capital/ County Council Candidate - Rachelle Morris

Stepping away from the usual buzz of national headlines, we zone in on the heartbeat of our local community with Rachelle Morris, a vibrant force aiming for the at-large seat on the Salt Lake County Council. On the Small Lake City Podcast, we're painting a picture of local governance as Rochelle, a transplant with Texas roots flourishing in Utah's tech-rich soil, shares her journey through the realms of finance, venture capital, and towards the aspiration of public office. This episode is a tapestry of stories and strategy, from Goldman Sachs to Governor Cox's policies, showcasing how individual paths lead to collective progress.

Rachelle Morris is no stranger to the complexities of growth and stewardship, and she brings her fiscal finesse to the fore as we grapple with Salt Lake County's challenges and triumphs. We're talking responsible urban planning, the nuanced intricacies of homelessness, and the push for efficiency in public services, all through the lens of a candidate who knows the value of a well-invested dollar. Join us as we explore how Rachelle's commitment to her community and expertise in financial management could be the catalyst for seamless operations and unnoticed daily convenience for over 1.2 million residents.

Campaign trails aren't just about shaking hands and kissing babies; they're a crucible of connection, controversy, and the candid conversations that drive democracy at its core. Rochelle's candidacy illuminates the unique local concerns that shape life in our county, from infrastructure to the cost of living. Our discussion unearths the strategic edge of a six-year term in office, the collaborative perspectives within local government, and the cultural vibrancy that defines our home. Whether you're deeply invested in Salt Lake's future or simply curious about the intersection of local leadership and visionary thinking, this episode offers a compelling glimpse into the work that goes into making our county a place to cherish.

Please be sure to like, review, follow, subscribe and share the podcast with your friends and family! See you next time 

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Transcript

Erik Nilsson: 0:11

What is up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast. I'm your host, eric Nilsen, and for this episode we are going to jump back into local politics, and for this one, it's the governing body that manages the Salt Lake County budget and Salt Lake County itself, which represents about 1.2 million people and is a $2 billion budget. So it's a pretty big deal around Salt Lake of who is holding the purse strings of that and how they are going to spend it. Because this is everything from the health department to prisons, to our parks, to our golf courses and everything in between that really needs to run smoothly, and we all want to run smoothly so we can continue in our lives unhitched and unhinged, so that we can have all of the things we need. So this person that we have on is running for the city-county council position at large, and we'll get into the details of what that actually means.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09

But this person hails from the great state of Texas and has spent a lot of time in Utah, going to school, at BYU, working at Goldman Sachs, coming back from Dallas to work in private wealth management and then also start her own venture capital fund as well, which has led her to want to run for this position, tapped to be this position. Politics was always something that she wanted to do but at the end of the day, accepted that call and is running for that county council position at large. So, if you don't know by now, her name is Rochelle Morris, a really great person. One of my really good friends that I used to work with is managing her campaign, named Chase Christensen, and it was great to talk to her and get to know her perspective on it all and why this matters to all of us. So I know it's not the most sexy of things sometimes to talk about county council, but it's one of the things that impacts us the most directly. So check out me in Rochelle's conversation. I think it goes really well A lot. We can all learn about it. So enjoy.

Erik Nilsson: 2:06

No, rochelle, I'm excited because there's so many just like the context. There's so many important races and so many things going on politically and I think there's some that get overshadowed by others. I mean like I mean carolyn click and like the whole senate race and and everything going on there. I know that gets a lot of the spotlight, but there's other, more local elections that are, I mean just as or more important, and so I love that.

Erik Nilsson: 2:29

As I got introduced to you and I've understood a little bit more about it, I've started to see more. I can't't remember the theory for that, but like when you know of something, you see it more, and so as soon as I saw it, I kept seeing all these articles where it's like the county council seat at large and I just keep seeing it. It's like nothing else is described as such, and so I know like obviously that has been the thing, eating and taking up all of your time of getting to know everybody in good old Salt Lake County and the people that you want to represent one day. But yeah, I'm excited to talk with you more about kind of how we got here.

Rachelle Morris: 2:59

Well, and I was just joking with someone on texting the other night that I am the nerd who everyone is going to be focused on Trump versus Biden on November 5th and I'm going to be closely monitoring the county council at large race. And did I just get elected or not? Probably you know one of a handful of people who will be truly focused on that down ballot race, but it's probably one of the few races that impacts Salt Lake County residents more than any other race going on in 2024. But it's hilarious. You bring up Carolyn. Carolyn is 38. I'm 39.

Rachelle Morris: 3:39

We're both blondes, we're in different parties running for different offices, but both running for pretty significant offices for being first-time candidates. And you bring up Carolyn and I'm a Republican running for office, and so, oh gosh, all the names that I've been hearing over the past few months are the Republican Attorney General candidates, the Republican Senate candidates, the Republicans who are challenging Governor Cox in the gubernatorial race. You know it's hilarious and good to go through this whole party nominating process and then, you know, in the primaries coming up June 25. So we're, you know, less than two months away now from the primary and then they'll kind of be a little bit of a summer lull, and then fall is like prime time for general election.

Erik Nilsson: 4:28

Man, it's crazy. It's like right in the middle of that and I mean it's all of these different elections right. But I mean especially with you. I mean you've had your announcement, you've had time to kind of get ready for that nomination, and then, once it happens, it's like okay, like it's time to actually start moving. And then your targets start to change a little bit and, like to your point, you start talking about different people in different places instead of kind of all within your own party and all of those different lives. But I totally love what you're saying about how you and Carolyn have so many similarities I mean differences, obviously, but also a lot of similar qualities. That I think are exciting times to have those. I think people want fresh voices, fresh people, younger people for sure, and so I think it's nice to have a lot of these things overlap in ways that, whether you're a political party or what, you believe that there's an option for you to have a fresh perspective and a fresh point of view.

Rachelle Morris: 5:18

Well, and this is the first real major election cycle since COVID, right, and I think that this year is a year in which millennials in both parties are saying okay, it's time for us to have representation in elected office, in these senior positions that represent, you know, upwards of millions of people in the state. Yeah, so this county council, salt Lake County Council.

Erik Nilsson: 5:44

Yeah, tell us about the significance and then we can go back and look at all the history.

Rachelle Morris: 5:48

Yes, and it's fascinating because so I just went through the party nominating, the convention nominating process. I won the GOP convention in Salt Lake County. Congratulations, Thank you. 58-42, which on the Republican side you need to get 60% to be the outright party nominee at convention. So we still are headed to a primary but I'm feeling all the momentum going into the primary and really excited about where my candidacy is today. But in that process I got to know about 1,500 Salt Lake County delegates, Republican delegates, who vetted me, and so in these candidate meet and greets with delegates one of my first ones, maybe the third one into the whole process because I held 32 different delegate meet and greets I wanted to be accessible to every single delegate across the county and that was like over a 30-day span. We did more than one a day on average.

Rachelle Morris: 6:48

It was crazy, but it was awesome too. And so the third one in. I go do you all know how the county council is structured? With the mayor, and it was kind of deer caught in the headlights and we happened to be in a county library with a whiteboard with markers, and I go, would it be helpful if I just, like whiteboard, charted this out like an org chart, and everyone nodded their heads and so you know, delegates are some of the most informed voters in our county and I would say that most delegates wouldn't have been able to chart out how is the council structured, how does it relate to the county mayor and the county mayor's office?

Rachelle Morris: 7:29

So anyway, salt Lake County Council, the mayor council form of government, was created in the year 2000. So prior to that there were three Salt Lake County commissioners, similar to most counties in the state. So the person who's been holding the seat for the last 24 years, jim Bradley. He was a county commissioner before that. So he's been representing Salt Lake County in public office for upwards of 40 years now. Yeah, it's been over 30 years, and I actually just met him at a Cottonwood Heights City Town Hall last week and just true gentleman lives in Salt Lake City. You know he talked about the importance of stewardship in this role, but anyways, I digress.

Rachelle Morris: 8:14

So the council is nine people. Six of those seats are district seats. So I like to think of those as like the miniature House of Representatives for Salt Lake County. So each district represents about 200,000 people, and those are four-year terms, and those are four-year terms. And so you know, district 1 is Arlen, district 2 is Dave, district 3, amy, district 4 is Ann, district 5 is Sheldon, district 6 is Dee, and so Districts 2, 4, and 6 are up for re-election this year. Okay, so three of the six district seats are always up for reelection every two years, right?

Erik Nilsson: 8:56

Got it.

Rachelle Morris: 8:57

And then the at-large seats represent the entire county and those are six-year terms. So I view the at-large seats as like the miniature Senate.

Rachelle Morris: 9:06

Okay, that's what you're doing here, yes, and so they're big races. This is one and a half times the size of a congressional race that I am running as a first-time candidate in a down-ballot race, but it's a $2 billion-ish annual budget that the council ultimately manages the purse strings of, and I felt like this was really vital to get a millennial, to get a professional investor on the council. And when I looked at the at-large seat versus potentially running for a millennial to get a professional investor on the council, and when I looked at the at-large seat versus potentially running for a district seat. This is about stewardship of the entire county being able to spend time in every one of the six districts of the county, but then going up to the 50,000-foot level and saying and so how am I going to represent the entire county with how I'm voting, with how I'm working on the council? And the word that just keeps coming back is stewardship. These are taxpayer funds all coming across the county, and what are we doing with that money?

Erik Nilsson: 10:15

Yeah, I mean it's such an important thing because I mean, as I mean, like I am no longer let's put it this way I'm no longer the lowest selection on like personal information sheets, like I have to scroll, like to go back to my birth year, I have to scroll a little bit more now and I mean it makes us think a lot more about the future and as we can understand more and have more perspective in our lives of what's happened 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20 years ago and see how it impacts us today. I mean, one good example of what we've been impacted by in the past has come up I mean for me personally in the podcast the past two weeks, like 20 times is the Olympics and as we've looked back I mean 22 years ago in the Olympics were here how much that has impacted us. I mean it gave us public transportation with tracks and improved our freeways. We got all this great recreational space we got.

Erik Nilsson: 11:04

I mean, we got a lot of things, and so it's fun to be able to in a situation now where I can look back and say how much this has impacted us and things that went well, things that didn't and say, okay, we have this chance to do it again. And similarly, we can look at other policies, practices, um, and impact and make that to make more informed decisions. And we need people who do have skin in the game, Like you said, I mean younger, millennial people who really do view the future, um, with a lot more regard than people who may not have that much runway, Um, and so I think there's a there's a lot of people that are paying a lot more attention. Like you said, it is the first election after COVID. I think people are have a lot more opinions than they did then, and I and I think it's nice to have people who truly value what we want to accomplish and reach those goals With Jim last week.

Rachelle Morris: 12:23

I kind of joked Jim, why aren't you running for one more term? And he goes. Well, I'm 77 years old, let's not die in offense. He's like I'm feeling good.

Rachelle Morris: 12:37

But we had just a nice little conversation about how, when he first got elected to represent the entire county, I mean golly, has Salt Lake County changed since the late 80s? I mean goodness. And so he kind of talked about, just, you know, really think about the long-term impacts of near-term decisions that you're making, especially when it comes to infrastructure, investment, parks and trails and where physical buildings are going to be to service the community, libraries, recreational facilities you've been serving in office. When I went to the Sandy Library early in my campaign and I you know I've been in the Sandy Library before but you step in and you then all of a sudden notice the plaque off to the side like hey, I'm going to actually go and take a look at this thing. It was dedicated in 1991. And the first name on the plaque is Jim Bradley 1991. There will be lots of people voting in this race who were born after 1991.

Erik Nilsson: 13:50

Yes.

Rachelle Morris: 13:51

And so, as I told him, I said look, I'm working really hard to understand what's going on in the county today. Obviously, I've worked for almost two decades in financial services as a professional investor, and we can dig into that too. Almost two decades in financial services as a professional investor, and we can dig into that too. But, um, and and I said what I what I want to do is I want to serve in a way where people go you know what that was a nice passing of the baton, um, from one generation to you know, we'll skip. We'll skip a generation or two to a millennial.

Rachelle Morris: 14:24

And I don't know if I'll serve for one term, if I end up winning this election, or two terms, right. But it would be great to have that opportunity to serve for the next six years, because over the next six years, that's when so many of the decisions about the Olympics are going to happen and we have growth still happening on the Southwest quadrant and on the west side of I-15. And thinking through, what are the infrastructure needs there? How are we going to plan for neighborhoods and communities where they're set up for success for decades, and not just oh, we need to build some housing, let's slap some housing together and then no one wants to live in that housing 10 years from now, like that would be a problem in our county, and I'm not interested in just quick fixes. I want to think through. No, I'm in the seat for six years, so let's make really concerted decisions and be decisive about it, but also think about long-term impact to these near-term decisions.

Erik Nilsson: 15:22

We got to be able to, yeah, not just think so myopically, but really think what's what's down the road for all of us. Because, you know, I can be honest in saying we don't need more stucco boxes, we don't need um. Like whenever people start talking about building and planning and how terrible it is. I just think of driving through lehigh where you'll be like oh, here's a corn maze, here's a new housing development, here's a farm, here's a like a we work and it's just so. Anyway, I could talk about it because I drive through it so much. I'm like, if you ever need a fast, casual restaurant or a lot of questions about why things are built where, that's lehigh is that place, especially having grown up here and it used to just be um thanksgiving point and point of the mountain. But before we go further, like, so now we understand what this race means, this um seat at large seating vacant 1.2 million people 1.2 million people, $2 billion budget.

Erik Nilsson: 16:12

Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of responsibility and I love that you always cite kind of like that you've been prepared for this, you have the experience and the resume to do so. But let's unpack that a little bit. I know that you do hail from the great state of Texas and made your way here for school, and I'm sure that's where a lot of your decisions came to be. But I mean, what kind of helped pay the way to get to Utah and at least have that be a place on the map that you wanted to end up?

Rachelle Morris: 16:37

Yeah, well, so I'm a descendant of Utah pioneers on both sides of my family, and so you know some of my one of my great, great, great great grandfathers. He helped settle Cottonwood.

Rachelle Morris: 16:50

Heights right, I mean, and it's kind of been fun running for office and really picking up the phone and asking aunts and uncles and my parents and my older brother, who really likes family history, like, okay, tell me the story again of this ancestor and settling Salt Lake County. And so my parents met, married in Utah, moved to Texas, thought they'd be there for a few years and ended up raising seven Texans. So I'm the second of seven children, the oldest daughter in the family, oldest sister and my parents extremely hard workers. I've met so many people on the campaign trail who remind me of my parents, where they're just good, earnest, hardworking folks who raised a family and are empty nesters now and maybe living still on a tight budget and money was tight for us growing up, and so my brothers and I were on the reduced lunch program in elementary school and my mom taught piano in the mornings before school and when I was getting into the sixth grade, my mom, whose family had been on government assistance programs throughout her upbringing Her father was a welder and so if he had work, great.

Rachelle Morris: 18:14

If he didn't, then oftentimes they needed some assistance and she was looking at a couple of her siblings who were still dependent on welfare as adults, and this was the only kind of government assistance program that my family was on. But my mom was nervous that she was unintentionally teaching her children that, oh, the government is just going to solve this problem for us and it's not incumbent upon you or any of us to try to creatively solve this problem in our lives. And so she made what I now consider one of the bravest decisions of my childhood and pulled us off the program when I was going into the sixth grade and so, running for office, you do so much like personal reflection of how did I get here? And so I'll never forget the family council where she informed my brothers and me we're no longer on this program, and so you have a couple options. You can make a PB&J we all knew how to do that or you figure out a way to make money and pay for lunch going forward, and we thought that this was up for debate.

Rachelle Morris: 19:36

It turns out it was not it was a unilateral decision that she had made. So after a couple months of being frustrated about either making a PB&J or asking classmates for money or just trying to solve for lunch, I ended up selling gum out of my backpack at school and it turned into other snacks as well, and the first day that I sold I made $7.50. And I bought everything I wanted in the lunch line, like, didn't hold back. I got the chocolate chip cookie, the chocolate milk, you know, along with the chicken nuggets, and I fell in love with this concept of making money.

Erik Nilsson: 20:18

I was going to say what a great introduction to capitalism.

Rachelle Morris: 20:21

Well, and so you know, you, just the scrappiness, it kind of just it happened, and then making money turned into a problem to be solved, yeah, yeah, and creativity and just having a willingness and courage to just try new things. And you know, I studied business and obviously I work with lots of startups and it's funny to think about, you know, iterating on product ideas in the early stages and it's like, oh yeah, I've been doing this since I was in the sixth grade and so I'm okay with the idea of like failing fast and pivoting and doing something else. But by the time I was 18, I was financially independent and I had also earned a full ride scholarship to BYU, and so that's what got me to Utah. I became the first woman on my mom's side of the family to get a college degree. I majored in information systems, primarily because that program had 100% hiring rate and the highest starting salary, and so this, you know, this was me of just like well, if I'm going to work, might as well make money and have a job.

Rachelle Morris: 21:31

Yes, and and it was. It was great. You know I took computer science sophomore year. It really humbled me. It like whoa did it humble me. But also the euphoria of programming the screensaver in Java for the first time. That's like the bouncing box that goes around and hits the corners, Making that code work for the first time and seeing the box move, I got hooked. I got hooked to this idea of oh, you can create something inside a software that will do something.

Erik Nilsson: 22:09

And once it's working you know, like creative mental playground.

Rachelle Morris: 22:13

That is now very real and people get paid to do this kind of stuff. Yeah yeah. So there we go. That was, that was my education. Goldman Sachs recruited me, first for an internship and then full time. So I was with Goldman for 12 years and that of course you know. I look back and I know I'm lucky that I got that opportunity with Goldman Sachs. I interviewed lots of candidates while I was at Goldman over the years and the joke you know with all the employees at Goldman was oh gosh, if I was part of this interviewing round, I don't know if I would have gotten a job. And so it's really tough to get to get employment at Goldman. But Goldman is just this. It's a it as a large corporation to say you're great, performance, not so great, you know, and we're going to go as separate, you know different way.

Erik Nilsson: 23:14

But it's like to that point, most, if not all the people I know that worked at Goldman that kind of set a nice pace for a lot of their life. Like I would say maybe somewhere between like 15 and 25% of my friends that started at Goldman after school are still there. But the people who didn't are still high performers, excellent people, I mean really like ambitious go getting people and it's so fun to see, while the end all be all isn't like, oh, I want to be in financial services of some way shape or form for the rest of my life. It at least gives them, I mean, those technical skills, but also those soft skills and being around those people and also the clients here. It's hard not to bump shoulders with people who would, who would give you a great um kind of welcome into the corporate world, so to speak, and so I know that that I mean set the same stage for you and I also cause doesn't Goldman like encourage you to be politically active.

Rachelle Morris: 24:04

Oh, yes, yes, yeah, no, goldman I mean there's kind of a joke of a nickname and government sacks and and if you looked at several presidential cabinets, lots of Goldman alumni have worked their way through presidential cabinets over the years and and so what I appreciate about my time at Goldman because some folks have brought this up on the campaign trail well, don't they, you know, pressure you to be one way politically, and it's always funny because it's the opposite of whatever that person's political alliance is right. So if it's a Democrat asking me that, then they're like well, don't they make you like pledge allegiance to Trump, and you know, because he had multiple Goldman people in his cabinet, and if it's, if it's a conservative Republican, it's oh, isn't Goldman woke? And you know, and I just say no, the great thing about Goldman is they just wanted us to be engaged civically in the community and they never. I never felt pressured, and maybe because I worked in Texas and maybe if I worked in an office in the blue and I happen to be a Republican, so maybe I had my blinders up of like, yeah, I never felt pressured to be anything, but you know, a Republican woman inside of Goldman, and maybe if I had been in San Francisco, I would have noticed a different tune or culture inside the office.

Rachelle Morris: 25:28

But investing civically in the community, you know, and being a community builder, I just think that's what banks should be.

Rachelle Morris: 25:39

And you see it, with Zions Bank and Scott Anderson just retired from being CEO of Zions Bank and he's just invested so much in our local community and that's the largest bank that's headquartered in Salt Lake, and just this notion of like nothing can happen in society without the movement and transfer and storage and custody of money.

Rachelle Morris: 26:01

And so banks should be in the heart of the community, both in the private sector and the nonprofit sector and in the public sector. So 12 years at Goldman, jp Morgan gave me an incredible opportunity I was living in Houston at the time to move back to Utah and launch an office here five and a half years ago. So I did that for a few years five and a half years ago. So I did that for a few years and I got to know so many Silicon Slopes, entrepreneurs in the process of building an office out here and when I was in Texas. So much of the wealth and families and balance sheets I was working on was energy wealth, you know, oil and gas, and so then, moving here, it turned into a lot of tech wealth.

Erik Nilsson: 26:48

Like this is different.

Rachelle Morris: 26:50

It was different, but it was a lot Fewer boots and hats.

Rachelle Morris: 26:53

Yeah, and Governor Cox is trying to make Utah the startup state. That's a nickname that he's been promoting and he appointed Brad Bonham, who's the Republican National Committee man for the state of Utah, a successful entrepreneur, as kind of the entrepreneur in residence for the state of Utah, and this is just. There's something about Utah that is so startup friendly and in that and I was working for the largest bank in the country helping these innovative startups and had an opportunity to launch a venture fund two years ago and I took the plunge and decided to leave the world of the big banks and go join the roller coaster ride of venture with startups. So that's what I've been doing the last couple of years.

Erik Nilsson: 27:41

Yeah, I mean, how was that transition in general going from I mean a lot of structured finance, a lot of Goldman Sachs, jp Morgan?

Rachelle Morris: 27:48

kind of like your compliance officers always like right down the hall, exactly.

Erik Nilsson: 27:52

There's this whole kind of like let's call it old finance, old banking, and then kind of step into this newer form of, I mean, finance of venture capital. I mean, how did one prepare you for the other? But how was it very different than what you experienced in the past?

Rachelle Morris: 28:04

but how was it very different than what you experienced in the past? Yeah well, first of all, it was scary to take the plunge and I'll never forget had a conversation with a woman named Sid Tetreault, who is co-founder and still runs Women Tech Council here in Utah and has just done so much to build up women in STEM and tech careers in our state, and I consulted her about this decision of launching the venture fund. And you know, of course there's a fear of failure, especially when I've been successful.

Erik Nilsson: 28:38

Yeah, right, and so, like it's not broken, I don't like it's not, like you're in this. I have no, what do I do? Do I do this? I don't know where to go, like it's a very different situation where you get presented this opportunity.

Rachelle Morris: 28:48

Yes, and so there was definitely fear of failure going on inside of me. And she goes just take the leap, jump in the deep end. What's the worst thing that can happen, rochelle? You don't successfully raise this fund, you only end up doing one fund. Those are the worst case scenarios that could have happened. We don't get the first fund raised at RevRoad Capital, or we only end up raising one fund because we don't make prudent decisions with our investors' capital and we have to close up shop, right? She goes what's the worst thing that happens to you?

Rachelle Morris: 29:30

And I'm like I go back to you know, being a private wealth advisor at a large right, and she's like you will be that much more successful of a banker after going through this experience. You can't fall down, you can only fall up going for this. And so that was the conversation that gave me the confidence to say everyone thinks that this is a crazy idea. Minus Sid Tetreault and a few other people in my life, everyone else is saying you don't really need to do this. And I took the plunge and I'm so grateful that I did.

Rachelle Morris: 30:25

I have fantastic partners. We raised a $61 million fund when venture capital fundraising was down 74% from the previous year so and we broke a Utah State record for largest debut venture fund in state history. We've invested in six companies so far. Five of them are located in the great Beehive State and a few of them are Salt Lake County. So you know, and then sometimes people say, well, what does that mean for the county council? And it's like no, this is different things, I'm wearing different hats. You know, a tech startup that I'm investing in is not trying to become a vendor of Salt Lake.

Erik Nilsson: 31:09

County. Yeah, they're not gunning for the county golf course.

Rachelle Morris: 31:14

Yes, they're not trying to be the booking software for the county golf courses or county rec centers.

Erik Nilsson: 31:22

Yeah, yeah, and I mean it's so fun to see, because I think that's one thing that speaks to you a ton, I mean, and especially in the tech and venture scene, I mean you have people who are like you know what? I'm going to take this risk and I'm going to do it because I want something better for myself, something for my family. I have this voice in my head that I have to listen to or else it's going to bug at me the rest of my life. And I think Utah, historically, as you look back, has been those dreamers, those doers, those entrepreneurs and, thankfully, the principle of Deseret itself. We as a community have helped support a lot of those people. We as a community have helped support a lot of those people and we've created this community that does invite us to thrive and prosper and help one another when we're doing everything right. And I think that that's a great experience for you to have to understand how hard it is for those people Because, like you said, that Sidney said to you worst case scenario, you understand people better, you can empathize more, you understand how hard it is to grow a business, be in the boardroom with all of these CEOs and get an increased perspective, which only helps you then, but even more so helps you now, because we know how much of our economy relies on tech and tech growth and how much jobs that they give us.

Erik Nilsson: 32:28

And unfortunately, we've seen this bad correlation of lack of job growth in Salt Lake. And I think that there's definitely a path forward because, I mean, you have a 61 million reasons why people believe in our I mean tech community, tech environment and I mean Silicon Slopes quote unquote but we just have to be able to make it as easy well, not as easy as possible, but we need to be able to help people where we can make the most impact and help our citizens as well to be in a place where we can take those risks, because that's what's going to, at the end of everything. Help us all have Salt Lake be the place we want it to be.

Rachelle Morris: 33:04

Well, I truly believe that Salt Lake County can be the best metropolitan area in the western United States 10 years from now. That's exactly why I'm running for office. That's exactly why I co-founded and building RevRoad Capital. They're, you know, two different hats that I get to wear in our local community. But I just see so much opportunity for excellence in Salt Lake County and along the entire Wasatch Front and the state of Utah more broadly. But that's what just energizes me. And as I've been spending time around the entire county, I like to say no candidate in this race is going to outwork me, outfundraise me or know the six districts of Salt Lake County better than I do, and that's my commitment.

Rachelle Morris: 33:51

And there's little subcultures all around Salt Lake County. Oh my gosh, like being in Conwood Heights at that town hall last Thursday night was totally different than being at the community event in West Valley City the next night, friday night. Totally different vibe. And being in Magna, magna has its own vibe. Being in Harriman, riverton, bluffdale, you know, they kind of have their own subculture. Daybreak, you know, I love what Mayor Don Ramsey and the South Jordan City Council are doing in South Jordan and Daybreak and the development there. And then, of course Salt Lake City is Salt Lake City and just you know, I live right by the whale in 9th and 9th and it's so fun to be able to just walk over and get dinner.

Erik Nilsson: 34:44

Yeah, there's so many great like and the more that we can have of that. And I mean bring people to this great place, because I'm with you Like when I I've seen so much of this country and seen so much of the people and what has dictated a lot of that success and what people want to live around. Salt Lake checks so many of the boxes for what people are looking for and also just general trends. People want to live where they want to recreate. People live where they can have a quality of life, where they can be accessible not just to the rest of the country easily but the rest of the world easily and be able to have this I mean multicultural melting pot that supports everything.

Rachelle Morris: 35:21

But we also have the economy that can keep bringing people here and keep giving them jobs and can keep funding that growth and yeah, I see it as a nice blend between like major cities in Texas where I've lived is a nice blend between like major cities in Texas where I've lived Houston and Dallas and the mountains and kind of western vibes of of Denver right and I don't want Salt Lake County to be like Denver is today, 10 years from now.

Rachelle Morris: 35:49

I want Salt Lake County to be distinguished, distinguished, different, differentiated, where, when people still fly in here from the East Coast or the West Coast, you know, or anywhere around the world, into Salt Lake for the first time the Olympics being a great example of this where they go oh, this is Utah, and I think it's a great melting pot of startups and and youthfulness, and also the mountains and the recreational opportunities that we have.

Erik Nilsson: 36:24

Definitely so. I want to hear about that conversation you had when you told I mean the rest of your partners that you have this idea about running for county council. I bet that was a fun one, to say the least. But it's also you're not leaving them because it's a part-time position, so you don't have to say goodbye completely.

Rachelle Morris: 36:40

No, yeah, it's really, it's a six-year term. And, of course, because I'm a nerd and come from the private sector, I wanted to understand kind of what's the job description of a county council member, and particularly an at-large county council member, and then how does this job description and responsibilities potentially weave into the other things that I do in life or conflict, and sometimes a little bit of both. Right and so, yeah, I've been, you know, leaning into the community more and more since launching RevRoad Capital and, having been an executive at JP Morgan prior, you know, and building a business and building an office here, I did get involved in the community, in the Salt Lake and Lehigh and Silicon Slopes and Park City communities communities. But then, with raising RevRoad Capital Fund One and finishing that raise, I really felt like I could spend more time and energy in the community.

Rachelle Morris: 37:46

Because here's the dirty little secret that my fellow VCs don't always want the world to know is I don't have to be anywhere at 8am every single day of my life which I used to for 16 years of my life Like, okay, when does the market open? You better be there before market opens. You know, the stock market opens every day and work from the office and all the things, and so I had additional capacity to do community building things and so I've served on some nonprofit boards in the community and in November I got a phone call from a senior Republican woman in elected office in the state of Utah and she said, rochelle, I really think you should run for office. And I said, well, I mean, yeah, maybe 10 years from now. And she goes no, 10 weeks from now. We need you running for office, let's shorten that ad.

Rachelle Morris: 38:46

Why wait 10 years? You're awesome, you know the state needs you, the county needs you, our party needs you. And I looked at the seat and I looked at the race dynamics and I thought, and I just there was, it was over Thanksgiving week and I was with all my siblings and all my nieces and nephews and I just I couldn't shake it and I kind of kept it to myself. I mean, I called some key mentors immediately after she called me. I was hoping for five seconds that they would say no, no, no, no, but also would get that little thrill of exhilaration of like, oh, this person believes that I would be good at this and that I could win this race.

Rachelle Morris: 39:42

And with each phone call it wasn't a wet blanket, it was. Yeah, I actually think she's right, I think that's a good idea and I think you'd be great at it. And so over Thanksgiving just did a little bit of soul searching while I had some time off from work, and it was just this inner feeling of Rochelle, like you have the capacity, you have the skills, you have the energy to serve and do you have the guts to do it, and it was just one of those moments of like I'm the big sister in my family.

Rachelle Morris: 40:15

I'm always the person who's hyping up my siblings or my nieces and nephews when they need a little extra ounce of courage. And I just thought to myself Rochelle, if you don't throw your hat in the ring and try to serve your community in this way, you will always look back, wondering what if, will always look back, wondering what if. And it just sort of felt like right place, right time, right race, right moment, right opportunity to serve. A lot of people have asked why aren't you running for Congress or something else? And I'm like well, I actually love RevRoad Capital, I love what I get to do in my private sector role. So, first of all, it would have to be a part-time thing and secondly, for how unattractive the county council often sounds to people, they're like you're running for office County council.

Erik Nilsson: 41:10

County is the office is the office.

Rachelle Morris: 41:20

Okay, you know there's. I I've seen that facial expression on lots of people in my network and I and and the people who know what the county does, though they go oh, the county needs you, um, because it's it's a two billion dollar annual. The county has massive amounts of real estate.

Erik Nilsson: 41:36

Anybody throwing shade? It's like raise your hand if you've managed anything above $7 billion. No, no, that's what I thought, okay.

Rachelle Morris: 41:44

Yeah, well, and even you know, with my fund, like, we're managing a $61 million fund and this is, you know, a $2 billion annual budget and I've gotten to know most of the council, all of the Republicans, and I've met most of the Democrats on the council as well at this point and very talented, smart people, you know. I think that's the value of what a council form of government brings is lots of different perspectives to a group and you've got to get a majority, you know. So you have to convince four other people to vote alongside you if you want to bring a new idea or initiative to the table. And uh, and. But when you look at the resumes, there's no one who spent, you know, 18 years being a professional investor, and so I just, I know I'll add value on day one, and so I didn't really answer your question.

Rachelle Morris: 42:41

But yeah, when I went to my partners. So you know, all of my partners serve in major ecclesiastical ways in the community and I kind of made the argument of. You know, I'm a practicing Latter-day Saint woman, but the LDS church is never going to ask me to serve the community in a way in which the church is just calling you to serve by running for office. But I really I need to take these decades of experience of managing and working with some of the, you know, wealthiest families in America and wealthiest families in our state and and take that experience of knowing how to track money, understanding financial statements, understanding how to create structure around investment decisions and put that to work for the 1.2 million people in our county, where so many people remind me of my parents and the family and home that I grew up in, and they just want Salt Lake County to work. That's it. They just want it to work. They don't want to think about Salt Lake County, the entity no.

Rachelle Morris: 43:59

They just want to go to the rec center and the rec center is well-maintained in their community and it's affordable and there's fun things to do and the basketballs are inflated.

Erik Nilsson: 44:15

I kind of feel like it's the county should be kind of the background work in the lives of our community, where people don't even realize that we're doing really good work yeah, if you're doing the best job, no one knows you're doing your job, which is the the hardest like um inverse relationship to deal with, but at the same time, like it's kind of how it works. And so I kind of want to go back to that point about you were talking about like people don't know what is all in this like $2 billion budget, but outside of I mean things we've talked about like the golf courses and the rec centers. I mean what else is on on this budget that you're managing?

Rachelle Morris: 44:58

Yeah Well, and the rec centers. I mean, what else is on this budget that you're managing? Yeah well, I mean the health department, county health department, health and human services. So any restaurant you walk inside of in Salt Lake County you'll see a certificate up on the wall that's the health department. I think that makes sense that we have a health department at the county level versus the city or municipal level. I mean, could you imagine like Sandy has its own health department, conwood Heights, salt Lake City. You know Draper Mill Creek? No, like it makes sense that that's at the county level for efficiency. We have a county jail. So you know, it's not city jails. All over the county we have a county jail. I think it makes sense that it's centralized at the county level because the lowest level of government city, then county, then state, then federal and I think it's important for people to kind of think through.

Rachelle Morris: 45:46

You know I'm a proponent of local is often best, and so most of the roads that you drive on are city roads, that are local streets. You know, in your neighborhood, right, there are some county roads and unincorporated territory. Now I'm kind of nerding out, but so we maintain those roads. And then there's a unified police department Police Department. So communities like Kearns, magna, holiday, mill Creek are all serviced by the Unified Police Department. Yeah, and that's at the county level. They report into the county sheriff. We have county, we have elections, so the county clerk yes.

Rachelle Morris: 46:28

Yes County clerk, you know, and it's like, oh yeah, that's going to get property values.

Rachelle Morris: 46:35

That's done at the county level, right? So so your assessor, and then you pay property taxes up to the county level. When you look at your property tax bill every year, if you really actually look at it, you'll see, like I'm a Salt Lake City resident, so I have a Salt Lake City library fee on it because I pay Salt Lake City library fees instead of Salt Lake County library fees. But if I lived in South Jordan it would be a Salt Lake County library fee. So I mean, yeah, it gets complicated quickly, which is why people are like, oh, but county rec centers, county parks and trails centers, county parks and trails, the health department, our jail, the Unified Police Department libraries if I didn't say that.

Erik Nilsson: 47:25

So the things that we want to be working well without having to worry if they're working well. Yes, and I mean yeah because, like, if we don't manage things appropriately or have that like, I mean the word that you've come back to a couple of times is stewardship If we don't, aren't stewards of of it, then all of those things don't work anymore and we're getting sick.

Rachelle Morris: 47:38

We don't have trails to enjoy, our jails aren't can't hold enough like there's no, our county jail hasn't been invested in over the last several years and and so it is overrun and over and understaffed.

Rachelle Morris: 47:50

And as the county grows in population, you kind of you got to invest in the thing that no one wants to invest in, which is the jail, or otherwise you run into other public safety issues, exactly so, but that's the thing that no one really wants to talk about. Everyone wants to talk about fixing homelessness and then it's like, okay, but now we got to get into the mess of what are all the different factors that play into that. Yeah, how do you enforce the laws that are on the books? And how do you? Yeah, and then what are the specific laws and rules? And you know. But there's a lot of good people in the county and at the state level and even at the city level, salt lake city who have have really, over the last year, started to put a lot of muscle into understanding, um, homelessness, fentanyl, mental health, and how they kind of all weave together oh yeah, uh, yeah, and it's messy, it's, it's not.

Rachelle Morris: 48:51

There's not a one-size-fits-all solution there.

Erik Nilsson: 48:52

Yeah, and it's, uh, there's not a one size fits all solution there? Yeah, and it's. It's always an interesting topic because, like I mean, it came up when I was talking to Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez and she was talking about how, like we have a budget, like we we control where we spend money. We just need people with opinions to come, like bring them up, because sometimes we don't know unless people tell us. And so, in the same way, like we do have a lot of these problems that are, I mean, incredibly complicated and could never be on one person's shoulder to solve alone, but, at the same time, we have the resources in order to put it in the right place.

Erik Nilsson: 49:24

We just have to have the right people in the right room, which is why we need these people with the perspectives that they have and seeing what the future is, the future that we want, instead of just kind of I mean this curmudgeon attitude of like well, gravel, gravel, gravel, like can't do anything about it, we're not going to do anything, we're going to sit on our hands. It's the way we've done it forever Kind of like that old mentality, and I think it's nice to have fresh faces fighting for that and willing to. I mean work, I mean to be that role not only just do it, but then having to go through the campaign process, which is incredibly exhausting and, I mean, soul sucking, but at the same time it's also what motivates you, because you get to see all of these amazing people, see all these nuances and not and understand. It's not just like this county, it's like, oh well, there's so many pieces of it and it's this collective tribe together that we all want to have in harmony and take care of.

Rachelle Morris: 50:12

Yeah, well, I've been pleasantly surprised. 90% of the time I'm really enjoying campaigning.

Erik Nilsson: 50:21

Oh, that's awesome.

Rachelle Morris: 50:23

And with it comes, I've been doing well in all of the categories that matter of running a campaign fundraising, getting in front of you know, key elected officials and decision makers in the community, winning over the delegates, right. And so, of course, with that momentum then comes attacks. Right, and that is the crazy thing with running for office is the stories that folks can come up with about you without talking to you. It's like I'd be happy to have a five-minute conversation with you to explain how I happen to have a personal relationship with this human being or that human being, but no, it does not mean that there's, you know, this well thought out, well orchestrated master plan of getting specific people in specific elected seats to then run the county and run the state in a very specific way over the next 10 years is like no, y'all like that, is like straight up, not happening, I promise you.

Erik Nilsson: 51:34

I always love when there's these vast plans that require, like Mission Impossible-esque coordination and concoction and deviousness and if anyone's ever worked and no paper trails, and no paper trails and then it's like anybody who's worked at like large organization. You know that is not the case.

Rachelle Morris: 51:55

And anyone inside of a family knows you can't manage a family like that exactly so.

Erik Nilsson: 52:00

It's always funny to see these like let's call them conspiracies, let's call them like not very thought out hypotheses, whatever, but at the same time, like they can still bring it, like you'd be like, oh, let's talk about this and like, maybe, maybe you aren't being targeted by the cia. Have you thought about this? I mean to whatever extent it is, but at the same time it's nice to have someone who's again like willing to sit down for five minutes and say tell me about what you're, what's going on. You have very strong opinions of me. I would like to have an opinion of you, and now it kind of all makes sense.

Erik Nilsson: 52:30

And I mean whether that's the I mean crazy guy down on the street, or if it's just someone wondering how, if they're still going to have their afterschool program for their kid next year, because they don't know if it's going to be something that's going to be prioritized, and so whether it's valid to you, valid to whoever, it's still an issue to whoever has it, and I think that there's definitely listening power for all of us to learn from them, even if it's just to empathize and understand who Bob is on the corner. I think that's always something that I think. Going back to your point of like why doing this? It's we need someone who cares, we need someone who does want to have that stewardship and take that accountability on top of it, but-.

Rachelle Morris: 53:07

Well, and I am hoping that most voters will ultimately say I just want someone who's competent and collaborative and making that judgment call on their vote for that I mean, there'll be over 500,000 people who vote in this race in November.

Erik Nilsson: 53:27

It's a lot of people.

Rachelle Morris: 53:28

Yes, for a part-time role, you know, representing the county, and so it's an expensive race, you know. But but again, the county should kind of exist in the background of our lives. But they, but the county, does impact our lives, probably more than a US Senator or a US Congressperson representative impacts our daily lives, right.

Erik Nilsson: 53:53

What a lot of people forget is the importance of like the more boring and local politics are, the more impactful it is to you, and so I think it's one of those things where, yeah, I mean, if people actually paid attention, be like oh, this is something that gets provided to me by this, or this is how I interact with my community, it starts to put things together a lot more, because, yeah, it's easy to kind of like turn your nose, like, oh, it's just that seat or it's just this. Like no, no, no. These are the ones that often are going to impact your life more than whoever's sitting in DC.

Rachelle Morris: 54:25

Yeah, and so I take that seriously and that's how I try to present myself. So even when the TikTok and YouTube and videos get made about me and the Facebook posts you know, the temptation always is to punch back right or to jump into that rabbit hole to clarify and debate. And when the attacks are personal for the most part, there's just no point in giving it oxygen because most people will never hear that personal attack so they'll have no idea that someone even thinks that you know you're part of this master plan to I don't know anyways to do something crazy and highly disruptive to our lives.

Rachelle Morris: 55:07

Like, okay, so that's not rooted in reality. And also, over 500,000 people will be voting in this election and most likely, you know, only 500 people will hear about that thing. So just staying focused on the project and task at hand, which is getting into the community every day, experiencing the community, understanding the needs and issues that are top of mind for most voters and in Salt Lake County these days it's cost of living and housing and homelessness and public safety. Those are the things that keep getting brought up over and over again and so just staying focused on like, yeah, I should really understand those issues to the best of my capabilities and understand that this issue may look different for someone who lives in West Jordan than it does for someone who lives in a holiday.

Erik Nilsson: 56:05

Yeah, and so I'm curious. I mean it's so nice to because again, like I talked about going back to Ava, like people don't vote. People vote for you to be a representative of the people that you are serving. They don't vote for you because popularity contests, whatever you there's a little bit of that want. But I guess, from like a more perspective to voters, I mean, how do you see yourself playing a role in solving a lot of these issues or being this voice that people can get behind for these matters that matter most?

Rachelle Morris: 56:44

Yeah, when I look at the at-large seat, I will have the same constituents that the county mayor has, right, the county mayor is the executive branch, right Kind of the CEO of the county, and I view the county council kind of as like the investment committee slash board of directors, the legislative branch of the county. But being in the at-large seat, I have the same exact constituents as the county mayor does. But so from my perspective but I'm wearing a different hat, I'm wearing the legislative hat of being county council member. So I view my role sitting at the county level, so in between most of my voters and constituents and their city government and then the state government, and then leaping up above to the federal government. It's my responsibility to be a competent and collaborative advocate for all 1.2 million people in the county, and so that means I better have pick up the phone and be able to have phone calls with city leaders all over the county to understand what are the biggest issues happening in their local municipality, but then also pick up the phone and have a phone call conversation with state leaders and then also with our federal delegation. I should be well-connected with every single layer of government that represents my constituents, which is anyone who lives in Salt Lake County, and I need to be a vocal advocate for the county because a city mayor or a city council member is going to care about their local municipality, the state level, depending on if, if it's the legislature, they have their specific districts all over the state that they're primarily representing, uh, whether in the house or senate, and the governor, you know, and the lieutenant governor, they're looking over the entire state.

Rachelle Morris: 58:48

So who is an advocate for salt lake county? Well, I sure hope that the county mayor is a proactive advocate for the county throughout the year with all of these different levels of government. But we are the juggernaut county in the state. We have over one third of the state population, over half of the state's GDP happens in our valley. And yet when you look at our state leadership governor Not from Salt Lake County. Lieutenant governor not from Salt Lake County I mean, you know the governor now lives in the mansion down the street from the Capitol, but you know he's from Sampied and Deidre she not Salt Lake County. Speaker of the House, not Salt Lake County. Interesting House majority leader not Salt Lake County. House majority whip not Salt Lake County. You know, senate majority leader that Salt Lake County leadership is proactively advocating and building relationships and being competent and collaborative with state leaders, because it's not like any state leader wakes up and says what's the best thing for Salt Lake County today.

Rachelle Morris: 1:00:15

Yeah, no, because they represent other parts of the state, right, and so I really do view the at-large role as being kind of an effective advocate for our county, working alongside the county mayor's office and sometimes maybe, you know, being a check on the county mayor's office to get things done at the state level.

Rachelle Morris: 1:00:42

But I hope it's usually in a very collaborative way and, as you know, with any sort of negotiations and trying to get, you know, big deals done and big projects done, sometimes I'm the right person to go to that meeting, sometimes it might be the county mayor, sometimes it might be a district council member is ultimately the best person.

Rachelle Morris: 1:01:07

But let's actually think about Salt Lake County first, making sure Salt Lake County always has a seat at the table, so that then we're not surprised by infrastructure projects going to other parts of the state and not Salt Lake County, because the state leaders are the ones who make those decisions. And then, if a constituent ends up with a need that requires support from our federal delegation passport or you know I mean things come up right. Well, I have relationships with many of our federal delegation, right? And so if they're struggling with getting a response for some reason, because you know the federal office has gotten, you know that congressman's office has gotten several constituent requests in the last 24 hours like well, maybe I can be the squeaky wheel that can help if it's truly an urgent thing, and that's what I want to be.

Erik Nilsson: 1:02:00

Yeah, no, I mean and it's so funny because it's such a simple like concept, but at the same time it's the one that usually gets the most uh outcomes is being like yeah, hey, I'm the person who's going to be at your office every morning saying, hey, I need this thing done. So I'm here again at your office saying, can we get this thing done? Or even if it's, I mean having the right rapport with the right people. So if you need someone to pull up, like I mean, do a favor, you need the county mayor to do something, or you, I mean, realize you're not the right person, but you can get it. You know all the different situations that you can walk into, but being able to know these people personally and being able to have those connections is what's going to get things done. Because, again, you can be as theoretical and hypothetical and smart as you want to, but if you're not getting things done, it doesn't matter.

Rachelle Morris: 1:02:45

Yeah Well, and you have to show up to the meetings. I mean, we looked at two stadium deals that happened in the legislature this year and my understanding is that you know we didn't necessarily always have a county representative at the table, and so then these projects kind of get announced and Salt Lake County is getting surprised.

Rachelle Morris: 1:03:11

We're getting a stadium Reactive to it rather than being proactive to it. And I'm not here to point fingers at anyone. Salt Lake County is a massive county with so many things going on. I just want to bring my skills to the table and say, hey, I'm young enough, I'm still in my 30s, a six-year term. I can go up to the Capitol regularly for these meetings if no one else can, and I can show up and start building those types of relationships with billionaire franchise owners who want to figure out some sort of a deal and make sure that these things stay in Salt Lake County, that we don't lose them to other counties. Yeah, there has been.

Rachelle Morris: 1:04:01

I've, because people in Utah County are listening to this and like hey.

Erik Nilsson: 1:04:06

They can talk to their county commissioners.

Rachelle Morris: 1:04:08

They've got county commissioners.

Erik Nilsson: 1:04:10

Yes, I see I was paying attention. No, I think it's a good reminder for a lot of people that again, I mean the local, the things that we think don't matter really do matter the most, and especially as we have so many things coming up for our state that we, that we do like to your point, we do want to make it one of the best city in the West in the next 10 years. So then I almost like have it be this like um, Indiana Jones, like slide of hand, where instead of the Olympics in 2034 being like oh, it's in Salt Lake, Like that'll be fun, I guess, Instead of being like, well, how convenient that, like it's in this great place that everybody loves already you know, and so I'm excited for all of that.

Rachelle Morris: 1:04:46

With snow, we don't even have to make snow for this Olympics.

Erik Nilsson: 1:04:49

I know I'm sorry, china, but no, I'm totally with you. We just got to make sure we keeps a great salt lake so we can have some lake effect and and have that snow there, else it'll be a pretty boring um winter olympics. But also I mean safety, homelessness, cost of living. Uh, I mean these are the things that I hear from people day in, day out that that people are scared of, and I mean I think there's enough examples that we can look around I mean the world in the country, to say like yeah, like this could happen, and but if we don't have like I mean using an example of mine, like I mean in Seattle, like cost of living was so high, they had so, like every day I would check the news. Well, I wouldn't check the newspaper, but I'd see the news and it'd be like I'd pull out the newspaper breakfast table.

Erik Nilsson: 1:05:34

Yeah exactly that's. I have my yeah. I wish I was could be that person, but I could never be that person.

Rachelle Morris: 1:05:39

I don't think anyone in our generation can really be that person.

Erik Nilsson: 1:05:42

I think that yeah, but it would be like oh, it was like the mayor just got caught in this scam so he just stepped down and then the police deployed. It was just these people like we just need. To your point, the thing we need most is confident people who can get things done, and if that happens then a lot of good things will happen. But if it doesn't, then we're not going to see the same results that we want to. So I think, rochelle, I'm excited to see how the campaign goes. I'm excited to be one of those 500,000 voters in this race and all of these important races coming up Before we go. I want to talk.

Rachelle Morris: 1:06:19

Sorry, up Before we go, I want to talk sorry, well, and I want folks from other cities around the Western United States to be hearing about what's happening in Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City over the next several years and go, hey, we need to go visit and see what's going on there, because it seems like whatever they're doing, it's working.

Rachelle Morris: 1:06:40

Um, you know that, and and this is something that comes up a lot is is people want to feel like their parks are safe, that they can take their families to the park, and and uh, and you know, and then, but also uh, our chronically homeless neighbors are.

Rachelle Morris: 1:06:56

We have stewardship responsibilities at the county level to take care of our friends who are often dealing with mental health crises, some sort of a break psychologically, and who often have issues with drugs, and so what do we do to make sure that we treat everyone in our county with dignity but also enforce the rules and laws that are on our books, so that then families want to raise their children in our county over the next decade, like it is so vital that this is a place where people want to raise children, or otherwise, salt Lake won't be the best metropolitan you know area in the Western United States when the Olympics come.

Rachelle Morris: 1:07:50

I mean, I think it will still be an okay place, right, but I want this to be a place where families thrive and where you know maybe you don't live in the biggest house, maybe you could have, maybe you could live in a bigger home in another county, but you've got. You know, the library is a couple miles away, you've got a park and trail system. That's fun, that's accessible, that's clean, that's safe, uh, and then you have these major league sports franchises in our county. Yeah, and not large, not long commutes doesn't that sound great?

Erik Nilsson: 1:08:23

I am. That is part of all of the reasons why I love living in salt lake and like I mean I was similar when I, before I, bought my house, I was like, okay, we could go north, we could go south, but like I will openly and honestly say like I am, I'm not a utah, I'm a salt lake citizen. And so I was like I will take that honestly, say like I am, I'm not a Utah and I'm a Salt Lake citizen. And so I was like I will take that smaller place because I do like everything that it has to offer. I do love all the excitement that's happening here and I'm excited for the future and it's so fun.

Erik Nilsson: 1:08:50

And in talking to people, I love like that's one of my favorite conversations to have with people is like friends who have friends visit and like I would see people I mean edison house that I'll see friends there and they'll have guests and they'll be like I didn't know this place was like so cool, I didn't know they're like all the outdoors was so close and like park city's right there and skiing's right here, the airport's right here and there's moab and saint george and like I'm like yeah, yep, yeah yeah, and then when they find the uintas in july, oh game over oh, I mean, that's what I was talking to, um, uh, kendall rodriguez about, because she I mean it's the director of operations for the women's basketball team at the?

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:26

u and she's like it was so hard to get these girls to come and just do a visit because, like, oh, you have like stanford and ucla and usc and you like all these other schools was like, oh, you want to come to our like major metropolitan city that we don't really have to sell.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:40

But then they'd come here and she's like, as long as we could get them on a tour, they would get it and we would all of a sudden have a ton of momentum in their decision of where they wanted to go. And so I think it's an extremely great point that we need to get this recognition, get people out here, get stigmas out of people's heads, and the only way we do it is if we we take care of like the little things. It's like a good basketball team. A good basketball team always goes down to the fundamentals. And so, even as we think about, oh, these grandiose ideas of nhl mlb, well, like whatever the next um idea that we could have we still have to take care of these fundamentals and make sure that our entire infrastructure and the way that we're planning for it, holds it as well yeah, yeah, that we actually get the water tanks out to West Jordan that are needed so that then they can build the neighborhoods that they have planned out.

Rachelle Morris: 1:10:26

But, like, you've got to get that money earmarked from the state to get the water tanks built so that then you can actually build neighborhoods and build more houses. And yeah, and that's where it comes back to like the boring work. But the but the boring work is what is excites me.

Erik Nilsson: 1:10:44

Yeah, um, I'm with you, like I love the idea of being like oh, again people like, oh, our cost of living, like, okay, then we probably need more houses. We can put houses over here, but they're gonna need sewage, they're gonna need to get zoned, they're gonna need to get value. They're getting like there's just this laundry list that people I people don't know because they don't have to go through it, but somebody has to do this, somebody has to make sure this is all happening. Somebody has to pay attention to how much this is all costing. And I think you're a great candidate for the job and I'm excited for this race coming up. Well, thank you, yes, and look getting elected to the seat.

Rachelle Morris: 1:11:19

I recognize a six year term. I and I've been telling folks that folks this on the campaign trail. That structure to me informs human behavior inside of the structure, so how companies are organized, you know, and reporting lines and and and things like that. And a six year term. So the county mayor's race is also going on this year, so everyone is going to vote for you know the. The incumbent is is Jenny Wilson and the Republican challenger is Aaron Ryder. Um, both are really sharp, competent women.

Rachelle Morris: 1:11:57

Um and I've I've gotten to know Erin well over the last few months and that is going to be an interesting race to watch.

Rachelle Morris: 1:12:05

But the county mayor is a four-year term and I'm a six-year term and the district seats are four-year terms.

Rachelle Morris: 1:12:12

So to me, this informs me that, should I get elected, I should be taking the most risks as a county council member in the first two years of service, because I have the longest tail to getting reelected.

Rachelle Morris: 1:12:35

We do something different.

Rachelle Morris: 1:12:38

Are we willing to try something different and it's my name that's on it instead of someone who only has a four-year term trying to lead out on it, and by the time it gets done, it's really two years from re-election and if it turns out that it's not going well in those first 18 months, they could lose their job, whereas for me, I come boldly out of the gate and say, hey, like I think maybe we should restructure some things over here between the mayor's office and the council's office and just see what that does um in organizationally for the County and uh, and if it works great, oh my gosh, well, great, then then I have, you know, a couple more years of, of, of, of implementing tweaks around this major, you know, um innovation, as I like to call it, um to, to, to some of the ideas that I have, and if it's not working, I have time personally to try to pivot and come up with a new way before my term is up.

Rachelle Morris: 1:13:46

And so, anyways, and just you know, anyone who's listening to this podcast and leading teams or departments inside of any company, inside of any organization you know, really think through how reporting lines are structured, how teams are organized, how big the teams are, how big committees and councils are, and because structure so often informs human behavior, oh, totally, and yeah, it's like it's those things a lot of people don't think about, but they're drastically important and being set up in a way right now that are going to impact us for so much longer.

Rachelle Morris: 1:14:22

Just thank you so much for having me on tonight. Thank you.

Erik Nilsson: 1:14:25

No, I'm excited. It's been fun to see Chase here because I'll see him a lot now that he's a member, and I love Chase.

Rachelle Morris: 1:14:32

He's such a good guy, chase is a great guy and Edison House is awesome and so cool.

Erik Nilsson: 1:14:39

It's been a fun spot.

Rachelle Morris: 1:14:42

I feel like so much has happened even since I launched my campaign a few months ago and, if people want to find me, I'm just under 500 followers on Instagram.

Erik Nilsson: 1:14:54

Let's get it up to 500.

Rachelle Morris: 1:14:56

Yes, so RochelleMorrisUT is my Instagram handle. I'm on Twitter, rochelle underscore Morris, and then my website is VoteRochelleMorriscom. So there, check the box, team Rochelle. I did what I was supposed to do and plug my contact information for the campaign and look if anyone wants to get involved with the campaign. Obviously we would welcome that. You can DM me on any of those channels and we'd be happy to get you involved. And one of my favorite things on the campaign that I've been doing is trying restaurants all over the county.

Erik Nilsson: 1:15:33

I have been taking notes because if I ever find myself in all of these places, I'm like, all right, I got a spot in case I need to go here. Here's this great taco truck that Rochelle talked about. Here's this. Yeah, I've been paying note to those more than anything.

Rachelle Morris: 1:15:45

Oh yeah, no, there are great tacos in West Jordan and West Valley City and there's a really like lovely bakery on the main street of Magna called Beard Halls. And then, Sandy, there's a spot I can't think of its name right now that was just so delicious and like clearly a neighborhood spot. I have a highlight on my Instagram page, so the food content is stored and saved.

Rachelle Morris: 1:16:13

I you know we mostly talk county issues tonight, but I know most people following my Instagram account are not necessarily interested in me taking a picture in front of every single county library every day but food.

Erik Nilsson: 1:16:25

Food yeah, we can all get behind that.

Rachelle Morris: 1:16:26

We can talk about food around the county all day, every day.

Erik Nilsson: 1:16:29

That's a conversation I can always have. And then last question I have for you if you could have someone on the Small Lake City podcast and hear their story, who would you want to hear from Lake City podcast and hear their story?

Rachelle Morris: 1:16:40

who would you want to hear from? Ooh, that is a really good question. Okay, anyone. Have you had Victoria Petro on yet?

Erik Nilsson: 1:16:48

No.

Rachelle Morris: 1:16:49

Oh well, Victoria is on the Salt Lake City Council. She represents Westside of Salt Lake, Cool of Salt Lake, and she is someone who I feel like you know she has a different political and policy perspective often than I do, but is very competent and collaborative and was very involved with the NHL deal and, anyways, I think she could give some like really great insights into the part of Salt Lake City that she represents and what it's like being on the council.

Erik Nilsson: 1:17:25

So, yeah, I mean that's honestly I need to, because I mean so much of like me in my life is like not necessarily in West Valley and so like I've always Well, she's Salt Lake City. Oh, ok, sorry yes.

Rachelle Morris: 1:17:35

Yes.

Erik Nilsson: 1:17:36

Yes.

Rachelle Morris: 1:17:37

Yeah Well, I mean, if you're willing to branch out into the county, then we can talk about. Republicans as well, I mean. So Matt Holton, I think would be a very interesting interview as well. He lives in Conwood Heights, he serves on Conwood City Council, he worked for Senator Mike Lee for many years and now is a political consultant running Representative Celeste Malloy's campaign. So that was quite interesting because Mike Lee endorsed her opponent.

Erik Nilsson: 1:18:06

Interesting Going into convention House divided.

Rachelle Morris: 1:18:08

Yes, and Matt serves at local government. Conwood Heights is, you know, a cool part of the county. I mean you walk into that city town hall and it felt like you walked into a Patagonia plus Cotopaxi like catalog, you know. And anyways, I think Matt would have really great stories to tell, and so would Victoria. So there you go.

Erik Nilsson: 1:18:29

I gave you a Republican and I gave you a Democrat. There we go. Yes, no, that sounds like a great idea. Well, thank you so much, rochelle. So great to sit down with you and hear more about what