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FeedRalph Becker
Hi! My name is Ralph
Ralph’s résumé[ ] A D.C. native, Becker first came West in the early 1970s, when he spent several summers as a park ranger at the Grand Canyon, fighting fires and cleaning toilets. |
Salt Lake City’s new mayor, Ralph Becker, runs rivers, skis in the backcountry and hikes deep into the wilderness. He has even taken multi-week backpacking trips. By himself.
But in all his years in the West’s deserts, mountains and rivers, Becker can’t think of a single moment when he was truly scared. Or when anything went really wrong.
“I’m very comfortable outdoors,” Becker says. “There are risks, but you learn how to live with them.”
The 55-year-old, who began a four-year term in January, will need to keep maintaining his composure in hostile environments. Despite the odds against him—he’s a Democrat with an ambitious agenda in the midst of a Republican sea—he’s optimistic that his progressive vision can win out.
The new mayor plans to build on the work of his controversial predecessor, Rocky Anderson, and transform Salt Lake into a “great American city,” marked by bold environmentalism, superior schools and thriving neighborhoods. To get there, the wiry planner and lawyer will call upon the skills that garnered him a reputation as a coalition-builder while a state legislator. He pledges to be a nicer version of the fiery Anderson, looking to sit down with his political enemies and find common ground.
And therein lies the ultimate question about Ralph Becker: Is he too nice for the job? Too accommodating? Does this soft-spoken environmentalist have the intensity required to demand results, twist arms and push through an agenda?
“People who confuse my manner with my drive miss a big part of me,” he said last December, just a few weeks before taking office. “I will do everything I can to be successful.”
Becker’s supporters like his politics, but they are also drawn to the man.
Rachel Otto, a third-year University of Utah law student, met each candidate while organizing a mayoral candidate forum last year. After just a few conversations, she decided not only would she vote for Becker, she would volunteer for him.
“I never felt like he had somebody more important to talk to,” she says. “The others felt like politicians. Not Ralph.”
At first, Becker’s candidacy seemed like a long shot. He was in third or fourth place in the polls, and many voters had no idea who he was.
Arturo Gamonal, a retired federal worker and a friend of Becker, recalls the reaction he got when he drove around Salt Lake last summer with the candidate’s signs plastered on his van.
“Some confusion,” he says. “Some thumbs up. And some gave the finger.”
A relentless door-to-door effort defined Becker’s campaign. The candidate and his volunteer squad walked every street in the city at least twice. By November, his support had built to the point where he trounced his remaining rival, city council member Dave Buhler, 64 percent to 36 percent.
The new mayor’s biggest challenges are the limits on his power: Salt Lake City has a population of just 187,000 in a region of 1.5 million people. Salt Lake is just the 113th biggest city in the U.S. It’s smaller than Garland or Oxnard. Find those on a map.
A leader like Becker, with aspirations for regional transformation, has to find allies in neighboring cities, from Bountiful to Murray and beyond. And then there’s the state legislature, a Republican stronghold that keeps a tight grip on much of the power—and money—in the state.
Becker knows all of this, but he’s optimistic about what he can get done, even when it comes to the big problems. The valley’s dirty air. Its underfunded schools. A downtown that withers at night.
He believes that, by example, Salt Lake—the capital, the business center, the home to the region’s most significant institutions—can inspire the rest of the state. It can build better paths for bikers. It can embrace trains and trolleys. It can support gay and lesbian families. It can encourage at-risk high school students to enroll in local colleges.
“Salt Lake can show the way,” he says repeatedly.
He’s even determined to find allies in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While both the mayor’s office and the Mormon church are officially nonpartisan, the church has long been viewed as staunchly conservative and Republican, while the capital’s chief executive has been a left-leaning Democrat for the past three decades. Becker finds hope in Mormon history that the city and church can have a mutually beneficial partnership, noting that the valley’s earliest settlers prospered by embracing a sustainable lifestyle. Becker believes that this collective self-sufficiency is just as possible in modern Salt Lake City.
“If the church made a strong statement in favor of sustainability and fighting climate change, there would be no more powerful force in this state,” Becker says. And he adds that he’s been urging church leaders to do just that, referring to meetings he’s had “at the highest levels” with Mormon leaders.
Becker’s son, Will, has no doubt his father will prove tough enough to succeed as mayor. The 25-year-old Salt Lake resident and computer specialist, and the younger of the divorced mayor’s two sons, says he’s seen plenty of determination in his father over the years.
“He’s definitely a nice guy,” Will Becker says. “But there’s an intense vibe to him. Growing up, my friends would say, ‘Your dad intimidates me,’” he remembers, laughing.
“When he needs to be tough, he is.”
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