Meet the candidate: Erin Rider, running for Salt Lake County Mayor

As Election Day nears, KSL NewsRadio is interviewing candidates to get their stance on today’s issues. Keep an eye on our election coverage as we continue to speak to the 2024 General Election candidates.

SALT LAKE CITY — Erin Rider is running for Salt Lake County Mayor on the Republican ticket. 

Rider graduated from Brigham Young University and received her law degree from Georgetown University. According to her website, Rider was a law clerk on the Senate Finance Committee under Senator Orrin Hatch.  She has worked on several community boards as well as the My Hometown Initiative in West Valley City. She said she currently “supports companies as they expand and manage investment capital.”

Rider spoke with KSL at Night Hosts Greg Skordas and Adam Gardiner on Oct. 11, 2024. An abbreviated transcript and the entire podcast are found below.

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This interview has been modified for brevity and clarity.

HOST GREG SKORDAS: Erin, tell us who you are. Let’s introduce you to our listeners.

GUEST ERIN RIDER: I have basically spent most of my life here in Salt Lake County. I’m an attorney by profession. I do a lot of corporate law … got my business degree at BYU, and then worked for a healthcare startup in South Jordan before getting my JD MBA degrees from Georgetown University. I came back to Salt Lake in early 2019, I’ve been working for a law firm here in town, and, you know, been active in the community and now helping to make some changes in Salt Lake County.

SKORDAS: You decided you wanted to take on politics?

RIDER: Sometimes you feel compelled to do something. Part of the reason I came back, as much fun as it was to be on the east coast, I decided pretty quickly that I didn’t want to stay there. … Seeing the changes in [Salt Lake County] from the time I’d been away and had come back, it reminded me of some of the reasons I decided not to stay on the east coast. Issues like housing affordability and homelessness and crime and resource access. … And sometimes the only way you change the direction of the ship is to change out the captain.

Will Erin Rider ‘write off’ Salt Lake City?

HOST ADAM GARDINER: A lot of Republicans, especially countywide, just kind of write off Salt Lake City as like ‘we’re not gonna make any inroads.’ I feel like you’re not writing off Salt Lake City.

RIDER: Every corner of the county matters here. And we need Republicans to show up in the county … [The] entire county needs to know that they have more than just a second Salt Lake City Mayor. 

If you’re in Salt Lake City this year, you are getting hammered. You’ve got the sales tax increase for the downtown revitalization project. [There’s] a $300 million bond from Salt Lake City School District on the ballot. You’ve got the county’s $500 million bond on the ballot. Then on top of that, you’ve got housing issues, you’ve got property tax notices that are coming out here right around this time. You’ve got homelessness, and then you’ve got Abravenel Hall on top of that.  

SKORDAS: Talk to us about that bond, and is your position different than the incumbent’s position?

RIDER: I think the bond is very tone-deaf at a time when people are worried about losing their homes because of their property tax bill. The county now wants to put $500 million on the ballot in additional property tax increases. Plus interest. Then on top of that, my opponent has disclosed that this is likely not the end of the tax increases. Because the bond only covers the infrastructure of the buildings themselves. Tearing the building down, rebuilding a new building. It does not cover the operational costs.

Please listen to the podcast below for the entire interview.

 

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