About this position
The Davis County Commission is a 3-member body that represents all of Davis County—with nearly 380,000 residents. The county commission makes administrative, legislative, and executive decisions for Davis County, working closely with local and state leaders.
County commissioners oversee many county departments. They work with local clerks, auditors, and sheriffs, and help manage natural resources and infrastructure on county land. They also create legislation for the county. Their budget comes from property taxes.
You can see the specific assignments of each of the three current commissioners here.
Candidates
Lorene Kamalu
About: Born in SLC, raised in Indiana. Thirty year resident of Davis County. Business entrepreneur for twenty years, earned an MPA in 2018. Served on Kaysville Planning Commission for four years and as Davis County Commissioner since 2019.
Top priorities (from website): transparent government, informed constituents, citizen engagement, emergency preparedness, community health & safety, Great Salt Lake, fiscal responsibility, economic development & small businesses, collaborative county leadership, transportation & infrastructure, strong local partnership. Her tagline is “Empowering the People.”
Insights: We are very impressed with Ms. Kamalu. From both personal interactions and watching her work on the commission, we find she’s smart, ethical, committed, and hard-working. In pursuit of more transparency, Ms. Kamalu worked to get commission meetings streamed and recorded, in addition to launching a monthly digital newsletter sharing updates from the county.
As a new commissioner, Ms. Kamalu created the Davis County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) to bring together various stakeholders related to the criminal justice system. It was so effective that the state legislature eventually mandated that every county have such a council.
Visit her website to see many other accomplishments, and learn more about Ms. Kamalu in this Ogden Standard-Examiner article.
Susan Lee
About: Davis County resident for over 55 years. Degree in accounting. Served on the Kaysville City Council; helped organize and serve on the Kaysville Power Commission for three years. Also served as president of Davis County GOP’s Lincoln Club, in addition to serving in other local GOP party leadership positions.
Top priorities (from website): Leading tagline: Fighting for taxpayers. Strengthening our communities. Protecting conservative principles. Also: protecting taxpayers & fiscal responsibility, infrastructure & smart growth, public safety, transparency & accountability, strengthening education partnerships
Insights: Ms. Lee wants to cut spending and is very much opposed to the tax rate increase the commission approved last year. We worry that enacting her ideology rather than looking at county needs may negatively impact Davis County.
She’s been endorsed by ultraconservative candidates such as Karianne Lisonbee. At the Davis County “Lincoln Day dinner” she organized last year, they awarded their “Legislator of the Year” award to state representative Trevor Lee—her son. Mr. Lee’s years in office have been controversial because of his culture war bills, divisive rhetoric, and revelations of a potential abuse of power. Read more about Mr. Trevor Lee. Learn more about Ms. Lee in this Ogden Standard-Examiner article.
Our recommendation
We strongly support Lorene Kamalu as the Republican candidate in this race. She has a proven track record as a public servant and is more closely aligned with moderate, reasonable voices within the GOP.
We believe this race is critical for good governance in Davis County. Current commissioner Bob Stevenson is leaving to run against Trevor in House District 16. The commissioner not up for re-election this year, John Crofts, has been the subject of a months-long investigation for his behavior in office, including dozens of allegations of his making it a toxic work environment for county staff.
If Ms. Kamalu loses her re-election bid, that leaves Mr. Crofts—who has only served since 2025—as the lone continuing commissioner. Losing experience and competent, principled leadership would be a deeply unfortunate outcome for Davis county.
Clearing up misconceptions
We see Ms. Kamalu taking serious hits based on misconceptions in this race. Let’s clear those up.
Most significantly in the eyes of many voters, last year Ms. Kamalu voted for a 15% increase on the county’s portion of the property tax revenue, which costs the owner of a $600,000 home an extra ~$50 each year. The county hadn’t raised taxes since 2017, despite 32% inflation since then.
Let’s talk property tax
Utahns should be aware that property taxes are revenue-neutral—as your home’s value goes up, the rate comes down (watch the simplest explainer we’ve found). Utah’s property taxes do not account for inflation. Some mistakenly think that because their assessed values increase, their county, city or school board gets that additional money. They don’t.
We note that many counties, cities, and school board across the state have pursued tax increases in recent years (and this year) to keep needed services amidst rising inflation. Sometimes tax increases are necessary to attract and retain great employees, adequately staff the jail—right now staff work mandatory overtime—run secure elections, and more.
Additionally, counties must pay for unfunded mandates from the state. Our legislators often boast that they’ve cut taxes year-after-year. In our experience, these cuts simply force other entities to either raise taxes or scramble to cut services or reapportion existing funds.
Ultimately, Davis County commissioners were able to defer tax increases because of one-time COVID-era funds before approving the tax increase last year.
Earmarked funds
Ms. Kamalu supported investing money to develop the old fairgrounds into the Western Sports Park. Some seem to think this was done with the county’s general operating fund. The sports park was actually built with tourism revenue ineligible to be spent on general county expenses (in essence, this money couldn’t have deferred a tax increase longer).
Of note, the Western Sports Park is an investment that’s already generating far more tourism revenue in the county than was put into it. That’s fiscally responsible in our eyes.
What’s next?
There is no challenger from a non-Republican for this seat. As such, the winner of the Republican Primary will be the next Davis County Commissioner.
In the August 28 episode of the podcast, Take 2 with Heidi Hatch, Adam Gardiner mentioned that former Davis County Commissioner, Brett Millburn, is running unaffiliated for Davis County commission Seat B. I’d like to read a comparison of Brett Millburn and Susan Lee.