Cache Chamber Leadership Luncheon

text of my short introduction at candidate meet and greet on September 17:

Thanks for coming and thanks to Cache Chamber and Utah Global Diplomacy. I’m Nancy Huntly, candidate for Utah Senate District 2.

I come from a small town in Michigan but have lived mostly in the West since 1977. I have two children, two grandchildren, and one husband of 45 years. I’m a teacher and a scientist - an ecologist. I value professional, public, and community service. I have lots of leadership experience - I’ve been a city council member, officer of a large professional society, and chair of the Independent Science Advisory Board of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. I’ve led an interdisciplinary Center and several education programs. I have 30 years of experience working together to find acceptable solutions to complicated problems.

As a scientist, I work in a culture of wide and open sharing of information and ideas. Scientists have an ethic of healthy debate – of disagreeing well. We often say, “Is that right?”, “I think that's wrong”, “Show me the evidence”,  and “I don’t know”, “I was wrong”. We work together with goal of  understanding something as well as we can.

I was motivated to run for office by concern about our current political dysfunction and by the too-limited connections between people and elected officials. My campaign is about Balance, Community, and Working Together.

I would bring better balance to the Utah legislature, through my skills and perspectives as a scientist and a teacher. I would aim to include all perspectives and relevant information, and to have better-informed, more comprehensive policy and better governance.

I would focus on our communities, with aim to support strong healthy communities and get things done for Utahns. I would not run nationally derived bills on culture war issues. The rhetoric surrounding those bills is divisive and destructive of community; those bills do not address Utah problems.

I’m particularly concerned now about public education and respect for our fundamental rights and freedoms. The proposed constitutional Amendments A and D threaten those. Other pressing issues for us are housing, living wages, water, air quality, open space, childcare, and support and services for children and people with disabilities. I think our government should represent and work for ALL of us. I commit to listen, learn, meet with you, and make it as easy as I can for all to participate in our government.