Zachary Johnson, Candidate for City Council
https://www.votezachjohnson.com
In 2021, WCIA found that fewer than 35% of minorities felt their perspectives were valued in Wyoming. If you were elected to City Council, what would you do to ensure all residents feel their perspectives are valued?
It is important to me that all residents feel their perspectives are valued equally and that is why I want to hear from every resident. Don’t be shy! I look forward to attending future WCIA Community Conversations to hear resident perspectives and to learn more about what contributes to the 35% figure noted in the question. For those who are not able to attend WCIA Community Conversations I can be reached by email at zach@votezachjohnson.com.
Only one third of survey respondents of all backgrounds feel that all residents are treated equally in Wyoming. If elected to City Council what would you do to ensure Wyoming is a community where all residents are respected and treated equally?
The reason I am running for City Council is, in part, to lead by example—to set a good example for my children and to demonstrate what can happen when people of good will work for the benefit of all people in the community. City Council does not have the power to force people to be neighborly but we can pursue an agenda that does not unfairly (dis)advantage one group over another, and we can do something that seems to have recently fallen out of fashion at the state and national level: we can work together.
What will be your top focus on City Council and how have your background, experience and skills prepared you to create change in your focus area?
My top priority is more community engagement, leading to a more vibrant Wyoming.
As a young person I would never have imagined myself working in customer-facing roles, but in aggregate I have done so for more than a decade and I would strongly encourage everyone to spend some time in front of customers. One of the many benefits of this experience is that it equips me with skills I think are extremely helpful to any elected official: I have a heart for customers (constituents), I understand that trust is easy to lose but hard to win, I know the damage done by unkept promises and unmet expectations, and I know the value people find in somebody who can simplify complex topics and anticipate problems.
One factor that leads to segregation in housing and schooling (racial and/or economic) is zoning decisions, for example, restrictions on multi-family zoning. What are your thoughts about our current zoning map (which limits rental properties, commercial spaces and mixed-use configurations), and the feasibility of welcoming a more economically diverse population to our city?
I agree 100% that single-family zoning presents an economic barrier to entry for any community and that this causes a cascade of consequences, but it is also true that re-zoning is not a straightforward endeavor; more residents require more classrooms, more police officers and firefighters, more water and sewer capacity, etc.. I am not opposed to permitting the creation of additional multi-family housing. That said, it would be a disservice to current and future Wyoming residents if City Council did this without a comprehensive solution that takes all these other things into account and, by extension, residents should expect any zoning changes would be slow to arrive.
Do you think that Wyoming has made strides toward making our community a more welcoming place for diverse peoples? What concerns are most pressing?
My family moved to Wyoming in 2022 and so my ability to assess progress is limited. What I will say is that we are all human and deserving of respect, kindness, compassion and understanding. I believe everyone will throughout their lives have at least minor experiences of feeling unwelcome, and this enables all of us to have empathy for those experiencing something much worse: financial hardship, shame, questioning their self-worth and the guilt of having burdened children/spouses with the same feelings.
As a member of City Council I believe my role is to listen and represent the community—not to insist that I know best what is wrong or how to fix it—and so I am grateful for any opportunity to hear about problems and solutions.
Are you open to building relationships with our surrounding communities? If so, how would you go about doing this? What experience do you have doing this?
Wyoming’s current 10-year plan mentions “Adjacent Jurisdictional Cooperation” and cites as examples things like municipal services partnerships and mutually beneficial projects. Those who know me know that words like “reasonable,” “efficiency” and “logical” are music to my ears, and those who do not yet know me can trust that they have in me an ally in the pursuit of good ideas. We should take seriously any opportunity to make 1+1=3.
Professionally I’ve found myself throughout my career having to make progress without any titular authority to force outcomes, and one of the muscles this has forced me to develop is finding ways to cooperate so that everyone wins. Nobody wins when good ideas don’t become reality.
Do you think the City Strategic Plan is on track? What would you do to help advance it? Is there anything you would modify?
I think it’s fair to say that some parts of the plan were implemented and other parts of the plan were not, and it would be my preference that the City’s next 10-year plan should be less theoretical and more concrete—instead of saying what we could do it should say what we will do. While it certainly is good to have dreams, and while America didn’t land people on the moon by dreaming small, I wonder if the 2018 10-year plan fell victim to its own breadth. City of Wyoming employees are fabulous but I can see how it would be difficult for a current staff of 4 people in the Community Development Department to deliver all the changes called for in the 143-page plan.
What do you think is missing from the current City Council composition to meet the needs of the community?
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all other forms that have been tried. The 2025 election will, like those before it and those after it, produce an imperfect result. There will be those who struggle to see themselves in their elected representatives, and there will be those who find fault with the process and decisions of Council during the upcoming 2-year term. It is easy to say Council members need this trait or that trait but I believe every candidate is qualified in their own way and that any Council composition can produce good results if they have: good intentions, willingness to compromise, ability to be persuaded and desire to listen.