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Shireen Ghorbani will run for the open SL County Council seat

Posted at 9:36 AM, Jan 30, 2019
and last updated 2019-01-30 11:36:23-05

SALT LAKE CITY — “A lot can change in just a few days,” Shireen Ghorbani said in announcing her run for the now open Salt Lake County Council seat.

Ghorbani, a wildly popular Democratic candidate who ran for both the 2nd Congressional District and Salt Lake County Mayor, threw her hat into the ring for the race on Wednesday.

The announcement came days after she told FOX 13 she wasn’t interested in running for the seat. Jenny Wilson defeated Ghorbani in the special election for county mayor held by the Salt Lake County Democratic Party on Saturday.

“Maybe I’ll just be a public Democrat out there fighting for the issues I care about,” Ghorbani said at the time.

In her statement on Wednesday, Ghorbani said things had changed with her job and her supporters.

“I said from the beginning of my campaign for Salt Lake County Mayor that I couldn’t run for the county council if a seat opened up. I didn’t feel I could give the kind of time and attention required to be an effective part-time councilperson and maintain a demanding full-time job,” Ghorbani wrote.

“Yesterday I was able to sit down with my employer and come up with a plan to reduce my hours at work, allowing me to run for the open at-large seat on the council.

The messages of support from so many of you and a deep commitment to serve my community made the decision to keep going easy. I’m not ready to stop working to find solutions on affordable housing, improving our air quality, prioritizing addiction treatment and mental healthcare services and protecting our open spaces and canyons.”

The Salt Lake County Democratic Party will pick a replacement for Wilson’s now vacated seat within 30 days.