Fifteen-year-old mother. Onion field worker. Undercover narcotics officer. Sheriff of a million people.
And if her past is a tapestry, her present is a mosaic. The county sheriff oversees an amalgam of law enforcement in the Unified Police Department, the Salt Lake County Jail staff and the bailiff/security force for county courts and facilities.
Rivera has managed those pieces artfully in her first year of office, and she earns our endorsement for a four-year term.
Both the sheriff and her opponent, Lt. Justin Hoyal, who is also one of her employees, are pushing hard for more jail beds, noting that the county hasn’t built a new jail bed in almost two decades.