By Taylor Stevens ·
During her six years on the Murray City Council, Diane Turner has gotten used to being the only woman in the room making decisions that affect the day-to-day lives of the municipality’s nearly 50,000 residents.
But that time is soon coming to an end, after Murray voters elected their first female-majority City Council this month in an election that brought historic wins for women across the Wasatch Front.
“I still can’t believe it," Turner said. “I think when you have more women, it changes everything.”
Utah has historically had lower-than-average female representation at all levels of politics. But advocates say it’s important to elect women to public office because they tend to reach across the aisle, compromise more and come up with different solutions than an all-male body would, thanks in part to their different life experiences.
“I’m really excited to see what is to come of it,” Murray City Councilwoman-elect Rosalba Dominguez said of the new council makeup. “I think people were just ready for change — especially in Murray, [which] historically has had men run the city.”
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