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From photojournalist to public servant: Bruin alum Jesse Valdez aims for mayoral seat
10-21-2025 By Pearl Ashton
'I think we deserve to start telling our own narrative rather than let others do it for us.'
Speakers at censorship ‘teach in’ at Weber State encounter rain outside, restrictions indoors
10-04-2025 By Alfonso Rubio, Jared Mitchell, James Gordon, and Kyle Greenawalt
The “uncensored version” of the Unity Conference began outdoors. When weather forced participants inside, they were told to adhere to the limits of Utah’s anti-DEI law.
10-03-2025 By James Gordon, Alfonso Rubio, Jared Mitchell, and Kyle Greenawalt
A university official warned the event had to comply with the Utah Legislature’s ban on DEI language. An independent “teach-in” was set for Friday.
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When Jesse Valdez graduated from Salt Lake Community College, he never imagined he would be running for mayor of his hometown.
But for Valdez, the leap from photojournalism to public service isn’t as far as it seems. Both, he says, are about telling the stories of the community.
“As a photojournalist, I was really telling the stories of the community and really getting engaged to uplift the voices that may be unheard or neglected,” Valdez said. “I’ve always been that person that wanted to tell the story of others without knowing it.”
Valdez studied TV/Video Production at SLCC and credits the hands-on environment and faculty at the South City campus for shaping his career.
“I love SLCC, specifically South City,” Valdez said. “You’re not going to find any other place like it for communications, at least in Utah.”
During his time at the college, Valdez noticed something was missing. He created the club Sports Rally, brought intramural activities to campus and ran for Student Body President. He also helped revamp the SLCC sports show called “End of the Bench.”
“My duty [as a leader] is to get people to engage and connect, just like I was doing with the club at SLCC,” said Valdez. “Even if it was something as simple as sports, it fulfilled what it needed to do, and that was to connect the SLCC community together.”
Jesse Valdez graduated from SLCC in 2016. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
Looking back on his college years, Valdez admits he didn’t have a clear direction when he started. He encouraged students to get out of their comfort zones and not stress about not having everything figured out.
“I think getting uncomfortable is a good thing,” said Valdez. “Getting uncomfortable and just sticking up [for] and doing what’s right is the best thing you can do.”
When talking about majors, Valdez suggested exploration.
“Don’t be set in stone like you’re signing a contract, just put whatever [idea] down and see where it takes you,” he said. “As long as you’re putting in work, it will find you.”
He also stressed the value of involvement and networking — lessons he learned firsthand at SLCC.
“I did it with people who had that same passion to do it with me. I think that’s just as important as networking, finding people that … you kind of connect with, in a sense,” said Valdez. “It’s not about just finishing the work and making sure you get a good grade on it. I honestly almost feel like the networking part is just as important, if not more important.”
Jesse Valdez while working as a photojournalist for ABC4. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
After graduating, Valdez joined KTVX ABC4 News as a photojournalist, where he spent nearly a decade filming, lighting and editing for the station’s newscast.
“All the stuff you see behind the scenes, that when it hits air on TV and the reporter’s standing there looking good, that was all me,” said Valdez.
Valdez said his favorite part of the job was not knowing what his day was going to look like.
“I was always out and about. My office was wherever it took me,” said Valdez. “There were tragic times as well. But I think that’s what I enjoyed a lot is just the unknown kept it interesting.”
Valdez said he didn’t imagine becoming a photojournalist.
“I think all of us will look at life and be like, ‘we never became what we wanted to be or thought we wanted to be, but it all worked out how it should have,’” said Valdez. “I don’t think I necessarily ever had the dream to become a photojournalist, but I do love what I do and the fact that I get to tell stories and create those stories, and it means something to me, right? So, it’s more of finding your niche of where you belong.”
Jesse Valdez on the set of ABC4 where Valdez worked for nearly a decade. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
After years in journalism, Valdez felt called back to his roots in Kearns, where he grew up. Before he and his family had even fully moved in, he joined the Kearns Community Council.
“I always kept the idea since I was 10 years old that, you know, one day when I can buy my own house and have my own family, we’re going to move back to Kearns,” said Valdez.
Valdez also created the Facebook page K-town, one of the “most popular community pages in the valley.” The page has almost 40,000 members.
“The whole reason why I even created that [page] to begin with was because I really felt like at the time when I moved in, I was looking for direction. I wanted to know how to get involved. I just didn’t know how, and I thought maybe other people feel this way,” Valdez said. “I created that page so people could kind of find that direction and kind of find a purpose of, you know, how they can help be involved in Kearns.”
Valdez created the Facebook page with the hope of getting people actively engaged in their community.
“I think that’s the biggest thing; it’s not that the community doesn’t want to be engaged, they just don’t know how,” said Valdez. “So as a leader … that’s my duty is to get people to engage and connect. Just like I was doing with the [Sports Rally] club at SLCC.”
Now, Valdez is running in Kearns’ first modern-era mayoral election, aiming to bring transparency and accessibility to local government. Valdez says he wants to listen and understand what the community wants.
According to his campaign website, his focus as mayor will be “on neighborhood safety, a thriving town center and a transparent, responsive city hall that treats every resident with respect.”
As ballots begin to go out for the election, Valdez says his motivation remains simple: to help his community tell its own story.
“Kearns has just been neglected for so long,” Valdez said. “I just want to see it thrive. I want to see it be at its best because I think at the end of the day, the community really deserves that. And I think we deserve to start telling our own narrative rather than let others do it for us.”
Jesse Valdez, far right, stands with colleagues after receiving an award for his work in photojournalism. After moving back to Kearns, Valdez joined the Kearns Community Council. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
A steady rain drove a “teach in” on censorship at Weber State University indoors on Friday, but the speakers and attendees were as persistent as the turbulent weather.
“The rain hit us hard, but people were still willing to stay for it,” said Barrett Bonella, a professor of social work at Weber State. “People really wanted to hear and be a part of this.”
Bonella is chief steward of The Wildcat Collective, a branch of the American Federation of Teachers’ Utah College Council — the union that represents university faculty and staff. The union organized the “teach in” as an alternate conference to Weber State’s annual Unity Conference.
Organizers canceled the Unity Conference this week, after being told by university officials that speakers would have to censor some of their talks. The topic of the conference was censorship.
Among those attending Friday’s campus event was Ogden School Board member Stacy Bernal, a Weber State alumna who was, according to her biography, the first manager of diversity, equity and inclusion for the Utah Jazz.
“It’s wild to me to be living out this censorship in real-time,” Bernal said. “To be just someone watching it as it was coming up in the news and on social media, I just truly couldn’t believe it.”
The alternative “teach in” was scheduled to be held Friday on the front steps of Stewart Library. When the rain started to pour around 11 a.m., and kept going through the two-hour event, The Wildcat Collective worked with campus police to move the event into a temporary indoor space.
Once inside Lindquist Hall, though, attendees were told discussions would have to adhere to the limits placed by the Utah Legislature under HB261. At that point, the event shifted to small-group discussions.
The “teach in,” which organizers called “Unity Conference: Uncensored Version,” included open-mic opportunities and speeches, featuring presenters from the canceled conference. About 50 people attended the event, as speakers discussed book banning, the limitations of censorship on scientific research and other topics.
HB261, passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, restricts how certain topics — such as anti-racism, bias, critical race theory, oppression, intersectionality, discriminatory practices, systemic bias or personal identity characteristics — can be addressed in some higher education settings.
In an email sent to faculty and staff Friday, the president’s office at Weber State addressed the cancellation of the Unity Conference. The office cited poor communication and unclear definitions of HB261.
In the email, the administration wrote that “we recognize that this has been difficult to navigate and that there have been times when communication could have been clearer.
“We apologize for the frustration this has caused. We are truly working to move forward, through what has sometimes been shifting guidance, together.”
The administration stressed that faculty are exempt from HB261 when they teach, conduct research, join scholarly events and discuss complex or controversial issues in their field. However, other campus events — like those under the umbrella of the university’s Student Access & Success department, such as the Unity Conference — are not exempt, and must follow the content limits of HB261.
“Because of this difference, some proposed Unity Conference sessions were better suited for academic venues, while others raised compliance concerns because this was a conference hosted by Student Access & Success,” the administration wrote.
Richard Price, a political science professor at Weber State, was one of the original panelists scheduled to discuss censorship at the canceled Unity Conference. When university officials said speakers would have to restrict their language, Price wrote to the university’s president, Brad Mortensen, saying they “could no longer ethically participate.”
Price told The Signpost on Friday that while, in theory, HB261 shouldn’t affect their teaching, in reality there is no way the law won’t change how professors in Utah educate students.
“I could teach what I want in theory within the confines of my academic discipline, which is what I do,” Price said. “But I can’t talk to a general audience on campus about it, because they start to worry that it looks like the university is endorsing what I’m saying.”
Last fall, Price said they gave a talk on LGBTQ history, and administrators pushed back — even though, they said, the administrators only had access to the title of Price’s talk: “LGBTQ Education and Higher Ed.”
“The perspective that administrators are taking essentially is that anything that references groups of people — whether it’s queer people, Black History Month, whatever — can’t be done because it might piss off a legislator,” Price said.
The administration in its email closed by saying it plans to discuss the situation further with Weber State’s faculty senate and staff advisory council meetings.
Alfonso Rubio, Jared Mitchell, James Gordon and Kyle Greenawalt reported this story as student journalists at Weber State University’s The Signpost. It is published as part of an ongoing collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
Weber State University’s annual Unity Conference was set to take on a big topic — censorship — with workshops, panel discussions and the screening of a documentary about book banning.
Organizers announced Wednesday that they canceled the event, originally scheduled for Thursday and Friday, because university officials wanted speakers to remove some of what they were going to present.
Professor Richard Price, one of the scheduled speakers, wrote in an email to the university’s president, Brad Mortensen, ”Little did I expect that the university would censor the content of the conference to the point at which I could no longer ethically participate.”
On Thursday, Weber State’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers’ Utah College Council — a union that represents faculty and staff in higher education — told The Signpost via email that it would host a “teach-in,” titled “Unity Conference: Uncensored Version.”
That event, unaffiliated with the university, was scheduled to take place at the same time and place as the original conference: Friday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., in front of Stewart Library on the Ogden campus.
The decision to cancel the conference came after organizers received an email from Jessica Oyler, Weber State’s vice president of Student Access and Success (SAS), in which she sought “to provide clarity” about whether the conference’s programming conformed to state law.
Oyler cited HB261, passed by Utah Legislature and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, which requires Utah’s higher-education institutions eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to as DEI.
“The intent here is not to suggest that operating this way is ideal, as I know there are strong feelings about the legislation itself, but rather to be transparent about how we are operationalizing the law,” Oyler wrote in her email to organizers.
Oyler told The Signpost on Thursday that her department — which funded the conference — does not enjoy the academic freedom that faculty do, and so is not exempt from the restrictions of HB261.
“That distinction in funding and coordination matters under HB261 because SAS staff and other non-faculty employees fall outside the academic freedom protections specifically carved out in the law,” she said.
HB261, Oyler said, doesn’t allow university programs to talk about what the Legislature called “discriminatory practices.” Those include anything that suggests any people, based on characteristics of personal identity, are inherently privileged, oppressed, racist, sexist or victims. The same goes for political systems or conflicts over power.
Price, a political science professor at Weber State, wrote in a blog post Thursday that administrators wanted to block information that suggested censorship is the result of a partisan strategy.
“I, a political scientist, was told not to talk about politics,” Price said. “In other words I was ordered to lie to my colleagues, students and the general public.”
The 27th annual Unity Conference, which was free to the public, was scheduled to take place Thursday and Friday at two locations: Stewart Library in Ogden and the D2 building at the school’s Davis campus in Layton.
Roughly 120 people were registered for the event, half of them conference organizers and people scheduled to present, Bryan Magaña, public relations director for the conference organizers, said in an email.
The committee in charge of the Unity Conference — whose title was “Redacted: Navigating the Complexities of Censorship” — sent an email to the conference’s collaborators Wednesday, “to share the difficult news that we have made the decision to cancel” the event. The notice also was posted on the school’s website.
An email signed by the conference’s co-chairs read: “After careful consideration of concerns raised by conference planners and participants, we have determined we cannot in good conscience deliver the high-quality, meaningful experience that our community expects and deserves.” At the bottom of the email, the sign-off, “Co-Chairs of the 27th Annual Unity Conference,” was crossed out.
Sarah Herrmann, who organized one of the conference’s panels, posted on a private faculty Facebook group, obtained by The Signpost, that presenters were directed to remove any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion by the end of the day Monday.
Herrmann wrote that she was concerned “about the precedent this sets for academic freedom, student scholarly development and the integrity of conferences and events hosted on campus.”
James Gordon, Alfonso Rubio, Jared Mitchell and Kyle Greenawalt reported this story as student journalists at Weber State University’s The Signpost. It is published as part of an ongoing collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
Eleven days later after right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University, the campus — now adorned with flowers, mementos and sidewalk chalk messages — stands silent, only disquieted by a steady flow of mourners in quiet conversation.
Utahns of all ages were gathered at the university; some to pay respects, some to find peace after witnessing Kirk’s death.
Kyle Pastor, a Brigham Young University (BYU) student who was in attendance when Kirk died, said that returning to the scene was “healing.”
At first, Pastor and his friends weren’t aware of what was going on. They then saw Kirk fall and everyone started running, he said.
“We all hid behind this wall for like, 10 to 15 seconds, and then we all just ran,” Pastor said. “Honestly, it kind of puts you in shock.” The impact of the shooting and his proximity to the event didn’t settle until later that day, Pastor told The Chronicle.
Payton VanSteenkiste, a student at BYU, described the scene’s environment as “heavy” yet uplifting.
“It is kind of awesome to see everyone just gathering in unity,” VanSteenkiste said. “It’s so horrific what happened, but people are able to kind of just gather together and find some sort of peace.”
Lewis Bever, a senior at UVU, said that the campus has always been a commuter school with a “disconnected” student body, but that the atmosphere changed after the shooting.
“[Students] just come here to get a degree and move on,” Bever said. “Now, I feel like there’s a lot more people that are taking pride in being a UVU student and being together.”
A corner on the UVU campus where Pastor hid after Kirk was shot, Sept. 21, 2025. (Photo by Addy Cowley | The Daily Utah Chronicle)
Directly following the shooting, both UVU and BYU offered mental health resources to students who needed help processing the event.
“[BYU] made sure everyone knew that therapists were readily available,” Pastor said. “I feel like they handled [the situation] pretty well.”
Other Utah schools, such as Weber State University, Utah State University and the University of Utah offer mental health resources for students, as well.
Recently graduated UVU student Austin Bauer said during his time at the school, campus police and security were always on campus. However, he never thought much of it.
“I never really felt like there was a huge need for a lot of security,” Bauer said.
Police are stationed at UVU 24/7 and will most likely be for the next few months, a UVU police officer told The Chronicle. The site of the shooting will be blocked off until next spring. BYU, located 11 minutes away from UVU, has now increased security measures on campus, according to Pastor.
A memorial for Charlie Kirk at the UVU campus in Orem, Utah on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025. (Photo by Addy Cowley | The Daily Utah Chronicle)
Given the varied reactions to the nature of Kirk’s death, Pastor said the public must be able to disagree and still be able to have honest conversations.
“I think kind of what Charlie thought, [which was that] we should all stand up for our beliefs,” he said. “I don’t think you should stop anyone from sharing their opinions and their beliefs.”
VanSteenkiste discussed the importance of open dialogue.
“The biggest source of strength in person is being able to understand two different values of where people might stand, still have different opinions and still be able to respect each other,” VanSteenkiste said.
Given the shared experience, Bauer said that students must put their political views aside and “lean on each other.”
“We’re all family, we’re all humans,” Bauer said. “I hope this brings people together.”
Kelly Ryskamp, an Orem local who works 6 miles from campus, said the tragedy’s proximity makes unity not just a campus concern, but a statewide one. “How could it have happened in Utah?” Ryskamp said. “It feels like an extra layer of grief.
This story was written for The Daily Utah Chronicle at the University of Utah by news editor Addy Cowley and news editor/writer Teanna Sorensen.
