Darin Mano, Victoria Petro join Salt Lake City Council leadership

Darin Mano and Victoria Petro were selected as chair and vice chair of the Salt Lake City Council Tuesday.

How it works: Salt Lake City Council members vote on new leadership every January. Mano and Petro received unanimous approval.

• Their leadership roles include driving the council's priorities and running council meetings.

Why it matters: Mano's background as head of an architecture firm could provide a nuanced perspective to city planning as Salt Lake City experiences rapid population growth and an unprecedented apartment boom.

• Petro, whose district includes a portion of Fairpark and the Salt Lake City International Airport, could also bring a larger focus to the west side.
• "A decade of living on the west side has given me a front-row view of how important it is to have active and equitable representation for communities brimming with opportunity,” Petro said in a statement.

Of note: Petro also serves as a non-voting board member and Salt Lake City representative of the Utah Inland Port Authority.

• Mano told Axios that one of Petro's responsibilities will be to build relationships of trust with state lawmakers.
• "She's going to be the one I'm relying on a lot for those issues," he said.

Background: Mano, whose district includes Ballpark, 9th and 9th and Liberty Park, became the first Asian American to serve on the Salt Lake City Council in 2020.

• He told Axios his top priority is improving housing affordability in the city and making it more "attainable" for residents to live here.

The big picture: Salt Lake City is grappling with gentrification and it's driving low-income residents to move out of the city, a Thriving in Place study released last year found.