Hooper City Council tables ordinance to strip Mayor of executive powers

HOOPER, Utah (ABC4) — Hooper City leaders met on Tuesday night, Feb. 25, to discuss passing an ordinance that would strip executive powers away from the city’s mayor.

The council ultimately voted to table the final decision on the ordinance for several months. The council and mayor will have a closed-door meeting to discuss further issues, and will meet about the ordinance again in about three months.

According to the meeting’s agenda, the Hooper City Council said it has determined that executive and administrative powers should be taken from the Mayor’s Office and given to the City Council.

Community members filled the Hooper Civic Center, and several people stood outside of the room where the meeting took place. Members of the City Council addressed concerns with the city’s budget, as well as concerns they had with the firing of city attorneys.

“We certainly have had different things that they maybe didn’t agree with the way that I was doing them,” Hooper Mayor Sheri Bingham told ABC4.com. “But this came pretty much as a surprise to me, as far as this ordinance and them wanting to do this.”

The City Council called the change of powers necessary in order to “promote fairness, accountability, and effective governance.”

“For quite a while, our ability to perform our duties has been inhibited by your actions, and we’ve not been allowed to put things on the agenda on several occasions — things of great importance,” Councilmember Bryce Wilcox told the mayor during the Tuesday meeting.

Once stripped of executive powers, the city’s mayor would serve as a “ceremonial head” for the city and as Chair of the City Council, with no authority to veto ordinances, appointments, or City Council actions.

“We don’t have any vendettas against the mayor, we just want to do our job as well,” Wilcox said. “We have been stonewalled several times, and it’s documented in public meetings.”

Hooper residents originally chose a mayor-council form of government with a seven-member council after becoming an incorporated city in 2000. Bingham said the ordinance — heard at an emergency meeting called by the City Council — would take away “the majority of the power” of the mayor, who also acts as a city manager.

“The mayor basically is the city manager and the CEO,” Bingham said. “I am responsible for the employees, and for the finances, and meetings, and anything else that transpires in this city.”

Bingham said she wished councilmembers had reached out with their concerns rather than calling an emergency meeting. She also said she would still do what she can, regardless of the meeting’s outcome.

“I just want the residents to know that, no matter what happens tonight, I am still their mayor. I will still go about doing whatever I feel like I need to do — what I’m allowed to do — to continue to just make Hooper be the very best place as it already is,” Bingham said.

Bingham has headed the city since taking office in 2024, after she won the seat with 58.9% of the vote during the 2023 election. Her current term in office runs through 2027, and she replaced outgoing mayor Dale Fowers, who now sits on the City Council representing District 2.

Located just west of South Ogden and Roy, Hooper has a reported population of 9,369 as of 2023, according to Census data.

“I love the community of Hooper,” Bingham said. “I can’t think of any community that is a better community than Hooper. I love the people that live here.”