ON THE ISSUES
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MEET LYNETTE
The story behind my passion for service
I grew up in the Midwest, and after seeing many parts of the United States, my husband Mark and I fell in love with Utah and made it our home. We chose Taylorsville 27 years ago for many of the same reasons we stay here: the amazing people, the diverse values and cultures we all represent.
Working in our community over the past 17 years has helped me understand today how we are not being represented as we should be. Too often, I see firsthand the disconnect between our community’s values and our elected officials’ priorities. This needs to stop as Taylorsville and West Jordan continue to grow in the future.
Your priorities matter to me. In my professional and public service careers, I worked hard for solutions in education, transportation, air quality, housing, healthcare, and animal services. We are facing a number of obstacles, including rising home prices, a soaring cost of living and stagnant wages. Through my work in the community, I know the urgency to address these challenges alongside the meaningful quality-of-life issues that matter to the residents of Taylorsville and West Jordan. I am running to ensure our voices are accurately and truly represented in our legislature.
LYNETTE'S BIOGRAPHY
Civic
Leadership
Lynette Wendel has served her home community in Taylorsville for more than 17 years as a volunteer committed to public service, advocacy and working for improved conditions for everyone in the community, not just the powerful and influential.
During this time, Lynette gained respect as a non-partisan leader with the ability to include all stakeholders and facilitate productive dialogue in a civil and respectful manner. As a professional mediator for over a decade, she finds success even in the most challenging and complex situations.
Currently, Lynette is serving her seventh year as an appointed member of the Taylorsville Planning Commission. She has been instrumental in promoting Taylorsville with community leaders, investors, and policymakers. During her tenure, she has gained regional accolades for her ongoing work in building citizen engagement and involvement.
Most recently, Lynette's focus on public safety has led to concentrated grassroots community efforts in neighborhood watch programs and her participation on the newly appointed Community Advisory Board for the Taylorsville Police Department.
Legislation and policies impacting our community should begin in our neighborhoods. Through volunteering, local civic engagement and showing up for our neighbors, Lynette is well versed in our needs and ready to amplify our voices in the halls of the Capitol.
Professional Contributions
Lynette attributes much of her success as a positive-change community leader to her wide experience as an effective mediator and manager.
Over the course of 10 years, Lynette gained extensive knowledge and experience as Center Director for a K-12 supplemental education center and in post-secondary school admissions. This unique exposure to such a wide-spectrum of education, along with her personal connection to the students, parents, educators and administrators, led Lynette to her career path in mediation.
With her passion for education and desire for collaborative, effective solutions, Lynette helped train over 400 people in interpersonal communication, conflict resolution and mediation skills during her time with Utah Dispute Resolution.
Mediation is designed to be stakeholder inclusive, keeping decision-making in the hands of the parties involved and out of the courts or under the control of the government. Lynette consistently defends local authority and personal autonomy to deter government overreach. She will bring these skills to public office, making policy citizen-inclusive and keeping the government in check.
Lynette is comfortable facilitating complex situations where she transforms difficult conversations into productive dialogue- a skill that is especially useful in today’s polarized political landscape. Lynette is able to reign in unwieldy debates to focus on practical policy solutions and compromises. She has mastered using conflict resolution skills to improve systems and promote better relationships for more than a decade.
Today, Lynette consults with local non-profit groups to optimize their organization’s culture through enhanced leadership training, volunteer management and organizational restructuring.
Personal Life
Lynette and her husband, Mark, have been proud members of the Taylorsville community since 1995. In 2002, Lynette moved her mother and grandmother to a home next to her and Mark to care for them.
When not participating in committees or attending legislative sessions at the Capitol, Lynette loves spending time outdoors with her husband Mark and their two rescue dogs, Ben and Molly, hiking around their beautiful state trying to wear off their dogs’ endless energy.
Lynette and Mark adopted Ben through CAWS, a local volunteer rescue group that helps transition homeless pets to good homes. Before joining the Wendel household, Ben was feral in rural Utah for the first year of his life and was deemed “unadoptable” by two shelters because he was so afraid of people. Molly is also an adopted rescue with special needs. Not timid at all, Molly requires special routines, exercise, medication and training to help her realize her potential.
Called to action by their passion for the community, the Wendels completed the Utah Foster Care Foundation parenting training and have maintained their desire to help young people who need the loving care of supportive families.
Lynette continually proves her deep-rooted calling to advocate for all those who have traditionally been overlooked or silenced.
Lynette is an avid long-distance swimmer, a passion she discovered while earning her Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Eastern Illinois University.
Most telling about her personality, Lynette believes her candidacy for Representative of Utah House District 36 is not about her but the community and team of people who rely on her and who need someone to truly represent their voice.
Lynette is a solutions-focused moderate with the ability to independently represent all of us in Taylorsville and West Jordan. She is loyal to our community and our values, not an ideological side of the aisle. Lynette represents the heart of our community.
