SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Salt Lake City is sworn into a historic new city council where the majority of members identify as LGBTQ, and most are people of color.

City Councilor Victoria Petro-Eschler said Monday that the composition of the seven-member council was not just a “demographic novelty” in conservative Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reported..

“This diversity is important because of what it means to the way work is done in our city,” said Petro-Eschler, who represents District 1, on the west side of the city, at Racial Diversity and ethnic.

The new minority-majority council comes just two years after the election of the capital’s first minority member, Ana Valdemoros.

The new member of the city council Alejandro Puy, gay and immigrant from Argentina, also represents the western part of the city. “The working families on the west side are a force to be reckoned with, especially mothers like mine,” he said at the swearing-in ceremony on Monday.

Some activists are waiting to see how members tackle issues such as affordable housing, the environment and calls to fund social services rather than the police, KUER reported..

“One of the most important things we want to see is that they directly address the issues we campaigned for,” said Deja Gaston, Party for Socialism and the Liberation of Salt Lake. .