Snyderville Basin Planning Commissioner Thomas Cooke this week announced he is launching a Summit County Council campaign in 2024, more than a year after he unsuccessfully sought to serve the remainder of Doug Clyde’s term.
Cooke, a 30-year Parkite and resident of Silver Summit, ran to replace Clyde in the fall 2022 after the then-county councilor stepped down. The Summit County Democratic Party ultimately selected East Side resident and Coalville City Planning Commissioner Tonja Hanson to fill the spot in a special election last November, and Cooke fully supports the work she’s done.
But now he’s hoping to win an election of his own.
The planning commissioner will run for the seat occupied by Vice Chair Malena Stevens, who is not seeking reelection. Fellow Democrat and LGBTQ+ advocate Cami Richardson and former Francis mayor Byron Ames, a Republican, also announced their candidacies for the position.
“I think we had some good conversations about some of the county-wide issues from very different perspectives,” Cooke said of his campaign last year. “I think my motivations now … going well into my third term, I look at the issues (as) the same. They’re the same as they were when I started on the Planning Commission. I see that we’ve made some progress, but not a lot of progress in things like housing, affordability, and solving some of our transit and traffic concerns.”
Cooke was inspired to run when thinking about his daughter, who is studying architecture at Bard College in the Hudson Valley of New York. He said he’s thought a lot about the fairness of development and how communities adapt to meet population growth.
That’s led him to consider how he can play a role in solving local issues like land use beyond the Planning Commission. Cooke has served as vice chair and chair. He is also approaching his term limit, which is a maximum of nine years.
Experience on the panel is not a prerequisite for being a county councilor, but it provides preparation as members learn about the county code and general plan as well as topics such as transportation and engineering. County councilors Canice Harte, Hanson and Stevens all served multiple terms as planning commissioners.
Cooke wants to use his time on the Planning Commission to help address the crossroads he said the community is at. He cited residents’ concerns about their quality of life and other issues such as the lack of affordable housing in the Snyderville Basin and in eastern Summit County, where the community is experiencing many of the same growing pains.
“I think our compass on equity here is totally out of whack,” he said. “I think we’re at an existential point where more and more and more we’re developing in a way where our kids have no chance of returning to the place where they grew up to raise their families because of the decisions that we’ve made.”
Cooke was a driving force behind the launch of the Our Summit Community Vision plan, and he sees its implementation as a top priority to help drive the framework of the future. He said the strategic plan, as well as updating outdated county policies, will help officials be prepared instead of attempting to “solve new problems with old ideas.”
The planning commissioner also wants to improve community input and transparency. Cooke has a goal of implementing a digital dashboard with relevant information such as the number of affordable housing units or where conservation easements exist in Summit County within the first 90 days of taking office if he’s elected. He’s hopeful this will help educate and inform the public.
Cooke added that he isn’t afraid to dissent. He said different perspectives and opinions on the County Council can be a good thing. He plans to release a list of his policy ideas before the primary election so voters can better understand his views.
The filing window for candidates to formally launch a bid for office runs from Jan. 2 through 8.
The Summit County Democratic Party will host a caucus in March to select delegates for the county convention who will determine which of the candidates receives the party nomination for the seat. A primary election would be held for the top two vote-getters in June if no individual receives at least 60% of the delegate vote.
The county’s Republican Party will go through the same process to determine who will advance to the ballot if there are races with more than one candidate. Ames is the only member of the GOP to announce his intent to run as of Friday afternoon.
Candidates can also make it onto the primary ballot if they receive the necessary number of signatures.