Mayor Dana Williams on Tuesday declared that City Hall successfully navigated through the economic turmoil and further changes to the city’s fiscal strategy are not needed.
Appearing at a meeting of the Park City Rotary Club with the other City Hall candidates, the mayor said the municipal government’s recession plan has worked. He also said City Hall needs to work with tourism boosters like the Park City Chamber/Bureau to better market Park City.
“Basically, we are in good shape,” the mayor, who is seeking a third term, said.
But challenger Brad Olch, who served three terms as mayor preceding Williams, countered that City Hall has not responded boldly enough. He charged that the local government has hired people over the years even as there have been layoffs in the private sector.
He said City Hall should be more aggressive as Park City courts new events and he mentioned the Winter X Games as one that should be lured to the city.
“How can we bring new business to town,” Olch said.
He said the recession could end soon, but Park City’s economy could remain flat for several more years. Olch said commercial districts outside of Main Street are struggling even as much of the attention has been on the popular shopping, dining and entertainment strip.
The economy has been an overriding campaign issue in 2009, with Olch being especially sharp in his criticism of the incumbent’s handling of the recession. The challenger on Tuesday mentioned the number of vacant buildings in Park City as he spoke about the local economy.
The two mayoral challengers also touched briefly on the Sweeney family’s Treasure development proposal, another one of the key issues during the campaign.
Williams said the city’s Planning Commission, which has been in long-running talks with the Sweeneys, should “immediately” remand the project back to the developer to redesign Treasure. He questioned arguments from the Sweeney side that Treasure will boost business on Main Street, saying that the project is not situated on the street.
Olch said the project has expanded from what was approved years ago. It has “run amok” and City Hall should have handled the discussions differently, Olch said. He said there is a “void” in the operations at City Hall that has resulted in the difficulties with the Treasure talks.
He told the crowd Park City should hire someone to serve as City Hall’s community development director, a position that would be highly involved in development matters, instead of someone to be the assistant city manager.
The four Park City Council candidates — Mark Blue, Cindy Matsumoto, John Stafsholt and Alex Butwinski — also addressed the Rotary Club meeting, held at the Grub Steak Restaurant. Each of the City Council candidates criticized Treasure as well.
The candidates also spoke about ideas to renovate the Racquet Club, but they were cautious about spending the money to do so. They also touched on Park City’s events calendar. None of them made significant statements about special events, however.