The 2021 mayoral campaign between the incumbent, Andy Beerman, and Park City Councilor Nann Worel centered on issues like growth, traffic and the continuing comeback from the economic turmoil caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
One topic hardly mentioned during the campaign, though, is the history Worel was poised to make on Tuesday evening as she took the oath of office as the first woman to become the mayor of a community that has long been considered as progressive a place as there is in Utah.
Worel herself did not talk of her gender while stumping last year. And her supporters, though perhaps quietly seeing the possibility of a woman in the mayor’s office, instead centered their attention on her experience as a city councilor, a former member of the Park City Planning Commission and a onetime leader in the not-for-profit sector.
There have been numerous women elected to the City Council in recent decades, and they have repeatedly held a majority of the seats on the five-person panel, most recently in 2019. Two of the five Park City managers since the early 1980s have been women, while two of the three Park City attorneys since the 1990s have been women.
The political stage was set for Worel’s swearing-in ceremony over the course of more than 30 years of Park City politics. Two women since 1989 have unsuccessfully campaigned for the mayor’s office in the general election. Two other women who would have been considered formidable candidates never ran.
While the other women campaigned for the mayor’s office, or publicly declared their interest before various circumstances intervened to block a bid, it was Worel who was able to break the glass ceiling at the Marsac Building.
Worel and her 2,048 votes on Election Day, indeed, shattered that ceiling in a rout of the incumbent. But it only happened after the others left cracks in the glass for her:
Name: Ann MacQuoid
• Possible mayoral year: 1989
Ann MacQuoid and Brad Olch easily cleared a mayoral primary election in October of 1989 and would compete over the course of the next month in a campaign that is now considered to be a watershed moment in Park City’s modern era.
The two candidates — both seated members of the Park City Council at the time — were essentially vying to lead Park City into what was anticipated to be an era of dramatic change in the community. It was presumed at the time, correctly, that the 1990s would bring furious growth to Park City and surrounding Summit County. And Park City even in 1989 was key to the efforts in Salt Lake City to host a Winter Olympics, with the Games of 1998 seeming to be a possibility at the time before those of four years later were awarded to the region.
The campaign was bitterly contested with the two candidates serving alongside each other on the City Council amid the politicking. Some still consider the 1989 campaign to be Park City’s most bruising political contest, even after the visceral ones that followed.
Olch understood MacQuoid could draw votes from people hoping to elect the first woman as mayor and made that part of the political calculus. A group called the Women for Brad Committee included the names of nearly 80 women supporting his campaign in an October newspaper advertisement. His own campaign purchased newspaper advertisements with endorsements from women who once served on the City Council.
The voters went with Olch, putting him in office for the first of what would eventually be three terms leading Park City.
Name: Nikki Lowry
• Possible mayoral year: 1997
Nikki Lowry started her mayoral campaign in 1997 understanding the difficulties of unseating a popular mayor who would be seeking a third term in the highest office at City Hall.
Lowry, a member of the Park City Board of Education at the time, would be the second woman to campaign against Olch after he dispatched MacQuoid eight years earlier. By the time of the start of the 1997 campaign, Olch had seemed to solidify his status as the leader to shepherd the community through the extraordinary era of growth in the 1990s and into the 2002 Winter Olympics, which had been awarded to Salt Lake City during his second term.
The campaign was a tense one, though, with growth, traffic and the upcoming Games among the key issues. The Olch-led municipal government’s highly contentious decision to introduce a paid-parking system in the Main Street core, made as the politicking was starting, provided even more political fodder for the challengers.
The election, with another figure from the schools seeking a Park City Council seat, effectively pitted the leadership of the Park City School District against that of City Hall in a scenario that has not been repeated since. It was clear on Election Day that Park City voters favored the direction of the municipal government over the prospects of change as outlined by the two figures from the School District.
The voters rejected Lowry’s campaign as Olch easily won another term.
Name: Shauna Kerr
• Possible mayoral years: 1997, 2009
Shauna Kerr by the time chatter started about the mayoral election in 1997 had established herself as a quick-witted, firecracker of a politician. She was a member of the Park City Council at the time and previously had worked as a City Hall attorney, giving her the unique perspective of being, at different times, an elected official and a municipal staffer.
She was seen as a potential mayoral candidate in 1997, having in some ways become the City Council foil to the incumbent mayor, Olch. Kerr opted against a campaign for the mayor’s office in 1997 and then left Park City politics, winning a seat on the Summit County Commission. She served one term at the County Courthouse.
Kerr in the years after her time on the County Commission continued to see the mayor’s office as a possibility. In a 2008 interview, Kerr acknowledged she was considering a mayoral campaign the next year. She said at the time she had observed morale issues at City Hall and explained significant personnel changes of that era had been difficult on the rank-and-file workers. She said municipal workers had encouraged her to campaign for the mayor’s office.
Kerr ultimately moved out of the political arena and into the courtroom as a state justice court judge. She was appointed to the bench in 2009 and continues to serve.
In an intriguing footnote to Worel’s ascension to the mayor’s office, it was Kerr who was scheduled to administer the oath of office on Tuesday.
Name: Candy Erickson
• Possible mayoral year: 2009
Candy Erickson in the spring of 2009, just before the mayoral campaign started that year, said publicly she had interest in the top political office in Park City.
But only if the seated mayor at the time, Dana Williams, did not seek a third term in office.
Erickson enjoyed broad popularity in that time period. She was serving her third term as a member of the Park City Council, and many saw her as representing the diverse populace of the community more so than any of the other city councilors in office at that moment.
The 2009 mayoral campaign was expected to be a strained one four years after Williams was unchallenged as he was elected to a second term. And Olch was seeking a return to the mayor’s office, setting up an expected contest between himself and Williams. They were seen even by then as two of the towering figures of modern-era Park City.
Williams decided to seek reelection, ending any likelihood of Erickson mounting her own campaign for mayor. Erickson prior to the announcement by the seated mayor had said her supporters were encouraging her to launch a campaign. She had also said she could win support from those who backed Williams, describing in May of that year that they had similar political leanings and that they had “a lot of the same fan base.”
Williams trounced Olch in the 2009 election and opted not to seek a fourth term in 2013. Erickson died in 2011. She would have been considered a strong contender for the mayor’s office in the 2013 campaign.