Park City Council members have proclaimed June as Pride Month and put their support behind a slate of activities and displays to show the municipality backs inclusion and diversity.
“Pride month creates visibility for the unique experience of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer,” a Park City staff report that recommended approval of the proclamation says. “By participating in Pride month, Park City would signal its commitment to including LGBTQ+ individuals, families, and youth in governance and the importance of affirming our cultural diversity.”
June has been recognized since 1999 as Pride Month in the United States in memory of the Stonewall riots in New York City. Police in 1969 raided the Stonewall Inn and roughly dragged some of the patrons at the gay bar into squad cars. The incident led to demonstrations and helped spark the modern LGBTQ movement.
Park City’s LGBTQ+ Taskforce, which was formed in 2020 to help the Wasatch Back become a place where all people feel they belong, proposed the agenda for this year’s celebration. The events include:
•A flag raising at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Miners Hospital with taskforce members and Park City officials in attendance.
•The Utah Pride Parade from 10 a.m. until noon Sunday in downtown Salt Lake City.
•Living Library at 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. June18 at Park City Library.
•A community conversation at 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. June 21 or June 28, location pending.
•A pride picnic 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. June 25 at Library Field in collaboration with Lucky Ones, the Park City Library and Mountain Town Music.
The displays will include Progress Pride flags flying on five city poles during June. The flag, designed by Daniel Quasar, adds a five-colored chevron – black and brown stripes to represent people of color and blue, pink and white stripes to represent the transgender community – to the left side of the rainbow flag.
Other planned displays are pride graphics on the exterior of the Main Street trolley with a design representing the theme Ride with Pride; posters at the Park City Municipal Athletic & Recreation Center, Park City Library and City Hall; and banners on Main Street.
Also on the agenda is a two-day diversity, equity and inclusion training session by Equality Utah at the Santy Auditorium, tentatively planned to be held in mid-July.
To be discussed further at another meeting is a proposal to paint the Progress Pride flag on the outside of a city-owned building at the corner of Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive that once was a gas station. The taskforce would incur the costs, organize the painting and return the building to its original color when the pride celebration ends, according to co-chair Cami Richardson.
“We’re looking forward to being able to display the flag,” Richardson told the City Council. “It’s a very visible spot and I think it would make a big impact on our community.”
Another taskforce member, Joe Urankar, wants to use the inside of the building as a reading and listening lounge.
“It would focus specifically on the history of the queer community’s contributions to modern music,” he said. “There are communities across the country and across the world, queer communities, that are responsible for pioneering entire genres.”
The taskforce would partner with an arts group to create visual arts installations around the interior of the space along with historical text, Urankar said. The plan also includes a block party with some groups from Salt Lake City’s thriving house music scene in attendance, he said.
The Park City councilors said they support the taskforce request to paint the flag on the former gas station building, but the municipal Public Art Advisory Board first has to consider the proposal and take public input. In addition, municipal staffers will need to determine what work is needed on the inside of the building to get it ready for use.
Taskforce members also want to return later in the summer with a broader swath of the community to discuss the possibility of illuminating the McPolin barn or other municipal facilities in rainbow colors in future years and setting up a system to evaluate those requests, Urankar said.