I read with great interest the candidate forum for County Council Seat E, published online by the Park Record on Oct. 25. While the candidates were asked questions about different issues, I think their individual responses speak volumes about their respective time in the community, their records on community service, and knowledge of the real local issues, or perhaps a lack thereof. I have known Canice Harte for eight years, having worked alongside him for five of those years on some of the most critical issues and projects the county has faced. I know Canice.
I’ll give John “Jack” Murphy a pass on things he just doesn’t know about, due to what seems a lack of time spent actively serving the community, but there is one response I just can’t let slide.
In the section under “Please differentiate yourself from your opponent,” Mr Murphy states, “the starkest difference is I am against the proposed change from commercial to residential for the Tech Center/Dakota Pacific project in Kimball Junction, whereas he wants more density for affordable housing.”
This seems to be more than simply not knowing, and more like a deliberate distortion of the truth.
I know, because I served on Snyderville Basin Planning Commission alongside Canice from the first day the Dakota Pacific project came before us in a work session, when it was illustrated as some sort of mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly, transit oriented utopia where everyone walks their dogs, rides their bikes, and parks their Teslas under shady boulevards, and the solution to all of our traffic woes. I was also there alongside Canice as the bell and whistles and benefits to the community were stripped away, and what was left was an abomination of a housing project with a luxury hotel that created a greater need for workforce housing than the affordable units proposed would satisfy. I was alongside Canice all the way through to the night we both voted AGAINST the land use change that would reintroduce housing as an allowed use under the Tech Park’s existing development agreement.
Mr. Murphy says he based his response on publicly available facts. Canice’s vote AGAINST the land use change is memorialized in meeting minutes and Zoom recordings, and Canice’s comments across multiple public meetings, work sessions, public hearings, and even later speaking as a member of the public against the project when it was before County Council are consistent. He was against the project. You can take it from Mr. Murphy, or you can take it from me.
About that: I have a fairly good memory of all of those public hearings, and make it a practice to write the name in my notes of every member of the public who comments for/against a project during public hearings. I do not ever remember a Jack or John Murphy ever speaking out at a public hearing against Dakota Pacific, but perhaps his comments eluded me.
It seems to be fashionable right now for those running for office to say they are against Dakota Pacific. It’s a layup to score some easy points. I would trust the voice of the candidate, Canice Harte, who actually was there for the duration of the project and actually voted AGAINST it, rather than the candidate who only has shallow talking points and has not previously put his nose out in the wind to oppose it.
I will be voting for my friend and mentor Canice Harte, and I hope you will too.