Election season has started again. It’s time to get to know your candidates. If we exclude the 99 people running for Park City Council, there is a reasonable number of local candidates to learn about. And yes, you should put in the time to learn about your candidates.
The kneejerk reaction in our country right now is to avoid thinking and learning and to vote for ideology: Team MAGA or Team Pissed Off and Blue. Yet local politics are non-partisan and really do rely on folks who are not ideologues, who run for election to serve the entire community, and will act in all of our best interests.
The tendency to identify with either national political party is so strong, it was the subject of a recent column by Don Rogers, the editor of The Park Record. But even in the middle of that editorial on July 6 arguing for a reasoned review of candidates, Mr. Rogers couldn’t resist a partisan dig when he wrote, “Dickey’s rival for mayor is Jack Rubin, who ran in 2018 for the state Legislature as a Republican. So there’s that.”
Jack Rubin and Ryan Dickey, the two candidates for Park City Mayor, are both capable people who want to serve Park City. I honestly don’t care which party they belong to, and neither should you. We should be asking four key questions of them: 1) What’s your vision for Park City and the surrounding area? 2) What’s your platform? Be specific. 3) Who do you want to work with who is already at the table? 4) Who will you bring to the table who isn’t there already?
If we can keep partisan politics out of our local races, avoid ideologies, and put in the time to learn about our candidates, our elections will have more informed voting and better representation for all.
Eileen Gallagher
Park City