Team Kind has taken an early lead with the Park City Council primary but remains in reach of Team Mean.

I’m being tongue in cheek, of course. Team Kind hasn’t always been so nice, and Team Mean at least occasionally has shown heart. This is just a handy shorthand for how candidates have positioned themselves, if not precisely in those words.  

Incumbent Councilor Tana Toly looks to me like she has an insurmountable lead, having crossed that magical threshold with 1,080 votes, so mostly I’m interested in who takes that second open council seat.

Diego Zegarra, the other Team Kind member, has nearly as commanding a lead with 969 votes coming out of the turn.

Behind these two is Team Mean’s incumbent Jeremy Rubell, whom the broader Team Kind failed to scare away or fend off, with 648 votes. And Toly mentor/mansplainer John “JK” Kenworthy with 562 votes nosed just ahead of Beth Armstrong’s 538 to make it to the finals, another Team Kind survivor.

There’s time yet to lose or pick up ground since voters who skipped the primary will participate now. Also, the field has condensed from eight to four, a likely advantage for Team Kind, assuming votes in the primary will find like in the general election Nov. 4.

There are no polls at the local level, thankfully, so we have only the dregs from the primary for clues to the probable future.

If this serves as crystal ball, well, it was a promising election indeed for Councilor Ryan Dickey, a champion for Team Kind in his quest to be mayor.

Candidate Jack Rubin is aligned with Rubell and Kenworthy. What has been a rogue majority on the City Council that slipped outside Mayor Nann Worel’s control these past couple of years would be memorialized with Rubin and either Rubell or Kenworthy winning. There’s one direction for the council.

Another direction would be if Toly and Zegarra hold their leads and Dickey wins the mayor’s seat. That looks the most likely.

Another possibility arises if Dickey wins the race for mayor and Rubell or Kenworthy win a council seat.

If Dickey wins, then he would resign his council seat and the next council would decide on his replacement and thereby the city’s direction.

That means the two winners in the general election would join Councilors Bill Ciraco and Ed Parigian, who tend to vote alike, in deciding who would fill Dickey’s seat for the next two years.

If those two are Toly and Zegarra, it’s likely that Dickey would cast the deciding vote to add someone from Team Kind.

If Rubell or Kenworthy, or both, were to win, Dickey wouldn’t get the chance to vote. If so, Team Mean would no doubt score another friendly for a more dominating majority.

The joker in the deck here is crucial. The next mayor and council will hire the next city manager with Matt Dias’ departure. City managers affect the city’ governance over time a lot more than mayors and councils. Mayors and councilors tend to come and go, after all. A city manager is forever. Or at least relatively so.

That means this election has even more at stake for the (still) little ski town. The distinct choices for mayor and those council seats will mean everything for the day-to-day as well as the overall direction of the city government.

An interesting backdrop is the latest community survey results reflecting a community doubting city government while paradoxically loving the quality of life the city has a big hand in providing. If so, it’s funny that one incumbent has what looks like an insurmountable lead and the other in the race performed solidly enough to continue through the primary. They both could win back their seats and the council remain just the same as before, only with a new mayor.

Or maybe, given their differences, it’s just another sign the community is divided and the council simply reflects that.

The deputy city managers are brand new following the departures of their predecessors, the city manager is leaving, the mayor is quitting city politics altogether. Main Street is sinking, Bonanza Park languishing, Snow Park’s progress delayed, Sundance and the Kimball Art Center gone, and the 2034 Games already loom uncomfortably, at least for some.

I wonder if it’s really so much that residents question the city government’s direction as it needs to settle on one. And that’s really what this election is about.

Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at [email protected] or (970) 376-0745.