Park City School Board President Meredith Reed is setting her sights on a different elected office in 2026: the Summit County Council.
“The throughline of my professional life and my volunteer life has been about service and the best way to serve a community,” Reed said. “I feel strongly that our system works best and our community is served best when we have good discussions among candidates and have good candidates running.”
Reed is originally from North Carolina, and she started her career working as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve overseas to help injured service members and support military families struggling with the injury or death of a loved one.
“I came from a place of wanting to be connected and being able to support people through really challenging and terrible, difficult times,” Reed said. “From there, I went to work for the government, supporting veterans, military families, Wounded Warrior programs and helping local communities figure out the best way they could serve those families and those injured service members who were coming back to live in those communities.”
It was also the first opportunity for Reed to become involved in policy decisions, and she went on to sit on national boards with the Military Officers Association of America in addition to becoming a lobbyist.
The family first moved to Utah in 2009 because Reed’s husband, who was actively enlisted in the military, was assigned to an office in West Valley City. They decided to purchase a house in Park City, but they were only stationed in the Salt Lake City area for two years.
“I said, ‘Well, we need to buy a house here because I want to know that we’re coming back,’” Reed laughed. “We were here from 2009 to 2011, but we kept our house. We were gone for six years and went to Belgium and then back to D.C., but we came back for my husband’s last assignment in 2017, so in total, we’ve been here for over 10 years.”
Reed ventured into local politics in 2022 when she successfully launched a bid for a seat on the Park City Board of Education. Since then, she’s had to navigate a tumultuous period for the school board, including the departure of former Superintendent Jill Gildea, the elimination of the COO position and a large expansion of the Park City High School campus.
Over the past year, Reed has specifically served as the school board’s president. In that role, she helped to select Superintendent Lyndsay Huntsman as Gildea’s successor and has worked with new board members to increase transparency and trust between the board and the Park City community.
Reed said her biggest takeaway from her four years on the Board of Education has been the importance of strong leadership.
“Having people who are led by their concern for what is best for our community can really make a huge impact,” Reed said. “Having those values and that alignment and being able to see the amazing impact it’s had on our organization and to our community from that experience has been so valuable.”
Reed is seeking to represent District 5, which encompasses pieces of Pinebrook and the Jeremy Ranch area. She will face off against incumbent Summit County Councilor Canice Harte, who recently announced his plans to seek reelection in 2026.
“We need to balance the competing needs and interest in our community with preserving the natural, open space that we all enjoy and love as part of the character and quality of this community,” Reed said of her priorities if elected. “These are complex, nuanced challenges, and we’ve got to do our part with other municipalities, other local governments, other community organizations. It’s very involved and important work to think about the future, what we want to see and figuring out how we shape it.”
She also mentioned transportation infrastructure and affordable housing as two key issues she expects the County Council to face over the next four years.
“There are so many of us who live here now who would not have been able to live here if we showed up today with our bags and said, ‘This place is great. I want to live here,’” Reed said. “We would be completely out of luck.”
Reed said she’s seen the effect of Summit County’s high cost of living firsthand, pointing to declining enrollment numbers in the Park City School District. She additionally spoke on the growing number of commuters along the Wasatch Back, which she said impacts both the local economy and congestion.
“If we want to address the traffic issues, then that means we have to have people living here,” Reed said. “I want people who care about this community to be a part of it as well instead of commuting in and out. … I don’t want my law enforcement folks to have to live an hour away from here, and then they can’t help out or take extra shifts or do other things that are part of being in a community, like becoming organically connected through your social life.”
Reed encouraged voters with questions about her campaign to reach out to her for further discussion. She said she also plans to hold meet-and-greet events with constituents as the election season goes on.
More information on Reed and her campaign is also available online by visiting reedforsummitcounty.com.