Over the decades I’ve lived in my house, I’ve driven literally hundreds of thousands of miles going back and forth between home and Park City. Live, drive, work, drive, play, and drive. It’s just how rural life works. 

In all of that mileage over all of those years, I had never hit a deer until last week. And boy howdy, did I hit it. 

I know the typical crossing spots. After a while you get to know the deer by name. Yes, they all look alike, but they are different, too. But they are sort of predictable, crossing at a little swale coming off the farm to the river to drink on a fairly regular schedule. 

There have been some close calls, but no contact. The same with the elk herd that is getting displaced by subdivisions in Francis. There have been some slam-on-the-brakes moments there, but avoidable. Paying attention is key.

But it’s all kind of a lottery no matter how careful you are. Apparently every 750,000 miles or so, your number is up. I was on S.R. 248 climbing the hill toward Kamas. There was a big vehicle in the left lane, so I couldn’t see anything to the side except the slab of SUV next to me. 

The deer decided to run across the highway at about noon. It somehow cleared the westbound lane. The SUV next to me braked just enough to notice, but not enough to give me a clear view. The SUV missed it and the deer stepped right in front of me, and that was that.

I wasn’t hurt, and no other vehicles were involved. It could have been worse. A kind woman in a car behind me stopped to make sure I was OK as I sat on the shoulder, also trying to make sure I was OK. 

I called dispatch, who said they don’t deal with deer unless there is something really messing with traffic. The deer died, which is way better than being critically injured, but alive on the shoulder of the busy road. 

The car was a mess, steam blasting out of the radiator, crumbs scattering about. The car is mostly made of Tupperware as best I can tell. All that plastic crumple zone stuff in fact safely crumpled, and while I was fine, the eviscerated Subaru was worse off than the deer. I drove it home, but it was done. 

The insurance company sent out a tow truck, and a local body shop came up with an estimate. When the running total broke $10,000, they quit working on it. Nobody bothered to pry the hood open to see how bad it was inside. It didn’t matter. It was DOA.

What followed was sort of amazing. The accident was at noon on a Thursday. I called my insurance agent mid-afternoon. The claims process came at me like a firehose, largely AI powered but a few helpful humans in there, too. 

All of three business days later, I had the cash in my account. They made an offer so generous on a 10-year-old car with a lot of miles and duct-taped interior that there was no back and forth. They waived the deductible because I had been a loyal customer for so long. Not at all what I was expecting.

While I’m on the hunt for a new car, I’m driving the farm truck. It’s a 20-year old pickup that cost me $135 to fill up on Monday. And again on Thursday. I don’t understand why anybody will drive one of those as their daily ride. Needless to say, I’m staying close to home for the most part. 

For its day, the truck was pretty tricked out. But it doesn’t Bluetooth to anything, the backup camera is a postage stamp, and the transmission is a relic compared to modern trucks. And did I mention 14 mpg? It feels pretty primitive, but it’s getting me where I need to go for now.

Deer collisions are a big deal. Insurance estimates runs up to about $10 billion in vehicle damage and medical costs each year from wildlife collisions. The average deer claim is north of $5,000. 

A Pew Charitable Trust study puts the combined “societal and repair cost” of a typical deer collision at $20,000, and up to $110,000 for a moose collision (which almost always involves medical costs). 

I don’t know how they are estimating the “societal cost.” It obviously is more than the cost of paying the guy with the worst job in the world to drive around a clean up the carcasses. 

There is the aesthetic loss of seeing the moose happy and healthy in the wild, but since we haven’t figured out how to monetize scenic beauty directly, I don’t know what that value is. 

Societal costs would also include things like the extensive fencing going in along local highways to try to reduce wildlife collisions, and even very expensive solutions like the overpass at Parleys Summit. But while I’m skeptical of the larger and more esoteric cost estimates, the actual cost of demolishing a perfectly functional car are very real and very measurable.

Anyway, take it easy out there.  

Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.

The post More Dogs on Main: Not the lottery I wanted to win appeared first on Park Record.

PARK RECORD: Mr. Niño, they say that you’re strengthening, with a greater than 90% chance of becoming “very strong” this fall and winter, and a 69% chance to become a historic event exceeding previous El Niños going back to 1950. Do you care to comment?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Very strong? Very strong? When I climb that turnbuckle and rip off my shirt, everyone will damn well know I’m not “Very Strong El Niño!!!”

By the way, regular El Niño is a disaster. Small. Very small. He makes three inches overnight and everybody loses their minds. No energy. Very little energy.

I am the greatest Niño. Nobody understands Niño better than me.

You think you know precipitation? You don’t know precipitation. Beautiful, magnificent precipitation. The whitest precipitation. Very deep. Very fluffy. The greatest of its kind anywhere that’s ever been precipitated and believe me, this is a Niño they’ve been trying to precipitate for over 75 years. And I will bring it in under budget and ahead of schedule.

In fact, nobody’s ever seen precipitation like this. Tremendous precipitation. Unprecedented. People are saying possibly the greatest precipitation in history. Very respected meteorologists. They come up to me with tears in their eyes.

Sixty-nine percent chance of historic. Sea-surface anomalies above 2 degrees Celsius. Nobody builds anomalies like me. By the way I’m changing that to Fahrenheit. Celsius is for punks.

La Niña? Weak, very weak, very unattractive. Nobody’s bigger or better at Niño than I am.

When I get in here, it will be Super El Niño versus the universe!

Jimmy Superfly Snuka? He’s a chump. Horrible.

Super Tuesday? That’s one day. I’m here all winter. They tried to get me out. But I stayed.

Super Bowl? You need a bowl? I am the entire American Ocean! We changed that, by the way. That was my idea.

Superman? Look at the muscles on this guy. Very hot, very handsome. Put some pants on.

Super moon? Lemme bend over, I got your super moon right here. Unbelievable moon. The biggest moon. It’s so big, it’s so enormous, it’s so amazing.

I’m the world’s greatest weather system. Nobody’s bigger or better at weather than me.

Tremendous weather. Huge.

PARK RECORD: But Mr. Niño, if I may, what about the atmospheric river?

SUPER EL NIÑO: You call that a river? It’s a creek. A sad, little creek. I’ve seen bigger rivers coming off a snowbank in April.

Bomb cyclone? Terrible name. Ridiculous.

Polar vortex? Spins around. Total loser.

And don’t come at me with lake effect snow. You need a lake to make snow? Pathetic. Everyone knows I have an ocean. A big, beautiful ocean.

PARK RECORD: What about the Farmer’s Almanac?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Fake weather. They’ve been very unfair to me. Very wrong.

PARK RECORD: OpenSnow?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Great people. Love OpenSnow. Very smart people. Unless they say I’m going south. In which case, they’re morons.

PARK RECORD: What do you say about the historic snowmaking expansion at Deer Valley?

SUPER EL NIÑO. Those little snow guns? Cute, very cute. I don’t even wait. I grab them by the nozzles. Tiny little nozzles. Very cute. I don’t make snow. I make history.

I am the most powerful climate phenom on the planet.

I will shift the jet stream.

I will alter global weather patterns.

I wi—

PARK RECORD (interrupting): But Mr. Niño, will you snow in Park City?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Quiet, powder piggy.

The post Betty Diaries: Super El Niño at the World Weather Federation Press Conference appeared first on Park Record.

“What Came West” is easily the strangest of five books I’m reading with the early to mid-1800s as backdrop, and the best.

But then I know and admire the author, so maybe I can’t be taken for the definitive voice. The other four stories are acclaimed: A.B. Guthrie’s “The Big Sky” and the Pulitzer-winning “The Way West”; “Fools Crow,” by Blackfeet author James Welch, writing from the tribe’s viewpoint; and “The Indifferent Stars Above,” by Daniel James Brown, the lone nonfiction in this pack about the Donner Party trek that got stuck on the wrong side of the Sierra at just the wrong time.

“What Came West” author Josh Weil will speak next Tuesday, Sept. 15, at Dolly’s on Main Street and Wednesday at The King’s English in Salt Lake City.

In the spring, I got to read an advance copy of the novel published in June. The story shows the West in a fraught period through a hermit trapper, Silas Hall, stretching from his childhood near Pittsburgh, when passenger pigeons still darkened day into dusk in swarms across vast woodland only freckled with farms, to the northern Sierra foothills during the deadly earliest part of the California Gold Rush. 

This story, like all of Weil’s work, is no simple tale. Here’s a writer who discards first, second, sixth, 11th ideas to get to just the right one. He’s a patient miner, with research as well as story nuggets, and it shows in the deep seams of his work.

This plays out most in Silas, a protagonist impossible to like and yet, I suspect, one every reader will wind up loving quite against their will, full up with the tragedy of his murderous soul, understanding why and perhaps even agreeing, if very uncomfortably.

Westerns play out against our knowledge of what happens after the story, and this one ends at the cusp of a gold-fevered horde about to scour the northern Sierra foothills and in a relative instant decimate a surprisingly dense native population that had prospered there for millennia.

Weil wrote the novel in an old camper at the epicenter of the Gold Rush, largely in solitude himself. Silas Hall is only the latest of leading characters in Weil’s work who live much of their lives alone, apart. Silas must, which is part of the tragedy. He cannot withstand the company of other people. He was born this way.

He seems happiest, if never fully happy, by himself in the wild. But his distress at not being able to stand the proximity of other people causes him to seek cures that can’t work, including nearly drowning himself at the bottom of the Ohio River and burning his scalp in desperation. Laudanum makes it all worse.

He finds a measure of solace in sketching, his mastery eventually drawing him west to the Sierra largely through a string of misadventures. A sole romantic encounter with a servant attracted to his illustrations results in a toddler he leaves but can never forget. Half the novel is a long, long letter to his son, now 15 if alive. Parts of this letter alternate with chapters in third-person narrative of a manhunt closing in on him.

The novel offers no diagnosis, but The New York Times goes right there in its book review: “New novel follows an autistic trapper on an odyssey during the California gold rush.” And Weil in the acknowledgments names “Diary of a Young Naturalist,” by Dara McNulty, as helping him the most in his approach to Silas’ neurodivergence.

Death is commonplace in all these books, and most of the killing feels almost nonchalant. Certainly there is grief, too. A.B. Guthrie devotes a chapter in “The Way West” to a boy killed by a rattlesnake bite, which shakes up a whole wagon train. Outside family and closest friends, though, this is just the way of things, especially between Indigenous people and whites. Characters joke laconically about killing and even in several of these books talk about distaste for “man meat” in times of starvation well short of abject horror at the very idea.

“What Came West” has plenty of what I view as casual violence steeped in its times, but also Silas’ horror at killing his food and trapping animals he feels more kinship toward than humans. There’s a schism in his soul here, even in regard to killing people. Though he certainly does. Kill people, that is, and in the end intends to kill as many miners as he possibly can as they come for him.

I’ve read the novel twice, so far. This is my way with all of Weil’s stories. The first read is rapid, to see what happens next. This tale surprised me at every turn, the effect of using the 11th idea rather than the first or second in every instance. And I just had to know — now! — all the way through.

I found the second read at least as worthwhile for sinking into the scenes and better understanding Silas and his way of understanding (and not understanding) his world. Knowing what happens next opened me way more to the why of it all, freed from plot mania.

Weil’s weird take on a Western thrills in the genre’s way and also challenges the classic trope of the lone antihero in strange, occasionally wonderful and ultimately awful ways. This is the hardest of reckonings, not a glimmer of a happy ending here, which inevitably means the story will haunt you long after finishing the last page, however many times you read this book. Beware.

Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at don@swiftcharge.net or 970-376-0745.

The post Journalism Matters: One weird, compelling Western appeared first on Park Record.

At 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, I was sitting in my office in midtown Manhattan, talking on the phone with my dear friend Morty Frank. He was at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

Then the first plane struck.

In the minute that followed, I could hear Morty spring into action, trying to calm the panic around him. Twenty-five years later, that memory remains indelible: my friend, confronted with something terrifying, trying to help the people beside him.

I believe I may have been the last person outside that building to speak with Morty. I cannot know that for certain, but the possibility has stayed with me ever since.

I had attended his wedding the year before. I had met his parents, his sisters and, of course, his wife. Having shared in their happiness, I have carried a small, persistent sense of guilt about being on the other end of that final conversation. It is a difficult feeling to explain, even now.

Five years ago, I wrote in these pages about losing Morty. On this 25th anniversary, I return to his memory with a growing conviction that remembrance carries an obligation.

Living in Park City, I sometimes feel farther removed from that morning by geography than by the years that have passed. The beauty of this place can make the horror of that day seem unimaginable. An entire generation, including my daughter, now knows 9/11 only through photographs, classroom lessons and the recollections of others.

Those of us who remember have a responsibility to help them understand.

Like Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11 deserves an enduring place in our national memory. Each name belongs to a person whose life mattered, whose absence changed a family forever. When we speak of thousands lost, we must still make room for one friend, one marriage, one unfinished life.

We must also remember what that morning revealed about the struggle between freedom and tyranny.

The terrorists who carried out 9/11 served an extremist ideology that claimed religious authority to justify mass murder. That ideology stands in direct opposition to the conviction that every person possesses inherent dignity and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These ideals must endure.

The conflict is fundamental. A free society recognizes our right to worship according to conscience, speak without fear, question authority and choose our leaders. Authoritarian theocracy demands submission to rulers who claim the power to dictate belief and punish dissent. Where such power prevails, individual rights exist only at the pleasure of those who rule.

We should be clear about that distinction. We should be equally clear that no religion or population bears collective guilt for the crimes of terrorists. Freedom of religion belongs among the liberties we are defending, and it belongs to everyone.

Diplomacy requires precision and judgment. It also requires the moral confidence to condemn deliberate cruelty without qualification. The intentional murder of innocent people is evil. Understanding the forces that result in such violence does not diminish the responsibility of those who choose it.

But 9/11 also revealed extraordinary goodness.

First responders entered buildings others were fleeing. People helped injured strangers. The passengers and crew of Flight 93 fought back, preventing their hijackers from reaching their intended target. And on the 101st floor of the North Tower, my friend tried to calm those around him.

Their actions give substance to words such as courage, duty and humanity. They remind us what is worth defending, and what that defense can demand. The words “Let’s roll” still carry the weight of that sacrifice.

Twenty-five years without another attack of the same scale must never persuade us that the ideology behind 9/11 no longer poses a threat. Protecting a free society requires vigilance, capable institutions, cooperation with allies that value freedom and the resolve to confront those who would destroy it.

It also requires fidelity to our own principles. Our Constitution, religious liberty, due process and the right to dissent are essential to the country we are protecting. We must preserve them even when fear makes doing so difficult.

Here in Park City, remembrance can take practical form. We can pause in our schools and public gatherings. We can tell our children about the people whose lives were taken and the choices others made to help. We can honor first responders, service members and families who continue to carry the consequences of that day.

We can also approach our disagreements with a greater sense of proportion. Democracy depends on vigorous debate. It depends, too, on recognizing that our neighbors share a stake in the freedoms that allow us to disagree.

As a council member, I believe communities help sustain that understanding. As Morty’s friend, I feel a more personal duty: to keep his name, his life and his courage from fading into an anniversary.

When I think of 9/11, I return to that phone call. I remember a man whose wedding I had attended, whose family I had met, and whose instinct in a moment of terror was to help.

That is the memory I carry forward.

We owe Morty and everyone taken that day our remembrance. We owe the generations that follow our determination to preserve the freedom and human dignity that were so violently attacked.

Bill Ciraco is a member of the Park City Council.

The post 25 years later, remembrance is a responsibility appeared first on Park Record.

The writer of “More Community or Less?” (Sept. 2) describes the opposition to the Bonanza Park development as a “small, vocal and well-organized group.”

I’d ask him to explain that to the just under 2,500 residents (all of whom are over 18, for the City Council member who claims they’re not) who have signed a physical petition asking the city to reconsider this plan. That is not a fringe element. In a town of roughly 8,500 full-time residents, it is one of the broadest expressions of consensus Park City has produced on any local issue in years. And for some context, you need about half that number of votes to be elected to the City Council in this town.

Organized, yes. Passionate, yes. Marginal, no.

The writer also suggests that opposing this specific project on this specific parcel is really a coded objection to who gets to live in Park City. I would argue that that statement is a coded accusation of racism or discrimination. That is a serious charge to level at thousands of neighbors of different races, creeds and political leanings (the evidence is in the signatures).

PLACE-PC’s position has never been “no affordable housing,” but let’s be realistic, this is not “affordable,” it’s just “price-controlled housing,” qualifying workers from Salt Lake and other surrounding areas can live in these units. It is that this site, a failing intersection, contaminated soil, and a nine-figure public price tag is the wrong place to build 11 high-rise buildings with a couple of postage-stamp green areas encircled within (which are private, I might add). We are saying that the same public dollars could produce more deed-restricted units, faster, at HOPA, while this jewel becomes the welcoming gateway this end of town deserves.

That is not “less city.” It is asking the city to spend its money most efficiently, with the most communal impact. Listen to the locals, build something in character with our town, not a mini-Sugarhouse or Chicago inner city project.

On traffic, the writer calls it “a legitimate concern” and then moves past it in a sentence. I challenge the author to ask anyone who has tried to turn right off Bonanza at 5 p.m., or ask Park City’s own police chief, who has told the council directly in a different discussion that this corridor beyond the intersection can become landlocked during a major incident on 248. Adding a 106-unit development with underground parking to that intersection is not a detail to wave off. It is the reason so many residents, including ones who support more affordable housing, oppose putting this monstrosity here.

Proximity to other parks is not an answer, either. A $17 million investment a quarter mile away doesn’t change what sits at the entrance to town today: a fenced, contaminated, former gas station lot with no public open space of its own. Every other neighborhood in Park City has a gathering place nearby. This one doesn’t, and this is the last publicly owned parcel where that can still be achieved.

I’d invite the writer, and anyone else, to look at the signatures and who is represented: not a marginal group defending its own turf, but a unified community that has done the research and reached a shared conclusion. The choice in front of the council isn’t more community versus less. It’s whether the city listens to the people who elected them, spends their money, and its last 5 acres, where they’ll do this town the most good and have the most positive impact for decades to come.

Kim Irwin-Pack

Park City

The post Bad project, wrong place appeared first on Park Record.

I’m not opposed to Miners Day, mining history or the restaurant tax. I am beginning to question whether Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History has received the scrutiny that should accompany this much public support.

This Historic Mine Route is seven miles, climbs roughly 1,200 feet, reaches about 
8,225 feet and can take four hours. Nothing about safety. 

The financial question is equally straightforward. Park City and Friends requested $300,000 in 2025 restaurant tax funding for the Thaynes Mine project and were recommended $200,000. 

Yet Summit County’s scoring sheet gave the proposal just 5 of 20 points for “Ability to Increase the 1% Restaurant Tax,” with a 60.33 overall average.

Preserving history can be worthwhile. But before another restaurant tax check is written, taxpayers should be able to see who is legally responsible for these structures, why public funds are involved at all. Why are we funding a Batman for failed mining structures when there is a pathway for mine abatement? 

Because I do think people would be opposed to trading out Labor Day for Restaurant Worker Day, and that is a problem. 

Please be safe out there. The miners didn’t quite care about you as much as you glorify them.  

John Berry

Park City

The post Popular, sure appeared first on Park Record.

Your voice matters. Right here in Summit County, our community is growing, and the decisions made at our local government tables impact our daily lives. From Emory to Park City, conservative women have always been the bedrock of our families. Now, it is time to channel that passion into powerful action. We are launching an exciting new chapter for conservative women in our area, and we need your leadership to make it happen.

We are officially forming the local chapter of the Utah Federation of Republican Women and the National Federation of Republican Women, the largest grassroots Republican women’s organization in the country.

By organizing a dedicated club here in Summit County, we are plugging local women directly into a massive national network of political education, leadership training, and campaign support. We want to ensure that Summit County women have a permanent, influential seat at the table.

To officially charter our club and unlock these incredible state and national resources, we need a core group of founding members. To get started, we need just 10 dedicated women to step forward as our charter members to help bring this club to life.  

Think about the impact 10 focused women can make. Ten women can spark a movement, support local candidates who share our values, and bring neighbors together to discuss the future of our schools and economy. You do not need political experience to join us. You only need a love for your community and a desire to see constitutional conservative principles thrive. This is your chance to turn your political beliefs into meaningful local action.

The future of Summit County is being shaped today. Will you be one of the foundational ten who helps us build this community? Ready to make a difference?

Please contact me today at ufrwmail@gmail.com to secure your spot as a founding member!

Lesa Sandberg

Utah Federation of Republican Women President

The post Bedrock of families appeared first on Park Record.

Jay Hamburger’s Sept. 8 Park Record article reports that the Park City Chamber/Bureau has endorsed the controversial Bonanza Park development.

I read the chamber’s arguments and came away wondering: Who exactly is the chamber listening to?

The chamber gets one thing right. Park City needs workforce housing. But needing workforce housing does not automatically make this a good project.

The chamber warns that businesses will suffer without workforce housing and calls repeatedly saying no to development “avoidance.”

I think the real avoidance is refusing to look at the numbers.

The city has already told us what success looks like. Housing Resolution 12 2025 establishes Park City’s current affordable housing framework. The 2025 Moderate Income Housing Plan identifies a gap of 1,190 additional workforce housing units by 2032 and places the median workforce wage at approximately 56 percent of Area Median Income.

So measure the Bonanza Park 5 acres against the city’s own goal.

An analysis of the proposed 106 shows an affordability mix of approximately 35 apartments serving that core workforce income level.

Thirty-five against 1,190.

That is 2.9 percent.

Now look at what taxpayers may be putting on the table for those 35 apartments.

The city has identified anticipated financial participation of up to $40 million in soft money loans. It intends to lease 5 acres of extraordinarily valuable public land for $1 per year for 60 to 99 years. There is also $7.2 million already approved for undergrounding electrical transmission lines, plus soil remediation and the possibility of additional infrastructure and construction costs.

And we still do not know the final number.

Where is the complete financial accounting showing taxpayers what we are contributing, what risks we are assuming and exactly what we receive in return?

The chamber represents business. This should be Business 101.

Hamburger also reports the chamber’s warning that without workforce housing there will be fewer local businesses.

That is particularly tone deaf considering the pressures facing independent businesses, especially on Main Street. Before telling residents this development is necessary to save local businesses, perhaps the chamber should spend more time listening to the businesses already struggling to remain here.

There is also a governance problem the chamber completely ignores.

The city owns the land. The city selected the developer. The City Council authorized the application. The city is advancing the project. Yet the Planning Commission reviews it.

And planning commissioners are appointed by the mayor with the advice and consent of the City Council.

That is an obvious conflict of roles.

Would a private developer receive the same consideration?

We have a recent comparison. In March 2025, the Planning Commission rejected the privately proposed Yarrow redevelopment, a project that included 60 restricted affordable housing units.

Yet now the city’s own development is moving through the process while requesting substantial accommodations.

That contrast deserves scrutiny.

The chamber says the 5-acre project is a test of whether Park City can “say yes.”

I think it is a test of something considerably more important.

Can Park City demand financial transparency, consistent rules and measurable results even when City Hall itself wants the project?

Supporting affordable housing does not require supporting every project containing affordable housing.

Thirty-five apartments against a 1,190-unit workforce housing gap, while potentially committing tens of millions of public dollars and public land for generations, deserves more than an endorsement.

It deserves due diligence.

The chamber should be asking these questions.

Not becoming an echo chamber for the developers.

Timothy Noonan

Prospector

The post An echo chamber appeared first on Park Record.

Wow, what a summer! All of us at Park City Recreation want to say a heartfelt thank you to our community for your patience, flexibility and support throughout the construction of the new PC MARC pools. There was dust, noise, limited parking and access changes that disrupted your daily routines, and we truly appreciate you for being adaptable and understanding.

Beyond the pools opening, what made the summer so special was the people who filled them. It was the smiles, the excitement, the friendships, and the countless moments of play that reminded us why recreation matters so much. Watching our community come together and enjoy these new spaces made every challenge along the way worthwhile.

It is you as the community that brings all our Park City Recreation programs and facilities to life. Whether you joined us for a camp, class, lesson, league, ride, swim or workout, you helped make this a memorable summer.

Thank you for showing up, for being patient, for sharing your enthusiasm, and for making this summer one we will always remember. Your support means more to us than we can say, and we are so grateful to be part of this community. We look forward to many more summers of play, connection, and unforgettable memories together.

Heather Todd

Fitness & Aquatics Division Manager, Park City Municipal Athletic & Recreation Center

The post A heartfelt thank you appeared first on Park Record.

In the brief time I’ve spent serving Park City, I’ve seen how quickly a community can toe the line of division. As I consider what kind of leadership makes a community stronger and helps move it forward, particularly when perspectives don’t align, it’s clear how important it is to choose something different. 

It comes down to respect, action and a commitment to working together — even (especially) when it’s difficult. This is Malena Stevens’ leadership. She has spent years doing work that isn’t always recognized, work that is nothing short of essential to how a community functions. 

Malena is there, she listens, and she does the work to bring people together from different viewpoints — not an easy task in a place like Summit County, where the challenges of growth, affordability and quality of life affect people in very different ways. Malena doesn’t approach leadership as something to win. To her, it’s something to build. 

When Malena offers her help, she means it. She is the person who shows up. I watch how she supports other leaders. She consistently encourages people to step forward, helps them find their voice, and thoughtfully works alongside them to propel ideas into action. 

This mindset matters. Strong communities don’t rely on one person to lead. They rely on many people working together, each contributing in their own way.

That same approach is critical for the role of county clerk. At its core, the Clerk’s Office is about helping the community function, ensuring that elections are accessible and trusted, that processes are clear, and that people can engage with their local government in a meaningful way.

It’s not about visibility. It’s about consistency, clarity, and service. Each quality is innate in Malena, who understands that the work is not about drawing lines between people, but about finding ways to move forward together. 

She has the ability to effortlessly engage with different perspectives, stay grounded in her values, and still find practical paths ahead. In a time when it feels easy to lean into division, we need leaders who are committed to building something better.

Malena Stevens is that kind of leader, and I’m proud to support her for Summit County clerk. 

Molly Miller

Park City

The post Leadership to bring us together appeared first on Park Record.