Some voters might not have liked Mayor Andy Beerman’s efforts to secure open space.
Others may have questioned his environmental work at City Hall.
And there are other issues that may have led to his loss on Election Day, the outgoing mayor conceded in an interview in the final days of his term.
Beerman in the interview offered some of his most extensive public comments about the loss in the nearly two months since Mayor-elect Nann Worel routed him on Election Day.
Beerman spent 10 years in elected office, first as a member of the City Council and then the four years as the mayor. He described that a stretch that long provides fodder for a range of critics.
“I was in office a long time and we got a lot done. … If you look at that, there’s something in there for everyone to dislike,” he said.
He acknowledged some of the issues that he sees as the accomplishments of his public service drew disdain from others in Park City. Beerman pointed to City Hall’s $64 million acquisition of the Treasure acreage overlooking Old Town in a conservation deal as one of the examples. The deal was primarily funded through a successful ballot measure in 2018.
“There are people that hate me because of Treasure Hill. They believe that was the wrong move for the community, so some of the folks that were very critical when I ran for my second time as mayor were still mad about that bond and open space purchase,” he said.
He listed other issues that he stressed as mayor as also influencing the results on Election Day.
“Some people don’t like the climate work. Some people don’t like the housing. Some people don’t like transportation. At the very same time we got a lot done in the community, that not everybody agrees with those priorities. And so you accumulate enemies or you accumulate people that hold things against you over time. And I think I was working against that,” he said.
He also said former political opponents who were “upset to have lost … came out and worked against me this election. You sort of accumulate people that have issues over time.”
Beerman campaigned for the mayor’s office three times, losing in 2013 before the successful 2017 bid and then the defeat in 2021. His term in office was marked by the acquisition of Treasure, the municipal response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the creation of polarizing social justice murals on the Main Street asphalt and the efforts to hold a second Winter Olympics in the state.
Beerman seemed to enjoy widespread popularity early in his term after having won the office against a former three-term mayor and then playing a key role in negotiating the Treasure acquisition. But critics later began to question City Hall’s social equity work and whether the municipal government was properly managing growth, traffic and relations with outside governments. The controversy centered on the creation of the social justice murals on Main Street, including a large one with a Black Lives Matter message, in the summer of 2020 stretched into the campaign season more than a year afterward.
He said the community concern was likely intensified since some of the issues are national or international in scope. Those sorts of issues cannot be solved by City Hall, Beerman said.
“I think there’s a lot of frustration out there and in some cases probably anger. And unfortunately I think a lot of it has to do with trends that are macro trends, meaning affordable housing is an issue nationwide, over-tourism is an issue in every resort town across the world right now. The pandemic was a worldwide challenge and those are things we can’t fix on a local level, but I think we were held accountable for it,” he said. “That makes it a challenging time and I ran into a lot of that hearing from folks — things they wanted addressed were things that weren’t in my authority or even influence as mayor.”