Two local businesses in Francis have reopened exactly one year after a fire burned a building on Spring Hollow Road to the ground.

“We’ve been so busy, so it hasn’t really hit, but it is a weird, surreal feeling that we’re finally open,” said Sydney Thompson. “We decided a month ago that we were just going to get it done. We were like, ‘How cool would it be to reopen on the anniversary of the fire?’ So it’s been a marathon.”

Thompson and her stepmother, Raychel Hatch, run the Farmhouse at Spring Hollow, a small boutique selling home decor, jewelry, gifts and food. Thompson is also a florist and works out of the space to create arrangements, often using flowers Hatch grows in the garden.

“I’ve been working out of my home, and we have a cold food storage area behind our house in a little shed that we converted into a flower cooler,” Thompson said. “It’s a small house, so it’s been a little hectic, but it’ll be good to get back in the swing of things.”

The structure was rebuilt by the end of February, but it took the family a few months to coordinate with Rocky Mountain Power to restore utilities on the property. But the family hit the ground running to finish construction and renovations as soon as they had power again, and their efforts culminated in a grand reopening ceremony over the weekend.

Hatch estimated the reopening, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, drew “hundreds of people” based on the number of free ice cream cones the family gave away as part of the event.

“My favorite part is connecting with the community,” Hatch said. “I love all the different people who come in, and I meet so many people, so that’s what I’ve been looking forward to as we reopen. It’s been good so far.”

The boutique isn’t the only business at the Spring Hollow Road address, though.

Dustin Hatch, Thompson’s dad and Raychel’s husband, owns and operates Frontier Woodworks in a separate part of the building behind his daughter’s store. The company has been a staple in the Francis community since 1995, with Dustin specializing in handcrafted doors and millwork.

The family also isn’t quite done with the project, even with the boutique’s opening last week. Thompson is working on building a floral studio next door to the store, which she estimated would take three to four more months to complete.

“I like being a florist because it’s easygoing,” Thompson said. “I get to make beautiful things, and I’m definitely more on the creative side, so it’s fun for me to express myself through flowers.”

The structure housing Frontier Woodworks and the Farmhouse at Spring Hollow burned down last July, with Dustin estimating a $2 million loss between the damaged building and woodworking equipment.

It wasn’t the first time the building had been destroyed in a fire, either. Dustin previously said the situation felt familiar because of a similar incident in 2005, although his woodworking company was much smaller at the time.

“I was deeply in debt,” he said. “It literally has taken me probably 18 years to recover from that, between being in debt for all the equipment that I had purchased, since it was still fairly new and only 4 to 5 years old and annihilated in the fire, and then having to get more equipment on top of that. It was just a huge amount of stress, but we made it through.”

The fire last summer wasn’t quite as difficult financially for Dustin, who had already paid off most of his equipment-related debt. He said he was grateful for that scenario because it’s almost impossible for insurance companies to fully cover woodworking shops, which are considered too high risk.

For example, Dustin said he tried to run a fire suppression line into the main shop to hook up sprinklers in case of a fire, but his insurance company told him they wouldn’t cover any damages if he were to do so.

“The guy said, ‘Well, if one machine goes bad and sets off the sprinkler systems, it’s now ruined $1 million worth of equipment, and we don’t want to take that risk,’” Dustin said. “So then it’s like, OK, what do you do? What’s the answer?”

The local Summit County community, especially in Francis, was an enormous help to the family after the fire. They cleared the debris themselves with help from friends and residents who had heard about the damage. An online fundraiser raised $48,670 for the family, and Summit County Fair attendees last summer passed around a hat to collect cash donations at the rodeo.

“Through all the bad, there’s a lot of good,” Dustin said. “My faith in humanity has grown exponentially with just the goodness of people in the community, outside the community, people that don’t even like me who are like, ‘Come here and give me a hug.’ … It really has renewed my faith in the goodness of people in a time where all you hear is bad about a lot of stuff, which just goes to show you can disagree on things and still care for one another.”

Information on Frontier Woodworks is available by visiting frontierwoodworks.org.

The Farmhouse at Spring Hollow is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. The address is 2284 S. Spring Hollow Road in Francis.

The post Francis businesses reopen exactly one year after devastating fire appeared first on Park Record.

A judge dismissed separate lawsuits accusing the Francis City Council and South Summit Fire District of violating the state’s Open and Public Meetings Act, which requires municipalities and government agencies to conduct business in public with ample notice for residents interested in attending or speaking on agenda items.

Utah Defenders of Open Government, which describes itself online as a watchdog group dedicated to increasing government transparency, submitted two complaints to Third District Court in May.

The lawsuits claimed the Francis City Council and South Summit Fire District held meetings in February and December, respectively, without giving the necessary 24-hour notice required by state law. The South Summit complaint also alleged that the agency did not upload an audio recording of the meeting within three days in accordance with state law.

The watchdog organization requested Third District Judge Richard Mrazik declare the meetings in question illegal and compel the government agencies to comply with state law.

However, Mrazik last month sided with the City Council and Fire District after they separately filed motions to dismiss their respective cases. The two agencies relied on similar arguments in their motions, telling the judge that Utah Defenders of Open Government failed to note how the late notices had affected the organization.

“Notably absent from the complaint is any allegation that UDOG intended to attend either meeting … or was otherwise affected by the alleged notice deficiencies,” the Francis City Council’s motion said. “Nor does UDOG allege that any discussion, decision or action taken during either meeting affected UDOG in any way.”

The South Summit Fire District’s motion to dismiss also remarked on 30 other lawsuits filed by Utah Defenders of Open Government since April and questioned the validity of the group’s complaints.

“The Fire District believes that most, if not all, of those lawsuits are just like this one — an attempt to be paid attorneys’ fees by alleging technical defects in the public notice of meetings that UDOG never had any desire to attend and that did not result in any decisions that affected UDOG,” the court document said.

The motions claimed the watchdog group lacked standing to file the complaints in Third District Court without citing specific grievances and asked Mrazik to throw out the cases. He complied and filed orders to dismiss both lawsuits last month, although he did not provide details on the reasoning behind his decisions in the court orders.

The post Judge dismisses government watchdog lawsuits filed against Francis City Council, South Summit Fire District appeared first on Park Record.

A government watchdog and media organization has filed separate lawsuits against the Francis City Council and South Summit Fire District for allegedly violating the state’s Open and Public Meetings Act, which requires municipalities and government agencies to conduct business in public with ample notice for residents interested in attending or speaking.

Utah Defenders of Open Government, which describes itself online as a group dedicated to increasing government transparency, submitted two complaints to Third District Court last week.

The lawsuit naming the Francis City Council was based on two meetings held the week of Feb. 23, which were not publicly announced at least 24 hours before the meeting started as required by state law. The lawsuit claimed the location of the meetings, agenda items and other key information about the purpose were not available in advance.

The filing questioned the validity of any decisions made during the two meetings because of the alleged Open and Public Meetings Act violation. The watchdog group requested Third District Judge Richard Mrazik declare the meetings illegal and compel the Francis City Council to comply with state law, as well as award attorney fees.

It is not clear if the City Council would need to vacate specific decisions made during the February meetings or how those agenda items would be rectified if the judge declared the meetings invalid.

The state has a public notices website to display a list of all open meetings in Utah. Local governments are required to post notices and agendas on the website in addition to advertising meetings in at least three other public places, such as a local media outlet or the door of City Hall.

The two Francis incidents appear to be a City Council meeting scheduled for 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 26 and a joint session between the City Council and the Francis City Planning Commission at 6 p.m. the same day. The notices and agendas are currently available on the website, but the information was not uploaded until 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 26 — approximately 8 hours before the meetings started.

Utah Defenders of Open Government filed a similar lawsuit against the South Summit Fire District, alleging the district held a meeting on Dec. 17, 2025, without the necessary 24-hour notice. It also claimed the Fire District failed to create and provide an audio recording of the meeting to the public within three days, as state law requires.

The complaint alleged that a closed meeting held on the same day also violated the Open and Public Meetings Act because it was improperly noticed, which means the conversation should have happened in an open meeting.

The state’s public notices website indicated the South Summit Fire District posted the agenda for the meeting around 8:15 a.m. on Dec. 17, 10 hours before the meeting started.

The watchdog organization requested Mrazik declare the South Summit Fire District meeting illegal, too, as well as order the public release of the closed meeting’s recording and official minutes.

A spokesperson for the South Summit Fire District said he was unaware of the filing Monday afternoon. Francis City Mayor Jeremie Forman declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing ongoing litigation.

The post Government watchdog group sues South Summit Fire, Francis City Council for alleged open meeting violations appeared first on Park Record.

A group of Francis residents who sued the city over its decision to greenlight a Best Western hotel on the corner of S.R. 32 and Lambert Lane is now requesting that a judge issue a decision on the case as it approaches the first anniversary of its filing.

The lawsuit focused on the hotel’s proximity to residential neighborhoods in addition to the development’s potential effect on wetlands in the area. The complaint claimed Harwood Development LLC, the company spearheading the hotel’s construction, placed the hotel next to The Village at Lambert Lane, a nearby subdivision, even though the company owned 10 acres of land and could have distanced the hotel from existing homes.

“There are also multiple wetlands on or next to the proposed development, but Harwood did not submit any of the required application materials for environmentally sensitive lands,” the complaint said.

The plaintiffs also alleged that the Francis City Council purposefully opted not to follow city code, which prohibited “late-night facilities” from being located near residential areas.

However, Francis city planner Katie Henneuse repeatedly told the City Council that the code was too vague to enforce because it did not include any specifics, such as explicit, measurable descriptions of the distance a 24-hour business needs to be from a neighborhood. She said denying the hotel’s conditional use permit because of the late-night facilities stipulation would likely trigger a lawsuit.

“In making its decision, the City Council openly stated it would not follow the Code’s requirement that late night facilities be located away from residential areas because it believed Harwood would sue the City,” the complaint said. “In addition, the City Council never considered requiring Harwood to move the hotel to mitigate its substantial negative effects on the surrounding neighborhoods.”

The lawsuit said the City Council “illegally ignored” the code relating to late-night facilities and failed to follow city procedure regarding developments on sensitive environmental lands. It also claimed the City Council “failed to impose reasonable mitigating conditions for the proposed hotel” despite its issuance of a conditional use permit.

“The City Council never considered moving the hotel to a different part of the 9.92-acre parcel,” court documents said. “The single most impactful thing the City Council could have (and should have) considered in mitigating the hotel’s harmful effects was to require Harwood to place the hotel on the eastern boundary next to State Route 32. … None of the City Council’s adopted conditions could counteract ‘the reasonably anticipated detrimental effects’ of the hotel’s 24-hour noise, light and customers.”

The plaintiffs requested Third District Judge Richard Mrazik reverse the hotel’s conditional use permit as part of a summary judgment, which is a court ruling issued before a case heads to trial. 

Mrazik had not published an order on the case as of Tuesday afternoon, and there are currently no hearings scheduled.

The post Francis residents ask judge to decide Best Western’s future in legal proceedings appeared first on Park Record.

State lawmakers last week passed a bill that appears to force Francis to accept a four-story hotel in its town center despite the City Council’s previous decision to codify a three-story limit.

Senate Bill 284 was sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Fillmore of Salt Lake County and Rep. Jill Koford of Weber County. The legislation focused on general laws relating to local land use, but a modified version of the bill contained language requiring Francis to allow certain four-story developments.

The last day of the general session was Friday, and it was unclear that morning whether the bill, which was being held in committee, would pass by the end of the day.

But lawmakers proposed another modified version of the bill shortly after 9 p.m, and the updated legislation quickly passed the state House in a 61-7 vote. The state Senate similarly passed the bill in a 24-3 vote around 11:45 p.m. — 15 minutes before the 2026 general session ended.

Gov. Spencer Cox has not yet signed the bill into law, but it is scheduled to go into effect on May 6, assuming it is not vetoed.

The bill stated a municipality may regulate the number of habitable stories a structure may contain, as well as its overall height. However, it also specifically said that if a land use application for a “commercial lodging structure” was approved before Sept. 1, 2025, then “the land use authority may not limit the number of above-ground habitable stories the land use applicant builds within the maximum overall height that the land use authority approved for the structure.”

“It sure seems to be narrowly tailored to include the Francis situation, specifically the hotel that is being built in the town center,” said Francis City Planning Commission Vice Chair Rich Christiansen in an interview with The Park Record last week. “What the language of the bill appears to do is make it so that, as a city, Francis is unable to regulate the number of stories in that structure and shifts any regulation of that to the state.”

The Francis City Council previously approved changing its maximum allowable building height in the town center from 40 feet to 45 feet, which is tall enough to accommodate a fourth story. However, the City Council passed a three-story ordinance after a months-long back and forth among the Planning Commission, city councilors and developers regarding the aesthetics of the hotel, Christiansen said.

“We didn’t want a situation where we had four-story buildings with flat rooflines and rather ugly profiles,” he said. “We’re trying to make Francis a beautiful city, a place where people want to be, and this kind of thing shifts that ability from the citizens of Francis to control how their city develops and pushes it to people in the state who frankly probably don’t care how Francis develops.”

Christiansen said the situation is also frustrating because the city increased its maximum building height to encourage developers to make interesting architectural choices. The 45-foot allowance should let developers build three-story structures with sloped roofs and unique features, but that isn’t physically feasible with a fourth story included.

“Once you put in that fourth story, you’re eliminating that benefit completely,” Christiansen said. “If you look at the difference between places that are well-developed versus not, it seems like the beauty of structures and their design features play a big part, so we want to push Francis in that direction. We don’t want to become a shoebox exurb of any other city. We want to create a city that on its own stands as something beautiful and worth visiting and worth living in.”

Christiansen said Francis has a population of around 1,800 people, which is why the bill took him and other city officials by surprise.

“That’s not a significant voting bloc for anybody outside the city of Francis,” he said.

Christiansen said it was also concerning to him that the Legislature’s trend of codifying controversial developments at the state level is now affecting the Wasatch Back’s smaller municipalities.

“This seems to be a continuation of the state’s politics, with respect to the Dakota Pacific development over in Park City,” he said. “It seems like this trend may continue. I’m hearing some noise that similar pressures are being applied to a development in Browns Canyon, so it seems to be increasingly the case that the state is intermingling themselves with what should be purely local matters.”

Rusty Webster, the developer spearheading the hotel slated for construction on the corner of S.R. 35 and Spring Hollow Road, initially presented plans for a four-story building with commercial space for retail businesses and restaurants in addition to the actual hotel, dubbed The Stonewright, in early 2025.

Developers at the time hoped the City Council would approve a proposed ordinance increasing the maximum allowed number of stories in the town center from three to four, but councilors were ultimately against the change.

Webster said the decision wouldn’t affect his team’s proposal because they had a backup plan — a three-story building with the fourth story converted into an attic instead of another floor for hotel rooms.

But councilors said they were worried the building wasn’t actually a three-story structure when developers appeared before the City Council with their revisions. The updated plans showed balconies on the fourth floor, and the interior plan showed walls and doors, similar to the lower floors intended for hotel rooms. The City Council denied the design in a 3-2 vote and asked developers to return with new blueprints at a later date.

Webster then submitted another proposal showing he had removed the attic balconies and non-structural interior walls and added shutters over the attic windows. The developer’s legal counsel also sent a memo to the City Council outlining the definition of an attic and claiming the three-story limitation “does not apply to the attic” or the rooftop deck.

But the City Council wasn’t convinced and denied the architectural plans for a second time, spurring Webster’s decision to file a lawsuit in July. The city and the development team engaged in an informal mediation as part of the litigation, and the intermediary involved in the case subsequently issued an informal opinion siding with Webster.

The City Council approved the architectural design for a three-story hotel with an attic in return for the lawsuit’s dismissal. However, councilors were clear that they still disagreed with the building’s design and said they believed the developer was no longer considering the town’s residents when making decisions or working with the City Council “in good faith.”

The post Bill passes in last moments of legislative session that forces Francis to allow four-story hotel appeared first on Park Record.

State lawmakers may force Francis to accept a four-story hotel in its town center despite the City Council’s decision to codify a three-story limit last year.

Senate Bill 284 is sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Fillmore of Salt Lake County and Rep. Jill Koford of Weber County. The legislation focuses on general laws relating to local land use, but the latest version of the bill also includes language that would require Francis to allow certain four-story developments. The legislative session was scheduled to end at midnight Friday, and it was unclear Friday morning whether the bill would pass.

The proposed bill states a municipality may regulate the number of habitable stories a structure may contain, as well as its overall height. However, it also specifically says that if a land use application for a “commercial lodging structure” was approved before Sept. 1, 2025, then the city “shall allow the land use applicant to build as many habitable stories within the approved structure as permitted under the State Construction Code.”

“It sure seems to be narrowly tailored to include the Francis situation, specifically the hotel that is being built in the town center,” said Francis City Planning Commission Vice Chair Rich Christiansen. “What the language of the bill appears to do is make it so that, as a city, Francis is unable to regulate the number of stories in that structure and shifts any regulation of that to the state.”

The City Council passed the three-story ordinance after a monthslong back-and-forth between the Planning Commission, city councilors and developers regarding the aesthetics of the hotel, Christiansen said.

“We didn’t want a situation where we had four-story buildings with flat rooflines and rather ugly profiles,” he said. “We’re trying to make Francis a beautiful city, a place where people want to be, and this kind of thing shifts that ability from the citizens of Francis to control how their city develops and pushes it to people in the state who, frankly, probably don’t care how Francis develops.”

Christiansen said Francis has a population of around 1,800 people, which is why the proposed bill took him and other city officials by surprise.

“That’s not a significant voting bloc for anybody outside the city of Francis,” Christiansen said.

He said the situation is also frustrating because the city increased its maximum building height from 40 feet to 45 feet to encourage developers to make interesting architectural choices. The 45-foot allowance should let developers build three-story structures with sloped roofs and unique features, but that isn’t physically feasible with a fourth story.

“Once you put in that fourth story, you’re eliminating that benefit completely,” Christiansen said. “If you look at the difference between places that are well-developed versus not, it seems like the beauty of structures and their design features play a big part, so we want to push Francis in that direction. We don’t want to become a shoebox exburb of any other city. We want to create a city that, on its own, stands as something beautiful and worth visiting and worth living in.”

Christiansen said it was also concerning to him that the Legislature’s trend of codifying controversial developments at the state level is now affecting the Wasatch Back’s smaller municipalities.

“This seems to be a continuation of the state’s politics, with respect to the Dakota Pacific development over in Park City,” he said. “It seems like this trend may continue. I’m hearing some noise that similar pressures are being applied to a development in Browns Canyon, so it seems to be increasingly the case that the state is intermingling themselves with what should be purely local matters.”

Rusty Webster, the developer spearheading the hotel slated for construction on the corner of S.R. 35 and Spring Hollow Road, initially presented plans for a four-story building with commercial space for retail businesses and restaurants in addition to the actual hotel, dubbed The Stonewright, in early 2025. 

Developers at the time hoped the City Council would approve a proposed ordinance increasing the maximum allowed number of stories in the town center from three to four, but councilors were ultimately against the change and declined to adopt the ordinance in a 3-1 vote.

Webster and his team said the decision wouldn’t affect their proposal because they had a backup plan — a three-story building with the fourth story converted into an attic instead of another floor for hotel rooms.

But councilors said they were worried the building wasn’t actually a three-story structure when developers appeared before the City Council with their revisions in April. The updated plans showed balconies on the fourth floor, and the interior plan showed walls and doors, similar to the lower floors intended for hotel rooms. The City Council denied the design in a 3-2 vote and asked developers to return with new blueprints at a later date.

Webster then submitted another proposal to the City Council in June showing he had removed the attic balconies and non-structural interior walls and added shutters over the attic windows. The developer’s legal counsel additionally sent a memo to the City Council outlining the definition of an attic and claiming the three-story limitation “does not apply to the attic” or the rooftop deck.

But the City Council wasn’t convinced and denied the architectural plans for a second time in another 3-2 vote, spurring Webster’s decision to file a lawsuit in July. The city and the development team engaged in an informal mediation as part of the litigation, and the intermediary involved in the case subsequently issued an informal opinion siding with Webster.

The City Council approved the architectural designs in August for a three-story hotel with an attic in return for the lawsuit’s dismissal. However, councilors were clear that they still disagreed with the building’s design and said they believed the developer was no longer considering the town’s residents when making decisions or working with the City Council “in good faith.”

“We’re not trying to be stubborn. We told you what we wanted, and I think we all know what was presented,” Francis City Councilor Clint Summers said to Webster at the time of the vote.

City Councilor Sam Hunter said he voted to approve the architectural plans to save the city and its taxpayers from dealing with the financial repercussions of fighting the developers in court, but he similarly criticized Webster for how his team handled conversations with the city.

“I do not like the outcome,” he said. “They’re forcing a four-story building down our throats. … I feel it’s our duty as council people to do what’s best for the city. To keep denying this, forcing us into a lawsuit, ultimately, the state Legislature will probably side against us, and it’s going to cost the city money needlessly.”

The 2026 general session ends Friday at midnight. If the bill were to pass, it would go into effect on May 6.

The post State lawmakers may force Francis to allow a four-story hotel despite local ordinance appeared first on Park Record.

Francis City Mayor Jeremie Forman lives half a mile away from the house where he grew up — and he doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

His family moved to Francis from Draper in 1989 when Forman was in elementary school. He’s been in the area ever since, working for the Summit County Sheriff’s Office as the head of its K-9 unit before transitioning to Mounted Patrol, a specialized group of deputies and volunteers on horseback who typically assist in search and rescue operations.

Francis residents likely recognize Forman’s name for another reason, though — his almost 15 years of political service.

“I had someone say to me years ago, and I’ve tried to live by this since then, that everybody’s always saying, ‘Somebody should do something. Somebody should fix that.’ If somebody should do something, maybe that somebody should be you,” Forman said.

Forman has served as the city’s mayor for three years, obtaining the position by appointment after his predecessor, Jan Brussel, moved away and resigned. Prior to that, Forman had approximately 12 years of experience on the Francis City Council.

“I’ve basically given my entire life to public service whether it’s at the city level or the county level,” Forman said. “It’s who I am and what I do. … I see it more as a role of service, not something that makes you important or anything like that. It’s more that you’re the guy who’s willing to go out there and do some work for the people because it’s really about the people and the city itself, not about me.”

Forman is running for a second mayoral term this year, although he said it may be his last stint in local politics. He said he opposes career politicians and recognizes that with 15 years of experience under his belt, it may be time to step aside in the future. Right now, though, Forman said there are a few things he wants to see through before leaving office, namely the city’s continuing commercial development.

“We have some commercial projects coming online, and I think it’s change and it’s difficult for the city, especially for those of us who have been here for a long time, but also the impact that those projects are going to have long term for the city are huge,” Forman said.

The most notable projects within city limits lately have been the two proposed hotels, one of which includes space for other commercial businesses and drive-thru restaurants.

“Having that commercial base becomes super important because now people who are coming through here are going to leave a little bit of their money here,” Forman explained. “That will help us with some of that impact that’s created, and then we can maintain and build our infrastructure without it being solely on the backs of the residents. A thriving city needs to have some commercial base, and we’re reaching those goals.”

Forman said he also wants to focus on attainable housing if he’s re-elected, hoping to make a dent in the state’s and Summit County’s housing shortages by providing solutions for local families who want to stay in Francis despite the ever-increasing cost of living.

“We want our kids to be able to stay here,” he said. “We want our families to be close and to be able to live here, and the only way we can do that is if we work toward providing some attainable solutions in the housing market.”

He added that he doesn’t view the creation of affordable housing as solely a city responsibility, but he acknowledged that the city often needs to be involved in discussions with developers and other stakeholders in order to encourage housing construction while still advocating for open spaces and the community’s rural environment.

“I don’t have all the answers, and there are some really smart folks out there who might come to the table with ideas and solutions that we’ve never considered or thought about,” Forman said. “Maybe they’re good, maybe they’re not, but I think you’ve got to be willing to hear those ideas and look at what those solutions might be.”

Forman said he would love it if Francis “didn’t change one bit,” but he understands that’s not the reality the Kamas Valley is facing. For that reason, he said he’s always open to discussing potential projects with developers, community members and anyone else interested in the city’s growth, although it doesn’t mean he’ll be on board with every proposal.

“This is my home, and it’s been my home for a long, long time,” Forman said. “I don’t think you’ll find anyone who cares more about what happens here and what this city will become than me. I’ve basically devoted my entire life to public service, and I’ve always been the guy that you can count on. If someone calls and needs something, I’m there, whatever the occasion may be.”

Forman is competing with Byron Ames, who served as mayor from 2018-22, for the city’s top seat. They will both appear on the general election ballot on Nov. 4.

The post Francis City Mayor Jeremie Forman campaigns for second term appeared first on Park Record.

Byron Ames isn’t a new name for Francis City residents.

Ames, who moved to the area in 2012, has served Francis as a planning commissioner, city councilor and mayor before he decided to take a step back from local politics four years ago to focus on his family and growing business.

Now, with two of his three kids off to college and his law firm’s expansion under control, Ames feels ready to throw his hat in the ring for Francis’ top seat yet again.

“It was a very rewarding experience the first time, and I don’t have an agenda,” Ames said. “There are things that are important to me, but I don’t have ulterior motives. To me, I just want to serve, and I just want to do what I think is right.”

Ames was born in Michigan. He grew up traveling between Japan and Utah County, where his parents bought a home to spend their summers in the United States while his dad worked overseas in Japan for most of the year. He graduated from Timpview High School in Provo and eventually earned a law degree from Gonzaga University in Washington.

He and his wife decided to move to Francis more than a decade ago after spending time with his new brother-in-law, who was born and raised in Oakley. At the time, the rural community of the East Side looked much more appealing to Ames than the bright lights of Las Vegas, where his family had settled after he graduated from law school.

Despite his love for Francis, Ames never thought he would run for public office. He thought of politicians as specializing in “maneuvering and manipulation.” Still, a quick visit to the city building years ago to pay his water bill unexpectedly set him on a course to the mayor’s seat after a fellow resident suggested he apply to fill a vacancy on the Francis Planning Commission.

“I started thinking about how this is a small town. It’s probably easier to make a big difference and to have a positive impact on things,” Ames said. “I felt like I was here and I had some time, so why wouldn’t I give to my community?”

His stint on the Planning Commission around 2013 instilled a passion for local service. Ames then served as a city councilor from 2014 to 2017, and as the city’s mayor from 2018 to 2021.

As he puts it, if an “outsider” who grew up all over the world can be elected in Francis, then anyone with good motivations and a desire to help their community should be able to do the same.

Ames said he doesn’t have a specific goal as mayor, and he also said he wouldn’t classify himself as either pro- or anti-development. Instead, his focus is on future planning and listening to residents’ worries.

“We need to make decisions very slowly and very carefully because I think you really only have one shot to get it right, especially with a place like Francis where it’s a blank canvas in many areas still,” he said. “How we as a city choose to deal with that blank canvas will have a lasting impact on whether our city’s a great place or not, so I think we need to be careful about land use decisions, especially if there are unintended consequences.”

Ames said he’s also dedicated to increasing safety for pedestrians. Specifically, he said he understands kids and teenagers like to walk around town to visit convenience stores and hang out in public parks. He wants to make sure kids walking or biking in Francis or to the surrounding East Side towns are as safe as possible.

“My wife’s a teacher at the high school, and I still have a kid at home in middle school, and he’s at the age where he wants to be doing these fun things and getting around and finding independence and getting into regular kid mischief, but that’s a pretty tough thing for kids around here,” Ames said. “It gets really, really difficult and unsafe for kids to move around … so I also want to focus on that quality of life for families and kids here.”

Ames ultimately broke his campaign down into three key points: his lack of a personal agenda, his ability to listen and his passion for planning.

“I know I need the assistance of other people to get this right. I don’t think I know everything, so I don’t have a superiority complex,” he said. “If what you’re looking for is someone to serve our community, I’m your guy.”

Ames is challenging incumbent Francis Mayor Jeremie Forman for the seat. They will both appear on the general election ballot on Nov. 4. Ballots were mailed on Tuesday and should arrive in mailboxes soon.

The post Former Francis Mayor Byron Ames hopes for second term after break from politics appeared first on Park Record.

A new affordable housing development designed to attract teachers, first responders and other professionals opened in Francis last week as part of Ivory Innovations’ initiative to research and install low-cost homes throughout the state.

“We’ve heard from a lot of people, a lot of research, a lot of everything, that Summit County needs affordable housing,” said Ivory Innovations President Abby Ivory. “You see this with any resort community as we look across the United States. You have one community that’s driven up the cost of housing to an insane amount, but they also require a workforce that needs to be in that community, and where does that workforce live?”

Specifically, Ivory said the Park City area is driving up the cost of homes for East Side residents, even though the resorts are largely centered in western Summit County. The increased prices make it more difficult for families on the East Side to stay in Summit County, but it also limits commuting workers’ ability to become full-time residents.

“Nobody wants affordable housing, but they need it. At a certain point, the need overcomes this desire to push out development and everything else,” Ivory said. “We’re kind of at that point, to be honest, especially if you look at Francis.”

Ivory Innovations is a nonprofit center connected to the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business. The organization works closely with its parent company, Ivory Homes, to scout, acquire and develop land to create affordable housing communities.

“Ivory Holmes had a subdivision in Francis, and they donated the land for the building of these affordable housing projects to Ivory Innovations,” Ivory explained. “That’s how this all got kicked off, and it’s been a really amazing process. We built 16 townhomes, and we have a different, second phase coming for more affordable housing.”

The 16 townhomes are rental units priced 40% below market rate, or 60% of the area median income. The area median income in Summit County is $118,000 for one person or $168,600 for a family of four, according to Mountainlands Community Housing Trust.

“We want to protect any of the housing that is built there and have a focus on making sure the units are lived in by someone and they’re not something like a vacation property or something where people are coming in and out,” Ivory said. “As we look to build and develop in that community, I think that’s been an important thing as we’ve been talking to the mayor and to other people who live there, to build units that are building their community.”

The next phase of the development includes a commercial space in addition to more homes, and Ivory said her team works to personalize the business based on each community’s specific needs.

“Typically, when you build a community, they’ll ask you to build an amenity,” Ivory explained. “In Lehi, instead of a tennis court, we built a tutoring center alongside the affordable housing we put in down there. It’s been awesome. It’s actually gotten so much use, and it’s been a really great resource for the families that live in that community, so as we look at Francis and as we’re building out this next phase, we’re looking at that specifically.”

Ivory said she’s had multiple conversations with Francis City Mayor Jeremie Forman and members of the Francis City Council, who suggested the commercial space be used to bring a daycare to the area.

“That’s not something that we’ve done before, but it’s something that I would love to look into and see if we can do it, especially if that’s a big need for that side of Summit County,” Ivory said.

Ivory Innovations has another project in progress in eastern Park City that is similarly tied to an already existing Ivory Homes community, but the nonprofit organization is constantly looking for other opportunities to develop more affordable housing in Summit County.

“We’re trying to put in as much housing as we can if we have space or get land donations,” Ivory said. “We’re super interested in doing more in these areas because we know there’s such a need for it.”

The post New affordable housing development opens in Francis appeared first on Park Record.

The first six months of 2025 were difficult for Dustin and Raychel Hatch.

Raychel was diagnosed with breast cancer and was undergoing intensive treatments to slow its progression. She’d stepped away from her full-time duties as a stenographer administering ultrasounds for women with high-risk pregnancies for Intermountain Health, which had her shuffling between the Park City Hospital and the Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, leaving Dustin as the family’s primary breadwinner.

Luckily, Dustin’s business was going well. His company, Frontier Woodworks, specialized in handcrafted doors and millwork and had become a staple of the Francis community since he established it on Spring Hollow Road in 1995.

His daughter, Sydney Thompson, also operated her own successful business on the same lot — a flower shop providing bouquets and other arrangements for local weddings and funerals.

The couple’s luck seemed to be turning around over the summer. Raychel’s treatments had been successful, and she won a free three-day rafting trip on the Salmon River in Idaho through River Discovery’s annual lottery for cancer survivors.

The trip was set for July 22. Raychel, of course, opted to bring Dustin as her companion.

But on the final day of the trip, after rafting through the Idaho wilderness without cell service for a few days, the couple re-entered the modern world and immediately discovered something had gone wrong.

“We got back Thursday afternoon around 3 o’clock off the river rafting trip, plugged our phones in because they were both dead, and once they charged, they just went crazy with messages,” Dustin said. “I was expecting it on my phone because I had been away from work for three days, but hers was going crazy, too.”

Raychel called her mom, who quickly picked up to deliver the bad news: Frontier Woodworks and Sydney’s flower shop had caught on fire and burned to the ground earlier that morning.

“I didn’t know what was going on, but I could see the color drain from her face,” Dustin said. “My first instinct was somebody was dead. … That’s when she said the shop was burnt down. At that point, I said, ‘Is that all? Nobody’s dead?’ And then we had an eight-hour drive home.”

The drive gave the couple time to think about their next steps, but it was a situation that was unfortunately familiar to Dustin. His workshop was already destroyed by a fire once before in 2005.

“It wasn’t nearly as big of an operation as I have right now, but I was deeply in debt,” he said. “It literally has taken me probably 18 years to recover from that, between being in debt for all the equipment that I had purchased, since it was still fairly new and only four to five years old and annihilated in the fire, and then having to get more equipment on top of that. It was just a huge amount of stress, but we made it through.”

This time, most of Dustin’s debt had been paid off, something he said he was especially grateful for since it’s difficult, if not impossible, for insurance companies to cover woodworking shops because they’re considered too high-risk.

For example, Dustin said he tried to run a fire suppression line into the main shop to hook up sprinklers in case of a fire, but his insurance company told him they wouldn’t cover any damages if he were to do so.

“The guy said, ‘Well, if one machine goes bad and sets off the sprinkler systems, it’s now ruined $1 million worth of equipment, and we don’t want to take that risk,’” Dustin said. “So then it’s like, OK, what do you do? What’s the answer?”

Overall, Dustin said there was a $2 million loss because of the fire — $1 million for equipment and $1 million for the building. He doesn’t expect to receive more than $200,000 from his insurance company.

But during the 550-mile drive back to Francis, Dustin and Raychel weren’t thinking about insurance or the 2005 fire or even how to rebuild the shop. Instead, they had only one goal in mind: helping Sydney with the loss of her business.

“She had two weddings and a funeral that weekend, so that was our biggest concern,” Dustin said. “We made a makeshift cooler, put her flowers in it at her house, and that’s where she’s been working out of the past couple of weeks. She pulled the weddings off, did the funerals without a hitch. It looked great, so that was a positive thing for us to get through that.”

After Sydney’s weekend events, the family pivoted to the monumental task of digging through the wreckage, hauling off debris and figuring out what to do next.

“We spent some time waiting for dumpsters to arrive so we could start the demolition, and once they got here, it was full-on,” Dustin said. “We started tearing it down. My feeling is the sooner it’s gone, the better. I won’t have to look at it anymore. It looked apocalyptic.”

Dustin said he’s hoping to have the shop up and running again in the next six months, but he recognized it was a lofty goal. His reasoning for the rapid-fire pace is simple, though — he wants to retain both his clients and his 10 full-time employees, all of whom are local to the Kamas Valley.

Part of the reason equipment costs so much, and makes Dustin’s re-opening timeline so difficult, is the business’s specialization in custom-made doors. The Frontier Woodworks website specifically points out the shop’s ability to create both interior and exterior doors, provide hardware for “the perfect finishing touch” and design custom millwork, or any decorative wooden material, a contractor or homebuilder might need.

“I have contractors that I work for that have been nothing short of amazing with their support and patience,” Dustin said. “Some of them don’t quite understand the severity of the whole thing because they will still call me and say, ‘I need this. When do you think you can get it for me?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t even have a tape measure.’”

The family is clearing the debris themselves. Raychel’s son, Mason Leavitt, estimated they’d hauled away 13 large dumpsters of material in just two weeks. They’re borrowing an excavator from one of the contracting companies Dustin works with, and Sydney’s husband, Levi, is running the heavy equipment because of his previous work experience on his family’s sawmill.

“It’s been Levi on the excavator, Mason on a small tractor and a couple of local retired guys with shovels and brooms. It’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen,” Dustin said.

He continued, “I have a good friend, Brad Murdock, and he walks his dog over here every day, and every morning he stops in to say hi. He’s been here a couple of times to work. He came in this morning after being here yesterday, and he’s barely walking. He’s struggling, and he’s like, ‘I can’t even bend my knees. Is it alright if I don’t work today?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you’re not obligated to work. I’m not hiring you. Go home and take it easy for a while.’”

In a way, Dustin and Raychel said the whole experience has reminded them of how kind others can be, offering a glint of hope and optimism in an otherwise difficult time. The local gas station organized a donut drive to raise money for the Hatches, for example, and community members passed around a hat for cash donations at the Summit County Fair.

“Through all the bad, there’s a lot of good,” Dustin said. “My faith in humanity has grown exponentially with just the goodness of people in the community, outside the community, people that don’t even like me who are like, ‘Come here and give me a hug.’ … It really has renewed my faith in the goodness of people in a time where all you hear is bad about a lot of stuff, which just goes to show you can disagree on things and still care for one another.”

Brayden Powers, a community member and friend of the Hatches, set up an online fundraiser within hours of the fire on July 24. The page has since received almost 200 donations, climbing to $47,920 of its $50,000 goal as of Thursday afternoon.

“You just have to live through it to appreciate what’s going on, and it does help,” Dustin said. “I talk about a $200,000 piece of equipment, but what people are doing is such an emotional, uplifting thing that it makes you want to fight harder. Everybody’s pushing for you to be successful again, so who are we to say, ‘Woe is me. This is the second time it’s happened. My wife has cancer. My dog’s getting older.’ You can find a million reasons to give up, but the people pushing for you to be successful, it makes you fight harder. It makes you work harder.”

Raychel said that before the shop is up and running again, she’s using the remaining office building to host workshops for the community as part of her new business: The Garage at Spring Hollow. The classes cover a wide range of topics, including photography, floral design and making homemade pasta, taught by locals with experience in each field.

All of the proceeds from the workshops go directly to the Hatch family as they try to rebuild Frontier Woodworks, she said, and more information on how to sign up is available on Instagram and Facebook.

The post Francis family works to rebuild Frontier Woodworks after devastating fire appeared first on Park Record.