Mark the calendar, visionaries
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Cazimiro
Park City - City Hall is preparing for a wide-ranging exercise about the future
Many Parkites are frustrated with the amount of traffic in Park City, with congestion on roads like Park Avenue,
shown. People participating in the upcoming Vision Park City 2009 will likely talk about traffic as they discuss the
city's future. Park Record file photo
Jay Hamburger
The Record Staff
Park City visionaries can mark their calendars.
City Hall wants to listen to them.
The local government is scheduled to start what officials are billing as a lengthy, wide-ranging exercise about the
city's future. Dubbed 'Vision Park City 2009,' it means to look closely at the issues Park City faces and why people
live in Park City.
The exercise begins with an event at The Yarrow. It is scheduled from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31.
"We've never taken the pulse," says Mayor Dana Williams. "This is different because it's more of getting a check of
the pulse of the community."
The organizers will follow the event with living-room discussions starting April 1 and continuing for several weeks,
with 10 or so people at the
Heidi Miller, left, and Bibi Vladimirova look through the offerings at No Place Like Home's sidewalk sale in July.
Park City's economy is suffering in the recession, and there could be ideas brought up to boost business as City
Hall officials engage regular Parkites in Vision Park City 2009. File photo by David Ryder events. Meanwhile, officials
would like Parkites to take pictures of images in Park City that show what is important to them. Another big meeting
is slated at the end of April.
Park City's construction industry, including the crew that built the state liquor store at Snow Creek, pictured,
has enjoyed the boom years since the 2002 Winter Olympics, but the numbers dropped in 2008 from the
record-setting years. Work, though, frustrates some Parkites, particularly in neighborhoods.
Park Record file photo
One of the City Hall officials organizing the event, Phyllis Robinson, says people at the Tuesday meeting will discuss
a "laundry list" of issues and values, but the talks at the meeting are not likely to delve into their details.
Robinson, who handles work force housing issues and sometimes acts as City Hall's spokesperson, says between
80 and 100 people will attend the Tuesday event. Sixty will participate in the smaller groups, she predicts.
The last time a similar exercise was held, smaller in scale, however, followed the 2002 Winter Olympics.
A mid-1990s event was the most recent comparable one to Vision Park City.
Robinson says she wants Parkites challenged to offer specific points about Park City and discuss situations
that involve competing interests. For instance, she says, people might talk about their views of open space
at the same time as they consider work force housing that would be built on undeveloped land, a scenario that
unfolded on a parcel of land in Snow Creek.
"How do we make decisions when we have conflicting values," Robinson says, describing that the mountain
town of Telluride, Colo., has faced similar choices. Vision Park City, which coincides with the 125th anniversary
of Park City's incorporation, comes at crucial time in the post-Olympic era. Before the recession struck,
Park City had enjoyed a booming economy since the Olympics, setting construction and tourism records.
But key industries have suffered in the recession, and City Hall is preparing for what is expected to be a
difficult round of budget talks in the spring and summer.
Meanwhile, a municipal election is scheduled in November with the mayor's office and two City Council seats on
the ballot, and City Hall is handling tension-filled issues like Treasure, the design rules in Old Town and traffic on
the S.R.248 entryway.
Amid those, the mayor, though, says he anticipates Parkites will say they are pleased with their lives in Park City.
He predicts issues that will be brought up will include traffic, construction and work force housing.
"Generally I think people are happy about being able to live here," Williams says.
City Hall has drafted an Alexandria, Va., firm that specializes in community development to assist with
Vision Park City. The firm, called czb, earlier won a $55,000 deal from City Hall for its work. Representatives plan
to be at the event on Tuesday.
Charles Buki, the principal of czb, agrees with the mayor that Parkites are pleased with where they live.
He calls Parkites "civically literate," meaning that they are aware of municipal affairs, and he says he must
"channel and translate" what Parkites say into City Hall processes.
"My hunch is that the overwhelming majority of residents in Park City adore Park City," Buki says.
Other communities with heavy tourism he has worked in include regions around the Chesapeake Bay and the
Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. He also mentions Santa Fe, N.M., and Snowmass Village, Colo., two spots
City Hall has studied, as places he has worked.
"In one place, maybe it's skiing. In another place, it's marina development," Buki says.
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