Park City residents will be thinking about water and growth when they go to the polls next week to elect a mayor and two council members.
City Council members Ann MacQuoid and Brad Olch vie for the mayor's seat. Incumbent Mayor Hal Taylor decided not to run for health reasons.While Sally Elliott, Ruth Gezelius, Bob Richer and Jeffrey Scott will vie for two council seats. The candidates have found that Park City residents are most concerned with the rapid pace of development and were asked how they would slow that growth. An integral part of that issue involves bringing enough water to Park City.
Mayor
Ann MacQuoid, whose four-year term on the council is expiring this year, is concerned that over-con
trolling growth will make it difficult to find affordable housing in Park City.
Instead of approving new subdivisions or annexing land, MacQuoid thinks the city should concentrate on infil or building on vacant lots within existing subdivisions. She also does not believe in building moratoriums or limiting building permits on an arbitrary basis. She thinks the city should be prepared to purchase any land residents want left as open space.
In the short term, MacQuoid thinks water conservation measures will have to continue. But the city should continue to look for new groundwater sources.McQuoid would seek state permission to drill for new water. Only if that strategy failed should the city look into bringing water from either the Jordanelle or Smith-Morehouse reservoirs, since each would be very expensive, she said.
She has served on several community boards, including Park City Performances, Kimball Arts and the city's library board. She received the Park City Rotary Club award for Outstanding Citizen of the Year in 1985. MacQuoid, 46, owns Vie Retreat beauty salon in Park City. She is married with one child.
Although everyone wants "controlled growth," Brad Olch said residents define that term differently. He would like to hold hearings to gauge the community's thoughts on restricting growth. But he said a no-growth policy would be a bad idea.
He supports a multi-dimensional water policy, like the one the city is pursuing now. Park City is looking for new sources outside and inside city limits. The city is also building new reservoirs to store more of what it can pump, drilling new wells and revising its landscaping ordinances to require drought-tolerant species.
Those are all necessary parts of a city water plan, said Olch.
Olch has been on the council for two years, and recently left the Planning Commission after five years service. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee and serves on several local economic and other development committees. He is a real estate investor.
Olch, 38, is married with two children.
Council candidates
Sally Elliott believes water is the most important issue in Park City and that it is intricately linked to growth.
"It boils down to a case of: Do you want to grow or do you not want to grow?" she said.
Elliott said the city has a "moral imperative" to make sure Park City is a diverse community, where everyone can live regardless of their economic status, and that means a moderate amount of growth and new water supplies.
She supports landscaping with vegetation that does not use much water and believes people should conserve water. Elliott supports obtaining open space, both within subdivisions and as large tracts of undeveloped land. But since most of Park City is already platted or has pre-approved development densities, she said the city must concentrate on "negotiating" those densities down.
She is a ski instructor in Park City and is a member of the city Parks Board, the Park City Historical Society and the Courcheval Student Exchange program.
Jeffrey Scott, 31, thinks it's up to residents to demand growth be slowed to a pace they are comfortable with . He thinks the city should stick to a master plan
unless it allows too much growth. People do not necessarily have the right to develop property they have purchased, he said, because zoning and planning are tools a city uses to help implement what the entire population wants.
He is a member of a citizen's task force to conserve water and thinks education will be a major part of putting conservation into effect. He also believes the private water companies in the neighboring Snyderville basin need to be consolidated and that Park City should consider being a part of that consolidation.
The native Utahn has lived in Park City three years. He is the director of skier services for ParkWest Ski Corporation.
Ruth Gezelius believes the city must look carefully at whether it will annex any county land unless develop
ers bring water rights and actual water sources with them. She also said the Snyderville basin water companies must consolidate with Park City into a single district, and said residents should get used to conservation measures.
Most of the growth will be coming from outside city limits, she said. Within the city, the council should concentrate on filling in existing lots and negotiating with private property owners for land to build a system of trails.
She is vice chairwoman of the Park City Planning Commission. She has been a commission member for five years and has also served as its chairwoman. She is also a member of the Board of Adjustments. She is the manager of a photo shop. She holds a master's degree in social work and spent 10 years helping to arrange adoptions of abused and handicapped children.
Bob Richer warns that artificially slowing growth through limiting the number of building permits will have consequences elsewhere. He said itwould affect at least two major segments of the business community - real estate and construction - and would make home and commercial prices skyrocket. Richer also thinks it would be unfair to not grant permits to those who who had purchased land with the expectation of development.
He does favor revising the city's existing ordinances to define sensitive lands or other guidelines for development, and thinks residents must purchase open space if they think it's important to leave it open.
He said the city should pursue decreed water rights to find new sources within the Snyderville basin.
It should also reserve a large chunk of surface water in the Smith Morehouse reservoir and look at private-public partnerships to build the $3 million pipeline needed to transport that water to Park City.
Richer is a real estate broker and is president and owner of Richer Development Services. He is a 10-year resident of Park City, a past president of the Park City Board of Realtors and is president of Park City