In a resounding defeat for some of Utah's most staunch growth-control advocates and their core supporters in Park City, two rural Republicans were elected Tuesday to the Summit County Commission.
Tom Flinders, a real-estate agent from the north edge of the Snyderville Basin, and Jim Soter, a Marion rancher and electrical-supply contractor, won their races largely on the strength of their showing beyond Park City.They will serve with Democrat Sheldon Richins, a Henefer rancher.
The results shocked many residents who last year helped engineer the adoption by the current commission of what is one of the strictest land-use codes in the West, designed to enforce tight regulation of a construction boom that has seen the county's population increase by 25 percent - to almost 20,000 people - since 1990 alone.
Many said a Republican victory would portend a rollback of those restrictions, though Flinders and Soter insisted they are in favor of progressive growth management.
Soter defeated Democrat Gary Weiss, a Park City bookstore owner and county planning commissioner, by a comfortable vote margin, 4,013 to 3,439.
Flinders won a plurality of the vote in his race, thanks to a split in non-Republican ballots between Sally Elliott, an independent, and Ruth Wagner, the Democrat. In what some said was the bitterest political contest in county history, Flinders polled 3,168 votes to 2,429 for Elliott, a former Park City councilwoman, and 1,837 for Wagner, a Park City attorney.
In winning Seat A, Flinders replaces Democrat Ron Perry, who lost a narrow primary election this year. Soter takes the place in Seat B of Democrat Gene Moser, who is retiring.
County Treasurer Glen G. Thompson said the commission race was what drew an unexpected number of voters to the polls.
"We had 61 percent of registered voters turn out," said Thompson. "In an off-year election we're usually expecting 52 to 53 percent."
In the only other contested race, County Attorney Bob Adkins won almost 62 percent of the vote in his bid for a sixth four-year term in office. Adkins, a Republican, beat Jim Stith 4,354 votes to 2,728.
The remaining six elected county officeholders were unchallenged in their reelection campaigns. In addition to Thompson, they were: Assessor Barbara J. Kresser, Democrat; Auditor Blake L. Frazier, Democrat; Clerk Kent H. Jones, Republican; Recorder Alan Spriggs, Democrat; Sheriff D. Fred Eley, Republican.