Fears that paradise is being paved are fueling much of the discourse in this year's City Council race.
Meanwhile, newcomers appear poised to take over City Hall, if last month's primary results are any indication.As elsewhere in Utah, the political topic of the day is a continuing statewide population boom that seems especially acute in Park City and the surrounding Snyderville Basin, which is said to be the fastest-growing neighborhood in the country.
"Growth is the issue up here," said city manager Toby Ross, noting a recent poll by local radio station KPCW found development con-trol the chief concern of some 70 percent of those surveyed. The distant-second issue was affordable housing, at 7 percent. If Park City is having trouble keeping developers at bay, the good news is that common urban plagues like pollution and crime have yet to reach proportions of much significance.
The most popular candidate by far in October's contest - which saw the field narrowed from nine to six - was Chuck Klingenstein, a Planning Commission member who teaches urban planning at the University of Utah and beat the growth-management drum loudly during that race.
"I would just say people are looking for a change . . . they're looking for new ideas," said Klingenstein, adding that the resort town is fast losing its working class and mom-and-pop businesses to wealthier residents and enterprises with deeper pockets.
Those who doubt the price of real property in Park City has gone through the roof need only consult "Real Estate Weekly," a newspaper insert advertising current listings in the area. Suburb-style tract housing is going for $220,000 and up, historic and cramped fixer-uppers start at a quarter of a million dollars and lots with a view are at least $100,000.
"I want to see us remain a diverse community," said Kling-en-stein, echoing a theme shared to some degree by every other candidate.
Those on the ballot in addition to Klingenstein include Hugh Daniels, a bed-and-breakfast owner, and Marty Stattin, a community activist who has been involved in preserving the town's historic fea-tures.
Daniels and Stattin rounded out the top three in the primary vote.
The remaining trio who qualified to run for the three open seats are Paul Sincock, chairman of the city's parks and recreation board, and two incumbents: Ruth Gezelius, whose private-sector pursuits have included business and social work; and Lou Hudson, a former NBA player.
All candidates call for stringent growth management; the non-incumbents argue generally that the City Council during the 1990s has not been aggressive enough in that area.
Hudson - completing a two-year term - survived last month's contest by a whisker, edging former developer Clay Stuard by a single vote.
Like most other candidates, he has played on a growing concern in Park City that much of the scenic locale is being covered by condominium developments and new resi-dential neighborhoods.
Hudson says his top priority would be acquiring more publicly owned open space. The retired Atlanta Hawk said in particular he would work for creation of a city park along U-248 on the east side of town or in Round Valley, a largely undeveloped north of Park Meadows.
Open-space preservation is just one of several growth-related issues.
The current council has come under fire during the campaign for what some critics say is an absence of leadership in a time of crisis.
Sincock, a certified "conflict resolution" teacher, said that while growth-control "has been the incessant background pressure against which everything is measured," Park City of late has forgotten its arts as well as its young people.
"We've got a lot of activities for younger kids, but not much for high-school-age kids and an awful lot of them are coming in," said Sincock, who said city government at times has seemed overwhelmed by its local growth and that City Hall hasn't been as proactive in handling city business as he thinks it should be, a point on which Daniels concurs.
"I'm embarrassed by the way the council handled this last budget," said Daniels, who runs the 10-room Old Miner's Lodge, a local inn. "They spent about three hours discussing a few items on a $25 million budget (before passing it)."
Daniels - who boasts an accounting background and spends his spare time as a watchdog at government meetings - said the council is no longer handling just small-town finances and that serious, in-depth thought must go into fiscal planning if City Hall is to have any money for luxury items that go beyond roads and water.
Stattin has talked some about the central district of the city, known as Old Town, a once-dilapidated collection of buildings whose owners in the early 1970s began turning the city toward a resort economy. She has argued that the vitality Park City is tied to the vitality of Main Street and Old Town.
But her pitch has focused to a large extent on how the city approaches annexations, noting that development on the edges of town is proceeding faster than most of the growth in Park City proper.
"We really need to get our agenda in order and get the citizens back in here to determine what they want for their village instead of taking it ad hoc," said Stattin.
Gezelius has run on a record she says has improved the quality of life in Park City, noting that she has been in office during a time in which the city has acquired a 220-acre open-space corridor into town; adopted a progressive land-use ordinance; created a new library; and improved local water resources.
Her campaign ads also note her support of a broad, Park City general plan that has been in the works for some years, a fact the challengers use for ammunition in their insistence that City Hall is behind the growth-boom curve.