Candidates for two of three seats on the Park City School Board are running uncontested in an area where education is the news of the day more often than not.
"This community is incredibly supportive," said incumbent Nikki Lowry, one of those running unopposed. She noted that a pair of proposed property-tax increases put to votes two years ago passed easily.One added $32 million to school coffers for capital improvements, the other $4.5 million leeway to buy classroom computers and other modern technology. The district is, per capita, the wealthiest per capita in the state and encompasses Park City and the Snyderville Basin, home to a dozen fast-growing but unincorporated towns.
Cash infusions like those approved in 1994 will keep the 3,354-pupil district going for awhile, Lowry said, although she predicted more bond issues will be needed within a few years. In the early 1990s the district's population boomed by 15 percent. Growth slowed to about 7 percent last year and has fallen to 5.5 percent in 1996, Lowry said.
"It will continue to grow, but not by double digits," she said.
Such rapid expansion has created some tension in one of the school board races, where incumbent Carol Murphy is running against challenger Gordon Ottley.
Ottley, who like his opponent has children in local schools, said parents in Park City have grown increasingly alarmed by the appearance of big-city problems in the area.
"Growth is the issue everywhere in Utah, except in Park City it's about 10 times what it is anywhere else," said Ottley, a labor leader who is director of the 2,000-member Utah Chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers.
"The impact on education and on student safety in terms of bus stops, drugs and weapons is a big issue," he said.
The current board, Ottley added, "in general is unapproachable."
"This has been a pretty divisive race for such a little town," he said.
Murphy, who has undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism as well as a degree in law, said that she is actively involved in a broad section of the community.
"Maybe I'm the quintessential soccer mom," she said, noting she has three children in Park City schools.
"I think for me the issues are to just constantly look for ways to improve student achievement, and I think that should be the answer from every single candidate you talk to."
Murphy said the board in recent years had pursued a policy of land acquisition that will provide for growth into the 20th century.
"Future building is absolutely critical," she said, noting that school leaders have struggled during the 1990s to keep up with demand for classroom space. Jeremy Ranch Elementary School opened two years ago, across I-80 from where the district is building a middle school that will open next fall. Administrators are also expanding the district's high school to accommodate 1,500 students, about 600 more than are now educated there.
In all, Park City currently has five schools - and three of them are for elementary pupils.
Murphy noted that a disproportionate number of pupils are in lower grades. Almost half the district's population is in elementary school, a fact that forces administrators to look ahead by expanding facilities for higher grades.
David Chaplin, like Lowry, is running unopposed for re-election. The retired schoolteacher-turned-artist said "finding places for kids to go to school" is his first priority. He said he also supports a curriculum review, now in progress, that is designed to make local education more competitive.
"We're also looking for alternative education for students not going ahead with an academic future," he said, explaining that the demand for vocational education is strong.
And he said a growing area of concern is the local cost of living's effect on rank-and-file school employees.
But board members can do little about that, he said, because of the constant crush for new facilities.
"Salaries are sacrificed" as the district scrambles to pay for classroom space, he said.