The town hall July 31 was an opportunity for Heber locals to ask candidates questions ahead of the primary election Aug. 12. About 30 people attended in person and asked questions for an hour and a half.
One resident asked how the city council could push the Utah Department of Transportation to move highway traffic away from Heber’s Main Street, which is also U.S. Highway 40. And she asked how the city could create a stronger sense of community downtown.
Six of the eight city council candidates were at the event.
Corey Noyes was absent because he was traveling with his family, and Morgan Murdock was unable to attend due to illness. Both men say on their campaign websites that collaborating with UDOT to construct the Heber Valley bypass is a priority.
Councilmember Yvonne Barney, who’s running for a second term, said the bypass is only one piece of the solution. She said tools like tax increment financing would help Heber revitalize downtown and promote community.
“The bypass is infrastructure that needs to happen at some point, but until then, trying to build a community is done by listening to each other and by making sure that we use certain tools that we have,” she said.
Candidate Jami Hewlett said the traffic problems stem from approving a lot of density without infrastructure to match. She said there needs to be better planning.
“Creating new roads just creates more problems – it doesn’t solve them,” she said.
Christen Thompson said he wants to see Heber create “third places” for people to build community outside home and work. He favors reducing car traffic.
“A better solution, long-term, would be trains and buses,” he said. “We had a train that went down to Provo; let’s bring it back. We had a train that went up to Park City, down to Salt Lake.”
A desire to revitalize downtown was a big part of why Lori Rutland decided to run. She said she will support UDOT’s bypass decision.
“Let’s just make this downtown something that we can be proud of, that we want to go to, that we don’t dread having to drive from Walmart to Smith’s because it takes 20 minutes,” she said.
Ken Davis said the city must work with UDOT to ensure a traffic solution is in place in time for the 2034 Olympics. He said a bypass will promote the goal of improving downtown.
“A walkable downtown has been shown, in thousands of communities, to be a positive thing to help with that – for both vendors as well as community options there,” he said.
And Nick López said he’d like to see more safety solutions downtown to supplement whatever bypass route UDOT chooses.
“We need to do something,” he said. “Work with UDOT getting more traffic control devices. Put in more righthand turn lanes, speed reduction, those types of things to make more of a walkable Main Street.”
The eight candidates are running for two open seats on the city council. The primary election is Aug. 12.
