Matt Dias, who’s just been announced by Park City as their new permanent City Manager, sat through this week’s meeting of the Joint Transit Advisory Board.
That discussion showed there are issues of communication, and even some friction, between the city and Summit County.
KPCW asked Dias what’s next for him in tackling that issue.
Dias told KPCW that he aims to work on the sometimes-difficult issues of transit, and do it in the public eye.
“We have grown exponentially, and we are at a pivotal point in our community, particularly in terms of parking, traffic, congestion and transit. And so we are ferreting our way through these extremely complex challenges and issues. We do this in an open environment so the public can be part of this conversation and it’s not always easy. There are these, and there will continue to be these sticky, really complex issues. And our intent is to work through them publicly and do that with transparency.”
Coming up, the Councils of Park City and the County are scheduled to hold a joint meeting on February 5th.
“We’ll be further sussing out these issues about how to work collaborately together, who should be responsible for what part of the transit system. Should it be all Park City as the operator and the county is just kind of contracting into the system? Or should there be ancillary services out in the county that they maybe run or conduct on their own? And we’re gonna try to do this in a public setting where you get lots of public feedback.”
Dias said it’s time to look at re-evaluating the transit Interlocal Agreement between the city and county, which was set up in 2006.
“Given the growth of the transit system in the last 5 to 6 years, and we’ve almost doubled the size of our transit system, on an interim basis, we absolutely need to update the interlocal agreement, which governs how billing methodology is accounted for—budgeting, rolling stock, schedules. And so we need an interim solution to make sure that both entities feel comfortable with just the size and growth and complexity of the system and how it’s being managed.”
Park City Manager Matt Dias.
