Park City Municipal announced late Monday the appointment of Special Counsel Margaret Plane to be its next City Attorney.
Attorney Margaret Plane has served as Special Counsel for Park City Municipal Corporation since 2019.
Prior to her time in the Wasatch Back, Plane worked for 12 years for the Salt Lake City Corporation in its legal department -- first as a Senior Attorney and then as City Attorney.
According to a statement from the city, Plane’s offer is contingent on the approval of an employment agreement at this week’s city council meeting.
Current City Attorney Mark Harrington has been at the post for the last 22 years. After Plane takes over, Harrington will transition to work on land use and community development issues. Harrington has spent a total of 27 years working for Park City.
Plane was nominated to the Utah Court of Appeals by then-Governor Gary Herbert last November, but was never granted a confirmation hearing by the Utah Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee.
Senator Todd Weiler serves as the committee’s chairman and said at the time the committee received an “unusual amount of opposition” to Plane’s nomination, and for that reason was not included in the confirmation hearings.
In a statement in response to the move, Governor Herbert spoke in strong support of Plane, calling her an “exceptionally qualified attorney and honorable person,” and added he could not imagine why the Senate would not schedule a hearing.
State Senator Derek Kitchen, who worked with Plane during her tenure in Salt Lake City, suggested to the Deseret News the decision could have been politically motivated.
The Utah Legislature currently has a Republican supermajority and Park City and Salt Lake are known to have more liberal leanings compared to the rest of the state. Plane also worked for the American Civil Liberties Union in the mid-2000s.
Thursday’s city council meeting is scheduled to begin at 3:30pm.
