Councilor Becca Gerber recounted her family’s experience over the holidays during the general comments section of last Thursday’s Park City Council Meeting. She said her family made a point of not leaving their house after 4pm and asked if the city could do more to mitigate some of the issues around traffic and parking during the busiest time of the year.
She worried that the incredible crowds were detrimental to locals and the city’s workforce and suggested treating the holidays much like a major event in Park City like Sundance or the Fourth of July.
“I would like us to advocate for coming up with some sort of a plan to coordinate between both resorts, working with the chamber, working with our lodging association, working with HPCA," she said. "Maybe we actually do find a way to coordinate between them and have an event coordinator that negotiates between all the different resorts to help us cover impacts. I don’t know whether it should be the responsibility of the city to mitigate for the impacts of all the resorts and our businesses, or if we need to find a way to help everyone coordinate and work together so that we can start some sort of plan.”
Councilor Max Doilney told KPCW he shared Gerber’s thoughts.
“I agree with her philosophy there," said Doilney. "I think it is basically a holiday. It’s an event weekend. We’re busier then than we are during a lot of the events that we have, and I think there are some things we can do that will make town a little bit more accessible for locals during the holidays. I think anything we can do to try and make life a little bit easier on our locals during that time – we know the tourist population’s gonna be here, we have all the data to show where we could do better, and I think it’s a good suggestion that we try.”
Since Gerber’s comments were just a suggestion during an open comment period of the meeting, no formal action was taken by the council or direction given to city staff.
