Ryan Dickey was chosen by the Park City Council in early 2021 to finish the term of Nann Worel, who was elected mayor.
Dickey chose to run for a full term this year, and won the primary and general election by a fair margin.
“I felt really humbled that that many people would check your name on a ballot and to get that share, it feels good,” Dickey said. “I don’t think I’m any kind of public policy genius. I think a lot of it is rewarding people who are fair and open minded, and collegial and willing to be a team player. And I think that’s largely what got rewarded in the election.”
He thought this year’s election was more civil compared to the city council race two years ago.
Dickey said traffic was one of top issues residents wanted to discuss during his campaign.
“I had a really interesting conversation with an Old Town resident about traffic where I was sort of giving him the traffic engineer’s explanation of traffic and the 50 days a year of the bottlenecks on [state Route] 248. And he sort of corrected me and said, ‘no, it’s not about traffic. It’s about cars. It’s about if you’ve been here for 30 years or 50 years, that there are so many more cars in the city, and it’s about the way it feels to live in town. It’s not about sitting in traffic.’”
Dickey said generally he felt residents want to see the council take action, specifically on the city-owned land in Bonanza Park.
“Whatever happens there, I think that’s a significant project in town that is really important to get done, and that is going to have a long life, and people are going to remember what we did,” he said. “If nothing’s happened in four years, and that’s still fallow ground, I will say we failed, and we’re not going to let that happen. So the exciting thing is we’re doing it now, and we’re gonna get it done.”
He said he’s excited to welcome two new councilmembers. Based on preliminary results, Ed Parigian and Bill Ciraco will join Dickey on the Park City Council in January.
