Over 20 Parkites showed up for the Monday City Hall meeting, expressing frustration and disappointment at the council’s sudden decision to revisit its election plan for 2025.
Former Park City Councilmember Max Doilney called out current council member Bill Ciraco, who last week said he’d made a “mistake” in backing ranked choice voting and wanted to revisit the council’s March decision.
“Bill, you don’t get to just have a redo whenever you want,” Doilney said. “This is clearly bringing partisan politics to Park City, which is uniquely anti-Park City. We have always been independent in nature.”
Park City officials had to quickly schedule the special meeting for Monday, as Wednesday is the deadline to finalize their election process under state law.
Doilney also targeted councilmember Jeremy Rubell, whose seat is up for reelection this year. He said moving back to conventional voting would help Rubell, who he served with for two years on the council.
“It unabashedly helps only one candidate that could potentially throw their hat in the ring this year, and that’s Jeremy Rubell, which I find to be disturbing,” Doilney said. “I’d like to see him actually face this community and face some of his decisions because, frankly… his behavior in this building is reprehensible.”
Rubell, who was absent for the March vote, later responded, saying he was simply looking to make the right decision for the election.
“It’s unfortunate that this has devolved into a political issue,” Rubell said. “I don’t see it as one at all. It’s unfortunate that there’s personal attacks being thrown around, especially from people I personally respect. The best way to move forward is just to look at what’s right for the community and what gives us the fairest representation of our electorate.”
Rubell, Ciraco and councilmember Ed Parigian were in the majority Monday, and moved Park City back to conventional plurality voting for the 2025 election. Parigian was the only one to vote against ranked choice voting back in March.
Parkites are set to elect a mayor and two city council members this year. Rubell has not said if he plans to seek reelection. Council member Tana Toly has said she intends to run again. Ciraco’s suggestion to not use ranked choice voting came two days after fellow councilmember Ryan Dickey announced a campaign for mayor.
Outside of Toly and Dickey – who were the only council members that voted Monday to keep ranked choice voting – no one else has publicly announced a campaign for city council or mayor as of April 29.
Former Park City Councilmember Becca Gerber, along with a majority of commenters, told the council that they should stick with their initial decision to use ranked choice voting.
Park City resident Maggie AbuHaider said there are proven benefits of ranked choice voting and voiced opposition to a reversal.
“It feels rushed," AbuHaider said. "It feels hidden and it feels ill-informed. Unfortunately, I now expect as much from our federal and sometimes our state government, but I do expect more from Park City and from our city council.”
Last week Ciraco cited new information about discrepancies in the state’s ranked choice voting tabulation software, called RCTab, as a reason to revisit the decision.
That information was never released publicly, nor was the voting tabulation software widely discussed Monday. A majority of the council also declined to have experts on the software present at the meeting, which Dickey noted.
“To suddenly unearth new information at a meeting just a few days before an emergency meeting, not reveal that information for the public's consumption, not allow that information to be assessed by our professional staff or by experts in this field... strikes me as incredibly irresponsible and an injection of doubt about our public processes and about our elections into this process that is unnecessary, that is unfounded in any reality, and that casts doubt among our residents about not just our elections, but about the business of council more broadly,” Dickey said.
Dickey did cite an email from Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson that was sent to council on April 14, which raised concerns about the RCTab software.
Davidson has a history of questioning election integrity and is actively under investigation by the Utah County Attorney’s Office for publicly revealing the voting methods of state lawmakers.
Appearing virtually Monday, Davidson apologized for creating a “controversy” and said he was just trying to supply the council with relevant information.
His predecessor, former Utah County Clerk Josh Daniels, later called in to push back on Davidson’s remarks. Daniels said the RCTab software has worked well in several local elections.
“There were concerns raised by the new clerk based on a misunderstanding of how that tool was used in other elections around the country,” Daniels said. “The experts who developed that tool have responded to those concerns. Largely that was just based on a misunderstanding of the rules that are applied specifically in Alaska. I just wanted to confirm that this tool is ready and available for use by Summit County. I trust that they’ll use it just as we did successfully in Utah County.”
Councilmember Tana Toly has repeatedly advocated for ranked choice voting because it eliminates the primary election, which she says reduces costs for candidates due to the shorter campaign window. Toly said she was in “complete shock” when Ciraco suggested changing their prior decision.
“It creates distrust. It’s bad form and it looks political,” Toly said. “We owe it to the voters to stay the course, not to throw them into more confusion because a few people changed their minds or got cold feet.”
Toly said the number one reason she supports ranked choice voting "is because it doesn't make everything a campaign issue this summer." She said she wants to focus on major projects like the new senior center and the Bonanza Park five-acre parcel.
Several people did speak in opposition to ranked choice voting including Jimmy May, who sits on the executive committee of the Summit County Republican Party. Former Park City Planning Commissioner John Kenworthy said the city should follow Heber City, which moved to end ranked choice voting this year after using it in several past elections.
Ciraco said Monday he was against ranked choice voting due to its complexity and didn’t see “overwhelming” benefits to using the system, which allows voters to rank candidates by preference on their ballots.
He said he spent hours researching ranked choice voting and the tabulation software, and was comfortable with the explanation about the RCTab discrepancies in the Alaska election. But Ciraco added that it raised questions about the system as a whole.
“I’m comfortable with saying this isn’t an issue with the tabulating software, although it does introduce the question - does this additional complexity create the opportunity for there to be issues in an election?” he said Monday.
Ciraco expressed concern about residents fully understanding ranked choice voting.
In an interview with KPCW Tuesday, Park City Mayor Nann Worel denounced Ciraco’s move and called it “unprecedented.”
“At the end of the day, you don’t get a do over,” Worel said. “The council had adequate time to really go in depth and study this and talk about it, and all of a sudden to say, ‘well I found some new information’ – just doesn’t fly with me. It doesn’t pass the smell test. And I think that the fact that Mr. Ciraco did not present additional information last night was very telling to me.”
Worel apologized to residents for the council’s decision.
“I think we let the public down,” she said. “I think that we have worked so hard to establish trust, to establish transparency.”
In 2018 Utah legislators passed a bill allowing cities to try ranked choice voting through a pilot program. It’s set to expire after the 2025 election, which Rubell and Ciraco cited as a reason to stick with conventional voting.
Park City’s election filing deadline will now open June 2 and run through June 6. There will be a primary election for mayor if there are more than three candidates. A primary will be necessary in the city council race if there are five or more candidates.
Park City Municipal is a financial supporter of KPCW.
