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County Council Member Armstrong Comments On Park City Visioning, Transportation, Recycling

Summit County Council Member Roger Armstrong was one of those who attended Park City’s Visioning meeting on Feb. 11th.

Talking later to KPCW, he noted that some of the major topics in the Visioning include Transportation, the roles of Park City and the County, and the tension between the two governing bodies on that item.  

Armstrong said he was expecting the Jim Santy Auditorium to be packed for the Visioning session and he was surprised that the audience fell short of that.    He said for both the city and the county, it’s important for them to get input on important issues.

While it’s commonplace for officials to say that they’re governed by who shows up, Armstrong said they also have to listen to the citizens who don’t come to meetings.       

“And those people are the ones that show up as you’ve made a decision, and they say, “Why didn’t I know about it.   Nobody asked me.   I didn’t have a chance to comment.”   And it’s helpful to hear back from people.   Because they’re the ones on the ground that directly experience issues that we might not in a particular neighborhood.  So it is important.   And I think we have to be carefull, especially when we’re talking about things that require bold change, that we feel  we have  comprehensive input from people around the community.”

Armstrong said that the county should lead on a number of important issues, such as Transportation.    He said Park City already leads in that area.  

He mentioned a sentiment that he encountered recently.       

“Maybe it was in the newspaper yesterday, that there’s been tension between the city and the county because the city believes that the county has not been doing things properly with regard to transportation.  The city controls transit right now.  They have since 1995, I think, when we entered into the first agreement with the city to operate transit for us.  We’ve been working hard over the last year-plus to, I think, address some of the tensions that we do have in that regard.   The city has been largely responsive, particularly over the last year, to those concerns.  And I think we’re now getting to the point where we’re gonna start figuring out how best to manage those impacts.”

Armstrong said that Park City drives a lot of the traffic impacts in the area with its activity and events.   The one exception, he said, is the outgoing traffic of workers.

He added that another area of concentrated development will become important in the future.         

“We’re gonna see more of that happening as Mayflower gets built out, so that similar impacts that we see from Park City, we’re gonna start experiencing from people bypassing Park City to head for Mayflower because in the early stages, it may be more convenient, it may be whatever. Because 40, theoretically, may be a faster way to get someplace than a clogged 224.  So for our own economic survival we’ve gotta figure out how to deal with these issues.   Again, this is not intended to put more of a burden on Park City than they should bear.    But I do think regionalization is the key.   And I do think in that case, the county taking the lead on transportation is probably important.”

Another major topic at the session was Affordability.   Armstrong said in Park City, that can mean different things for local employees, the middle-class and seniors.

Park City is also looking at Sustainable Tourism.   Armstrong said that’s important for the county too, with an item like recycling.       

“This is something that impacts us at the county on the recycling side.  I’ve said many times,  we have people coming here from a variety of cities around the country.  And every city seems to have its own set of rules for recycling in terms of what can and can’t be recycled, what they will accept.  We have a 37 percent-or-so contamination rate in our recycling that causes those loads to go to a landfill someplace rather than to be recycled.  And it’s a bit frustrating.”

Summit County Council Member Roger Armstrong

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
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