Park Meadows resident Michael Franchek announced his candidacy for a seat on the Park City Council Tuesday, saying he was motivated by excessive building development along with his family's personal experience with what he termed abuse by Park City police officers.
The former Southern California resident has lived full-time in Park City for three years and has two teenage sons. In 2019, a conflict over a motorized bike outside Franchek's home led to a physical altercation with police officers and ended in Franchek being arrested.
A KPCWreport of that incident has garnered more than one million views online.
"I was the guy that got that got falsely arrested and abused. My son and myself were abused by Park City Police back in September of 2019, and I got three Park City police officers fired," Franchek said in an interview Tuesday. "It'll all come out in the wash."
Park City Police Chief Wade Carpenter told KPCW the 2019 incident did not result in any officers' firings after an internal investigation by the department, as well as an outside investigation done by the Wasatch County Sheriff.
“After the incident, Park City Police Department followed all of its policies and we conducted a very thorough investigation,” he said. “Additionally, we asked Wasatch County Sheriff’s office to conduct a thorough independent investigation at the city’s request, which was done and was completed. Through the investigations, a few policy violations were identified and discipline was appropriately administered to the officers that were involved in that incident. It wasn’t all of those that had administrative discipline. That was actually addressed, but nobody was terminated based on that incident.”
Franchek has a degree in political science from Rutgers and a certificate in construction management from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He said he is credentialed and has worked in sustainable design aned construction for decades.
In a press release, Franchek said his campaign platform will focus on environmental sustainability, government accountability, fiscal responsibility, safety and small business advocacy among other topics. Calling himself a passionate environmentalist, he said he cares deeply about preserving Park City's beauty and character.
He added that he is on the brink of filing a federal lawsuit against the city as well, which could color the race and Franchek's future relationship with City Hall.
"I have a background in rooting out government corruption," he said. "I've worked with federal authorities on some very significant things. It's going to be a whirlwind ride, there's a lot of stuff going on in Park City that is going to come to light. So, this is this won't be your average city council and I can promise you that."
Chief Carpenter added that if Franchek is elected, any future complaints or conflicts of interest between him and the city will be handled by an outside organization like the Summit or Wasatch County Sheriff.
Last year, Franchek received a $1.27M settlement in a whistleblower lawsuit over a government contractor's overbilling.
Franchek said details about his upcoming lawsuit are available on his You Tube website, which is called The DockTor. He said curious residents can also access a series of videos he made about his claims of abuse from law enforcement by searching Park City police on YouTube.
Franchek joins farmers market manager Daniel Lewis, current councilman Tim Henney, business and tech consultant Jeremy Rubell, and businesswoman and fifth-generation Parkite Tana Toly in seeking one of two seats on the council.
