Park City attorney and small business owner John Greenfield filed last-minute paperwork with the city this week to enter the race for city council. The 42-year-old wants to bring bold ideas to how the city looks at the environment, transit, and housing.
Idaho native Greenfield moved to the Park City area in 2015 with his wife and two children. He runs Black Diamond Grocery Delivery, a service that works with local property management companies, hotels, and residents, and is also a licensed attorney in Utah and Idaho.
Greenfield waited until the final hours on the last day of the candidate filing window to jump in the race for city council. He said he wanted to see if there was a candidate he could get behind first. When none appeared, he decided to throw his hat in the ring.
“My family was able to purchase an attainable house in Park City Heights and we have joined dozens of other families who are living the dream,” Greenfield said. “Our great town has given me so much. The first reason that I’m running is that I would like to help create the same opportunity for other people that I have been given … I didn’t see anyone talking about the dump, I didn’t see anyone critically looking at the culture and arts district, I don’t see anyone talking about wildfires, which is the greatest natural threat to Park City. I just thought, ‘well, I hate to have just a bunch of candidates giving lip service.’ So, I thought I’d drop my name into the hat and see if people agree with where I stand.”
Greenfield said he considers himself lucky to be a middle-class success story in Park City. He added that while Park City’s rapid growth has been great for local business owners like himself, it has also made it harder and harder for families of essential workers to live in the community.
“Everybody knows Park City has grown rapidly over the past few years with new residents and visitors that are changing the shape of our city,” said Greenfield. “As a result, all of our lives have been enriched with new friends and our businesses have also thrived -- many of our businesses have thrived. In that same time, Park City has become much more challenging for middle class families to live in, from teachers to firefighters to city municipal workers to small business owners and service workers. These families are all the backbone of our community and I consider myself one of the lucky ones here.”
If elected, Greenfield said he would work to address environmental, transit, and housing challenges in new and creative ways. These include further hardening Park City against wildfires, exploring creative traffic patterns on 224 and 248, eliminating the proposed Gordo soils repository, and advocating for more paths to home ownership among the city’s workforce as a way for people to permanently live in the community.
“I would like to ensure the emergency management department has all the resources it needs,” he said. “I’ve already mentioned the proposed soils repository on the 248, that we need to ‘dump the dump,’ so to speak ... I have created a platform. My platform is environment, transit, and housing.”
Greenfield is one of eight candidates vying for two city council seats. He is joined by incumbent councilor Tim Henney, Tana Toly, Jeremy Rubell, Daniel Lewis, Michael Franchek, Thomas Purcell, and Jamison Brandi.
A primary will be held in August to narrow the field to four before November’s municipal election.
