Myles Rademan is a member of a community stabilization task force that’s been formed to help guide Park City and Summit County out of the unprecedented crisis of COVID-19.
Rademan tells KPCW that decisions about re-opening will have to be guided by the medical science. And the Park City resort area will have to show prospective visitors that it’s safe.
Rademan said that the members of the Stabilization group are generally on the same page. He said, though, that there might be different feelings about the urgency of re-opening the Park City area’s resort economy.
“There might be people on the committee, people in the business community—I understand it believe me. I feel the same urgency. I have a kid that’s in business. He’s saying, “I can’t survive forever holed up in my house. I’m only holed up in my house, cause I have to be, cause I want to be alive.” You’re kinda faced with this Hobson’s Choice here of which way you go. So I don’t think there’s any difference, I think we all want to see what the science is, what the spread is, what the safety is, I don’t think we’ll ever be successful unless we’re safe.”
Rademan recalled that Park City has taken some hard blows during its history.
The town burned down in 1898, but reconstructed itself in a year and a half. The mining industry declined so much that in the 1950’s, Park City was mistakenly designated as a ghost town. The attacks of 9-11 occurred a few months before the Winter Olympics. And a recession struck in 2008-09.
“Each time, we’ve taken a hit, but we’ve been very resilient. And I think that’s part of the Utah character. I think that’s part of our character, quite frankly. And what does resiliency mean? I mean, it’s going to really mean that we have to think in new ways.”
He said many other mountain resort towns are facing the same challenges as Park City. But one plus factor for us, he said, is that the Park City area’s economy and population base is also derived from being a suburb of the Salt Lake Valley.
And, referring to remarks from a Park City Council Member, Rademan said there may be some factors that help the town to recover.
“So as Steve Joyce was saying, “Yeah, our tax base might be hit in the sense of sales taxes, but we still have a pretty strong property tax. I don’t think people are leaving. And then there’s a lot of people talking about if we get safer, maybe more people will want to move to places like Park City, as a buffer against the future. Just saying, hey, now that we’ve worked online, we see that that’s easier than we thought it is, and we can do more of that. Maybe we’ll start to see our second-home owners move in and not be second-home owners, but become primary homeowners.”
In terms of facing the future, Rademan said he takes some inspiration from a British statesman of the last century.
“I’m a big Winston Churchill fan. And he said, “Maybe it’s too early for optimism, but it’s never too early for hope.” Like everyone else, I’m saying , “OK. I think we’ll get through this. What does that mean, though? Will our tourism economy now be right-sized, maybe before it was ballooning too much? And maybe it’ll retrench at a lower level but a very adequate level. It’s really hard to say.”
Long-time Park City activist and organizer Myles Rademan.
