With a possible decision happening as soon as this summer on which city will host the 2030 and 2034 Olympic Winter games, local leaders want to know what residents want if the Olympics return to Utah. Leaders Tuesday said that they will do their best to get input from all segments of the community this spring through both live and virtual options.
The issue was discussed briefly at the joint city/county meeting. As Park City Council member Jeremy Rubell pointed out, Park City doesn’t have a choice whether the Olympics come to Utah or not – but the community can help decide what Park City’s level of participation is if the games are awarded to Salt Lake City.
“We do need to shift the narrative here,” Rubell said. “It's not do we want the Olympics to come to Park City and Summit County? It's how are we going to manage the impact of it? How are we going to participate? The reality of the situation is, if they come here, that Olympic Park down the street is going to get used right and Summit County's not gonna be able to tell them no.”
Council members were also alerted to the fact that unlike when the games were hosted in 2002 and Park City saw a new transit center and highway interchanges built, fiber optic cable installed, and liquor laws loosened, this time around, Olympic organizers say nothing will be built.
Given that, Summit County Councilor Roger Armstrong said the community needs to set reasonable expectations.
“Because I think when we hear Olympics, we hear, we can fix everything,” Armstrong said. “This is an opportunity for us to get money to fix traffic, fix every issue that we've got in this community. This may or may not be the case.”
Summit County Councilor Doug Clyde reminded the group that another reality is that the ski resorts and local businesses will do 25% less business in the Olympic year.
“And if you don't think that's devastating to the small business owner, you haven't been there,” Clyde said. “There are big financial, cultural and logistic impacts associated with this, that we will not get paid for.”
According to Clyde, the resorts were paid about $5 million each for their lost revenue, but he said, that doesn’t help local businesses.
Park City Councilor Max Doilney said Park City and Summit County need to get a seat at the table as the games are being planned, rather than reacting. It could also be a good opportunity to help improve the relationship with the Utah legislature.
“Anything that we can use to mend those fences, especially for something that may be inevitable, it's critical that we're strategic about how we use it, Doilney said. “And collectively, if we have similar goals, like you mentioned Roger, about our environmental goals, the county and the city have very similar goals in that regard. And this is an opportunity for us to be leaders in how it happens to us, rather than just reacting to it happening to us.”
No dates were set for community input, but city and county leaders said they know they’re under a time crunch for making it happen.
