A North Summit candidate and two South Summit candidates discussed their districts’ most pressing issues at the forum hosted by KPCW, The Park Record and Park City Community Foundation earlier this week.
In the South Summit School District, incumbent Wendy Radke faces former Oakley Mayor Wade Woolstenhulme for seat 1, representing Oakley.
They were asked about attracting and retaining employees as the cost of living rises in the Kamas Valley.
“We did do a huge salary increase last year, and that seemed to help draw those teachers in and have them feel pretty comfortable with being able to live in the area,” Radke said, “or at least still commute if they couldn’t.”
Radke added the board was considering building district employee housing too, but has tabled that until January, which is also when new board members will be sworn in.
Woolstenhulme said he doesn’t think the board should be in the housing business.
“We just might have to find better ways to find places for people,” he said. “With townhouses with other people building them, and things of that nature.”
In North Summit, Clark Staley is running to keep seat 3 representing Hoytsville.
That’s where the Cedar Crest Village development is proposed. Over 2,000 homes may be phased in over decades if the Summit County Council approves it.
The Hoytsville representative said that’s part of why the current board put a $114 million bond on the November ballot for a new high school.
“[The architects] have a formula to figure out what they think the increase in students will be with each home,” Staley said. “So, that was put into the plan in building the high school.”
Click here to hear from Park City’s four candidates.
All candidates running for school boards in the Park City, North Summit and South Summit districts were invited Monday night.
Maggie Judi, Staley’s opponent, could not attend the forum.
Two other races are contested in North and South Summit.
Waylon Bond and Walter Yates are running for North Summit seat 2, representing Coalville. Garrett Carpenter and Dan Eckert are vying to represent Kamas in South Summit’s seat 2.
KPCW and The Park Record are working together to prepare a voter guide. Residents can see where Judi, Bond and Eckert stand on the issues when it is released later this month.
