Picto Diary - 15 October 2015 - Hope Melville
Above: Hope Melville, candidate for Park City City Council, speaks to La Societe Deux Magots (LSDM). Wasatch Bagel, Park City, UT. 15 October 2015.
Hat tip: 'Cake
Note: Note taker is fallible. Hope Melville is welcome to make corrections/clarifications to these notes.
Background:
Born in Wisconsin.
Went to University Wisconsin, Madison and transferred to Purdue, where I received a degree in chemical engineering.
Worked in private industry for 10 years.
University of Southern California law degree. Worked in intellectual property, as a partner in two different firms, in southern California for 20 years.
My husband and I started looking for a place to retire. We wanted to live in a ski town. We had been to Park City before and loved it. We moved to Park CIty, bought a historic home and renovated it.
While in Park City I've served as a volunteer. I'm on the Historic Preservation Board. We have been going to city meetings for ten years. I like to hike, snowshoe and ski.
Above: Hope Melville, candidate for Park City city council, presses a point to LSDM ROMEOs. At right, ROMEO, 'Cake. Wasatch Bagel. 15 October 2015.
Balanced Growth
I'm running for City Council because I am a concerned citizen interested in maintaining our quality of life.
Our town is experiencing incredible growth. When this happens, it is imperative for us to remain vigilant to our Core Values:
Sense of Community
Small Town
Natural Setting
Historic Character
We are a well-established, world class destination. There is no need to compromise any one of these values.
Listen
I believe City Council members need to listen to citizens more. Council meetings are set up in ways that make it difficult for citizens to communicate. The procedure for public input needs to be improved. It isn't right to go through a four hour meeting where the public can't speak.
Sometimes interchanges between council members and citizens are argumentative. This is not the way a council member should respond to public input.
More casual gatherings... like speaking to the ROMEOs today... is a good idea. This is your city. A council member should be responsive to your input.
Q and A
LSDM: If elected, what changes would you make, right now.
HM: We must focus more on the "here and now." Take the 205 Main project. We allowed garages at ground level on Main Street Old Town. We don't want staff making certain discretionary decisions that the council should make. The 205 Main "mistake" should have been brought to the Planning Commission.
LSDM: Mountain Accord (MA). You have expressed reservations?
HM: MA process seems to be driven more by business interests along the Wasatch Front (WF). WF interests are not always our interests. We need to temper our enthusiasm when it comes to MA. We are separate. We don't want to be subsumed as a "footnote" to the interests of greater SLC or the WF.
LSDM: Growth forecasts for Park City are frightening. What should be the city's response?
HM: Everyone benefits from growth... but, of course, there are downsides. PC itself... with its limited fixed boundaries, is not actually growing that much in terms of population. However, the city will receive an influx of a fast growing number of tourists and visitors.
Sometimes we focus on things not directly germane to the city. We were told by Mountain Accord that I-80 was a huge problem. But, I-80 is not specifically a city problem. Perhaps in the future... The Park City city council needs to focus more on city requirements and not be diverted into outsized worrying about problems of other jurisdictions.
For example... 248 often congested. Bus lanes?
More pedestrian underpasses on 248 increases safety and "wakability."
Perhaps there are some side street options to route traffic to reduce congestion on Kearns Boulevard.
Our bus system is good... but, what can be done, creatively, to get more of our locals and work force to use the bus.
We need better bus service between Canyons and Park City destinations.
Perhaps specialized circulator busses can be tried on a pilot basis. There are many things that we could experiment with to reduce congestion in the city.
Some of our experiments go awry. The Poison Creek city trail, running through City Park area, was widened last year. But, now we have bikes going too fast. This poses a real danger to walkers on the trail.
LSDM: The city is making a big push into "affordable housing." Your views?
HM: We have to make greater efforts to make local businesses partners in this effort. If the ski resorts, for example, can create housing for their employees. Affordable housing is not the city's problem exclusively.
Also, the city has done a poor job in enforcing the affordable housing requirements of development projects it has approved. The developers at Empire Pass didn't fulfill their affordable housing obligations.
The city has erred in some of its affordable housing initiatives. Proposing to take away the library green space when "open space" has been a city hallmark makes little sense.
Its a challenge. It is certainly beneficial to have people who work in Park City, but who cannot afford market prices, to live here. Nurses, police, firemen etc.
New housing is not the only way to provide incentive to attract people. Do what corporations do... mortgage subsidies, subsidies for seasonable employees. Some of our people recently went to Breckenridge, CO, a ski town without the outlying, less expensive, communities that Park City has. Breckenridge has some programs to facilitate its workers living there that are not just building new units.
There are some residences in Park City that only rent at Sundance time... they go empty for the rest of the year. Perhaps some incentive can be given to owners to open those places to part time rentals.
We have to be more creative in looking for solutions to facilitate more workers living in Park City.
LSDM: What if Treasure Hill developers come back with something approximating the original plans... accompanied by a bevy of $1500 an hour New York lawyers.
HM: Its not clear that the entitlement they claim with their 30 year old "permission" is valid. I'm a lawyer. Nothing is ever one way. Nothing is ever clear cut. The city needs to be equally strong on its side. City needs a more sophisticated legal effort than it has to address what will clearly be growing challenges.
Thank-you.
LSDM thanks Hope Melville for her presentation today. LSDM thanks Hope for her commitment to public service.
La Societe Deux Magots (LSDM) is a non-partisan ROMEO (retired old men eating out) group which meets daily, at 7:00 AM at Wasatch Bagel in Park City, UT. LSDM members are the rightful intellectual heirs of a group of authors (Hemingway, Sartre, Camus, deBouvoir) who met daily at Cafe Deux Magots, in Paris, France in the 1930's.)
Addendum:
Good morning Steve, now that I have lived in Ojai for nine years with no reflection on your current blog I would recommend keeping a portion of your city Council under the age of 40 as that generation is what is driving the economy today: in my new business I see this is a important percentage of the active consumer !
Markco,
Ojai, CA