Though the Park City Council just finalized their 2018/19 budget – Council is now considering padding the November Treasure Hill bond to protect yet another open space property. Melissa Allison has more:
After having either delayed or altogether canceled about $14 million worth of projects and maintenance to bring down the November bond for Treasure Hill to $51.7 million, Park City Council told staff at Thursday’s meeting to have Budget Manager Nate Rockwood crunch some numbers to look at purchasing an easement to protect the Snow Ranch Pastures by Thaynes Canyon.
Council Member Steve Joyce says he’s worried about doing more harm than good by doing that.
“I’m a little worried that adding anything to the bond could risk the Treasure bond and that’s my big concern cause I think people are still, we’ll do a lot of education work but," Joyce said. "You know the idea of all that development sitting right on top of Main St., I just really think is going to be hugely detrimental to this community for a decade, and I don’t want to do that at all. But, you know, Nate can bring us the numbers and we’ll take a look.”
Open space was taken off the list of critical priorities and Joyce thinks council needs to consider what’s already been done.
“Not that we’ll never buy it any more but gosh, we just did Clark Ranch and then we did Bonanza and we’re trying to do Treasure and maybe this, you know the pasture over by the golf course," Joyce said. "At some point you go, ‘Okay, we need to be spending on other things, we need to be focused on other things.’ And so, I would expect that, if nothing else we’ve spent down our open space bond.”
Joyce said the city could use the 1 percent sales tax that was created for open space and capital projects but there are other things to consider first.
"There’s things like the public work building that was looked at for being built out on, just off of Kearns," Joyce said. "And we had to cancel that because it just got so unbelievably expensive, but we really need the space. I mean, we’re really pushed on just jamming people into buildings right now. So, when you start talking about ‘Oh there’s money sitting there.’ That money is pretty much already spoken for and there’s a bunch of other things competing for it so, yeah you could, but it’s a complex puzzle it’s not just ‘Hey there’s money sitting aside not being used.’”
Though the city has a budget of more than $100 million, Joyce said the public isn’t showing up to voice their thoughts on how it should be used.
“I think the thing we’re trying to do is be fiscally responsible about making sure that we’re really accounting for money correctly," Joyce said. "We’re prioritizing things correctly, and that’s one of the things I’d love to see more is, the community involvement in the budget. I’ve always heard this but this was my first time of sitting at the table and having meeting after meeting where we’re going through, prioritizing things, marking things out you know, and there’s no one from the public attending and no public input. It’s like, you know, god, dogs on leashes we have 500 people show up but, you know $100 million budget and no one is there.”
KPCW asked Joyce, “When is enough, enough?”
Joyce said it’s a fine line to walk.
“We’ve got fees and taxes and bonds and, we’re building all of this affordable housing," KPCW asked. "But at what point do you not make it affordable to live here?”
“Yeah, that’s, I think everybody’s concerned about that and especially when you look at the county just increased the tax levy, the schools looking at increasing the tax levy – we’re talking about the treasure bond," Joyce said. "I think that’s a definite concern and it definitely has an impact. I hate to lean on this but with some of the things you have to keep track of who is paying those taxes? I mean, you hear about it and it’s like, ‘Oh this sales tax is going to generate, you know, $10 million' and it turns out that, yeah but for the individual who is a local here making a normal job, you’re gonna pay, you know, $20 bucks or something. It’s like well, $20 bucks isn’t probably the thing that is going to move you out of town so you have to be a little careful with those.”
Rockwood will present the requested information to council at Thursday’s meeting.
I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.