OCR Text |
Show Candidates Speak Out On The Issues f v : , - v , v .f M . - J . If ' v V' ' I V - 'V - ' ij J I : ' - f - . . ! s -a i' i- ' f I . I ,s f.' - ... J . Bob Wells, 35, was bom in Laurel, Mississippi. He received a degree in accounting from Mississippi State and worked as a certified public accountant in New Orleans for nine years before moving to Park City in 1971. He was chief financial officer for Greater Park City Company until the resort was bought in 1975 by Alpine Meadows Corp. Since 1975, he has been a general partner In the Michigan-Utah Corp., developers of the Mt. Air Mall. In May 1976, he became general manager of Moana Corp., Park City's largest housing operation. He Is currently Co-chairman of the Park City Planning Commission. Rich Martinez, 42, was bom and raised in Park City. He began working at the Ontario Mine in 1953 and was a miner for 10 years. He left the mine for four years in the early 1960's and was a welder for Chicago Bridge and Iron in Salt Lake. He returned to the mine and became shop foreman of the machine and welding shop in 1968. He has been Surface Superintendent over all surface maintenance since 1976. Martinez, who has nine children and three grandchildren, also purchased the Cozy Tavern on Main Street with his father, Alfonso, in 1972. Perhaps more knowledgeable than anyone else about the city's water problems and capabilities, Martinez supervised the installation of the water drift that provides the town's main source. A member of the city council for 11 years, he is chairman of the water committee and checks the water drift every 15 days. How would you improve relations between Park City and Summit County? Alvarez: By effective government. govern-ment. I don't think the Council has really taken the time to review material that city officials are making available. Maybe one or two of them are looking through it and dealing logically with issues. I'd guess the same is true for the county. The real problem is that there's been a cold war forever, as long as I've been in Park City. The county has always been very tied to the church. They're farming people who are tied to their families and religion. Park City has always been a bastard-child mining Community. A lot of people have a feeling we're intruders. I think with good sound management which will happen with a new Council we will be able to communicate on a higher level and create a confidence between the two elected councils. We've got to get to a point where we're communicating flat out. I've been involved in county politics and have very good relationships with a lot of county people. Lehmer: I have never seen a relationship that didn't improve by face to face encounters. The atmosphere in Park City has always been ' tainted with the feeling that the county commissioners commis-sioners thought Park City was a part of the county they would just as soon do without, that they had no desire to cooperate with us and that the commissioner from Park City would yield Park City's interest in order to retain good relations with his colleagues. I don't believe in operating on rumors and I have every confidence that closer and friendlier friend-lier feelings would produce better results if we met more frequently and discussed our desires and objectives with the county commissioners. com-missioners. I think it would be a wise move to meet once a month. I've never been happy with the situation that the right hand never knows what the left hand is undoing. What is mainly needed is common sense. Most things need common sense, but it isn't common. Martinez: 1 don't think the county will ever see Park City's viewpoint. Park City is in a position where we're kind of independent of the county. We're taking care of our own landfill, our own sewer problems. We're taking care of ourself pretty well. We can try to work with the county commissioners, I'm not saying we should shut the door on the county and forget them. We should work with them on things that might "come up, but if they propose things that we don't want to go along with we should stay on our own. Wells: I think time will automatically take care of the problem. The only thing you can work on is increased contact and having more of a voice from the voters. As much of a problem as anything else is that because of our size, we have two part time governments. But the time will come, as we grow, that the city will be able to expand its staff, have a full time Mayor, and a larger staff that will have more time. There should be more communication commun-ication between the city planner and county planner in the coordination of things and contact between the city manager and the county people in charge on a day to day basis. How would you rate the performance of the present city council? Alvarez: I have mixed emotions. emo-tions. A lot of good things have happened. We now have one person (the City Manager) reponsible for the operation of the city. I don't know if it's done more efficiently, but he's there. I think they've done a good job in giving us a better police force. But as I pointed out before, it appears a lot of the council is not doing their homework. You've got to have a good management team. You've got to give responsibility to subser-vients subser-vients and here it's given to two people the City Manager and Treasurer. If the Council is only going to meet twice a month, it can't keep track of all the things that are taking place on a day to day basis. The Council can make decisions if they read the reports these people put out. I think the purpose of the Council is to evaluate information, informa-tion, to have brainstorming sessions, to represent the people and understand community needs. Lehmer: I have been very disappointed in their failure to listen to the wishes of the people. I attended the public hearing on the proposed Norfolk development develop-ment where about 100 people, with the exception of possibly two persons and the developers, were resoundingly against the proposal, propo-sal, yet the council, with the exception of Miss Bennett, turned their backs on the townspeople there to be heard and approved the zone change required for . development of the proposal. I also believe they have been content to accept the recommendations recommen-dations of the City Recorder and City Manager without fully studying the issues and the data Mr. Decker says he makes available to the councilmen for their study. Martinez: When I first started on the council, we had a budget of around $100,000. Now it's over $1 million. I used to tell people I can remember trading two fifths of whiskey to get mulch for the streets. I made a deal with the foreman at the mine. Now we've got money. As soon as the water lines are in, we'll remulch all the streets. A lot of people complain about the streets, but they should have been here 10 years ago. We didn't have any paved streets except Main Street, and Park Avenue. I think we're doing a good job. Wells: I think the present council has done a good job. The present council has been caught in the middle of the last two year growth period. Growth in the last year and a half has been almost an overnight thing and they've coped very well. I'm not running against anyone, any-one, I'm just running for myself. what the bricks look like. When I painted some of the bricks, I'd end up holding them together with paint. I don't think it's a beautiful building. If it was restored it might be. It could be used for the Chamber, or maybe the police could utilize the whole facility. (At Candidates Night last week, Alvarez explained that he had suggested using the building for offices only to offset the cost to the city of operating the building. "I meant it as an economic thing," he said. "My children use it as a recreation facility and I would like to see it continue as recreation.") Lehmer: I agree with councilman council-man Dering's statement that one of the gym's in the two local public schools should be made available to the public for recreation purposes. I think the Memorial Building gym should be eliminated and the the entire building should be devoted to new adequate space for city administration, including the possibility of a small jail to avoid the manpower and vehicular expense of transporting prisoners back and forth to the Coalville jail. If we have two stories where the gym is, it would forestall the need for a new office building for a time. (Lehmer said last week at Candidates Night that she had changed her mind about offices in the building after getting strong feedback against the idea. "I listen to the voice of the people," she said. "What I heard, overwhelmingly, was the wish that it be expanded as a recreation facility.) Martinez: I'm definitely against again-st putting city offices in the building. It was built for recreation purposes for the city and that's the way it ought to stay. If we need a new city hall, we have 10 lots across from the TMI, and we ought to put one in. If we're that crowded in the present city hall, we ought to build a new one. There's no place else in the city for people to play. Where other communities in the county have an advantage over Park City is that the Mormon churches have gyms for their members. To put city offices in the Memorial Building would create a conflict between the offices and the people who wanted to use the gym. People would be perturbed. It wouldn't work. I'm strictly against it. Wells: I would rather see the building restores, the appearance improved and have it used for recreation, for the younger people and children in town. Basically, they don't have anyplace, it's the only place for people under 18 to go. I think there's more need for that then for generating other things. It would have to have more drastic changes for it to be used as office space. I realize that city hall is overcrowded, but I think it would be more efficient to buy a couple of lots and build a new city hall and jail than to use our recreation space and meeting space. |