| OCR Text |
Show Park City is ripe for campaign disclosure law We like to flatter ourselves that Park City isn't a smalltown small-town burg anymore. We're a sophisticated, grown-up community, and we stand out, not just in Utah, but on the national landscape. But this also means we have to meet mature obligations and duties. One of those duties is that, in election campaigns, cam-paigns, our candidates should be required by law to reveal who contributes to their campaigns. Park City is a major resort community. (How do we know? The Chamber tells us so.) Therefore, the people we elect make decisions that affect powerful interests. At this point, however, we have nothing on the city books dealing with disclosure of campaign contributions. Defenders of the status quo can ostensibly give a good explanation ex-planation for this. There are Utah state laws written for financial disclosure, and they do not apply to towns the size of Park City. Why should we worry about the problem when the state doesn't? Look closer at the code, and you'll see why: For the record, the Utah Code 10-3-208 says, "Every elected elec-ted officer in the city of 1st and 2nd class (our emphasis) shall, within 30 days after taking oath of office, file with the City Recorder and publish at least once in a daily paper a sworn statement of election and campaign expenses stating names of persons making campaign contributions. Any elected official who fails to publish said statement shall be deemed to forfeit his office and shall be guilty of a class B misdemeanor." Cities are classified by their populations. Park City is classified as a third-class town on the basis of its year-round year-round population of 3,000 to 3,500. But everybody knows that we aren't a small town year-round. year-round. Periodically we swell up like a puff adder, due to infusions in-fusions of transient workers, seasonal residents with second homes, and tourists. That brings service demands on our local governments that equal, at least, the demands on our second-class cities. That makes us the focus of big money. The money brings influence and sometimes, people who play for high stakes. The state campaign finance law doesn't take the small resort town into account. But the code says that municipalities may adopt a disclosure ordinance on their own, using the proper procedures. Park City Council can adopt the state code as a city ordinance. or-dinance. They can plug up this loophole in state law if they want to. And if the citizens ask them. -KB |
