Our elected officials just can’t help themselves. Last week continued an unfortunate trend of ignoring the will of the people. It seems that once elected, some mystical power befalls them, increasing their intellect and discernment so much so that they choose to ignore vast parts of their constit uencies. The most recent decision by the Park City Council and the mayor to pick Molly Miller to join the council simply reinforces this thesis. Miller, who came in seventh out of eight candidates in last year’s election for a seat on the council, was selected over Jack Rubin, who came seven votes short in his bid for mayor. His opponent, Ryan Dickey, cast the deciding vote. Let’s run the numbers, shall we? When the voters spoke in 2025 with their actual ballots, 432 voters selected Molly Miller in the primary, and Jack Rubin received 1,699. So 8.7% of the voters who cast ballots selected Molly Miller, vs. 49.9% for Jack Rubin. For you math-challenged readers, that is not even close. None of our elected officials will say this was a partisan or ideological decision, but it was. Some involved with the process indicated a desire to have another woman on the council. Some said they wanted someone from an underrepresented neighborhood. But all of that ignores what really matters: the voters in our community. Recently, the North Summit School Board probably set a record for attendance and public comment. For those who have not followed the events of the last three years, here is a little primer. Reports have emerged that North Summit High School is inadequate for the educational needs of our young learners. Projections indicate that the student population will grow beyond what the current building can support. Let’s set aside the fact that some of those reports came from the contractors who want to design and build the new building. Twice, the school board put a bond to build this $125 million school, complete with an upgraded football field, new softball, baseball and swimming pool. Twice, the public voted it down. What did the school board do? They took advantage of a Utah law that allows them to form a building authority to issue the bonds without public approval, pushing the total cost of the project to over $225 million. For you math-challenged readers, that is a lot of money. This time, the voters of North Summit decided to push back, hard. They read the law that allows for the creation of the Building Authority and discovered that by gathering signatures, they could derail the expensive process. The good folks who collected signatures thought reaching the threshold was not possible. They were wrong. The message from the public was that we probably need a new school or we might need to upgrade the existing school, but we want to be involved. Election cycles are one of the primary opportunities for the public to debate, discuss and bring to light issues that voters believe are crucial to our community. Election Day is the ultimate poll. Past cycles have clearly shown that issues like the Dakota Pacific project, ranked-choice voting, council districting, Emergency Services Sales Tax, Park City’s affordable/workforce housing projects, a new senior center, an arts district at Bonanza, housing affordability, and rapidly increasing spending by local government are just a few of the issues that resurface. During these cycles, candidates attend community events, hold neighborhood gatherings, and go door-knocking to meet voters. Good candidates start each interaction with “I want to hear your concerns,” then listen. This is an opportunity to hear the priorities of the voters one-to-one. The best candidates crawl out of the information silo and speak with voters who don’t align with their political views. In this off-season cycle, unfortunately, many of our elected officials are unopposed or are facing candidates only from their tribe. Candidates facing a primary challenge will engage with the most partisan of their party to win at the convention or the primary, then coast unopposed to the general election. Unfortunately, what they hear will be anything but balanced.  This is a shame because those candidates will not hear from the voters directly. They will not have the benefit of listening to the polls. I guess in the end, none of that matters anyway. Because if a candidate or idea gets trounced during an election, even by a lot, once elected, our officials become the smartest people in the room and can ignore the voters. Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at [email protected] The post The Porcupine Quill: The people’s will appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less