The Park City Council just voted themselves a substantial pay raise. Council members moved up from $28,520 to $58,333. The mayor moved from $55,209 to $116,666. They all have the option to taking health insurance benefits of $29,731, or that much in cash.  So a council member may be taking in $ 88,264, which makes that a pretty appealing side gig. The mayor could be making $146,397 if he has health insurance coverage elsewhere. The increased pay scale for elected officials seems, I don’t know, let’s call it “adequate.” Council members are spending a ton of money and overseeing a big and complicated organization that runs everything from the state’s most complicated water system to a cemetery, bus service, golf course, recreation services, roads, a great library, and so on.  And by most measures, the quality of services in Park City is very high. None of it comes cheap, not all of it efficient, but by comparison to most places, Park City delivers pretty high-end public services. By comparison, in my end of the county, the garbage sometimes gets picked up. The people managing all of that deserve appropriate compensation. There’s some merit to the argument that the time commitment is high enough that low salaries would discourage, if not actually preclude, people without significant other income from running for office. I’m not sure that the complexity of city government is well-served by electing professional dog-walkers. They may have great ideas, but this is a management position, and relevant experience seems, well, relevant. The rapidity of the decision is striking. They completely avoided the usual process of forming a citizens committee to consider the hiring of a consultant to study the appropriateness of hiring another consultant to make formal recommendations that would ultimately be ignored. This was one hearing and done. That’s shocking coming from a group that would spend three months debating whether to exit a burning building.  They could not have botched the public relations on this any worse if they had hired Elon Musk’s young DOGE protégé, Edward Coristine, better known as “Big Balls,” to handle the rollout. It’s done, and will show up in the budget to be adopted in June. Big balls indeed. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt that being mayor in Park City is five times harder than being the mayor of Vail or twice as hard as being mayor of Jackson, there are ways they could have presented this that would have seemed minimally sensitive to the public trust. For example, they might have had the raises take effect only after the next election.  That would put to the test the theory that qualified people were discouraged from running because of the salary. I think qualified people are discouraged from running because being an elected official in a small town full of highly opinionated people is really difficult, and people yell at you in the grocery store, frequently over stuff that is outside the city’s jurisdiction.   But here’s another idea. Prove you’re worth it. Given the City Council’s reputation for not getting anything done, anywhere, ever, what if half their fat pay raise takes effect when there is a certificate of occupancy at the new senior center building?  The other half would come when they make, and implement, a decision, any decision, on the city-created Bonanza Drive wasteland. There are about 8,000 people living in Park City. That means there are at least 16,000 different opinions on what to do with the embarrassing weed lot the city has nurtured for nearly 10 years.  There is no consensus, nor will there ever be. Some say affordable housing; others want a park; artists feel entitled to studio spaces with subsidized rents. There was nothing wrong with a gas station there.  No plan will make everybody happy, though the status quo is making everybody unhappy. Vacant lots don’t generate traffic, so there’s that. Maybe the solution is affordable housing on part of it and a park, which would be a cool amenity for the housing as well as the general neighborhood, on the rest of it. But do something. Park City faces some very real challenges. A single developer owns 1,200 acres at Richardson Flat. It’s mostly in the county or Hideout rather that Park City, but the impacts will land hard on Park City. There should have been years of engagement to create mutual opportunities there. I’m not sure there are even general discussions about having the streets align.  Both ski resorts have moved their front doors out of town. East Village is huge, and the shiny new thing. That seems like a concern for Main Street and other in-town businesses. There should be something on the Brew Pub parking lot that no visitor to the area would leave without seeing. I don’t know what that is (that’s where the imagination of the dog walkers would help), but the city needs a unique attraction there beyond parking meters. Where’s the vision? The mayor of Dallas makes $80,000 a year. I would not want to live in Dallas, let alone be mayor. So maybe you get what you pay for. Park City residents are now paying for perfection. The new pay scale doesn’t leave room for potholes, mistakes or indecision.  They need to prove they are worth it. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. The post More Dogs on Main: Prove they are worth it appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less