Update on Mountain Accord

Park City leader and activist, Rich Wyman, attended a meeting on Monday of the Mountain Accord Executive Committee. The meeting was intended to be a review of citizen comments received about the Accord.

Here are some of the important meeting points, as highlighted by Mr Wyman:

• Joan DeGiorgio, of the Nature Conservancy, was made a member of the Executive Board.

• The Brighton to Park City segment is not included in the Mountain Accord Phase II NEPA scope (neither tunnel nor aerial options).

• Mountain Accord decisions are consensus based and do not supersede federal, state, and local jurisdictions’ authority. Local jurisdictions that have consented in the consensus based process shall seek to implement agreed-up scenarios or actions within their jurisdiction through zoning, general plan, and other tools available. Local jurisdictions are not obligated to implement actions with which they are not in agreement.

• Program Manager,Laynee Jones said,  “This paragraph [the abovebullet]  will not be in the ILA [inter local agreement between government bodies] because some participants have already signed it and it will take too much time to start that process over again. This paragraphwill be incorporated to the new blueprint this summer.”

• It appears Utah County and American Fork want to be a part of the Mountain Accord.

I’ve left out some of the detailed commentary from Mr. Wyman related to each point. That said, it appears he believes that while many of these points are promising, it is important to keep our focus on what’s important to us and make sure the Executive Committee follows through with these statements. As he points out, “nothing has been voted on yet.”

He attributes many of these gains to Summit County leaders who have pushed back and said they want specific language stating that localities are in control of their destiny. In my opinion, some of our Summit County leaders have done a good job of walking a fine line that will hopefully protect us in the future from pieces of the Accord that could harm Summit County.

As they say, the proof will be in the pudding once the next iteration of the Mountain Accord Blueprint is released in the coming months. I personally hope what My Wyman heard is translated into hard facts in the next iteration of the agreement.

Regardless, the fight isn’t over and we all still require constant vigilance. As of now, though, the sunrise looks a little more promising today than it did yesterday.

h/t to Mr Wyman for attending the meeting and providing a good overview of what was discussed.