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Guest editorial: Park City voters must choose the best two candidates for mayor to debate our future

Paul Pilzer
Park City

I have lived in Park City every winter since 1981 and full-time since getting married here in 1999. All four of our children were born here and have attended Park City public schools. I have founded several companies that, over 30+ years, have employed hundreds of Parkites and thousands of Utahns. I’ve been a volunteer college advisor at Park City High School since 1985 and my wife mentors the PCHS Robotics Club.

Although, like many, I came to Park City for the skiing, snowboarding, and mountain biking, I stayed for the quality of life for my family — a quality of life that is now threatened by explosive growth, traffic gridlock, local housing inflation, restaurant inflation, lack of worker housing, and other challenging issues we face.

These and other key issues will be debated in the upcoming mayoral election — primary voting begins July 20 and ends August 10, 2021. It is crucial that we pick the two best candidates to lead the debate: Nann Worel and David Dobkin.



Several weeks ago, I saw an article in the Park Record that announced David Dobkin’s candidacy for Mayor of Park City. My initial reaction was, “Who is this guy? And why is he doing this?” I discovered that my friends and colleagues had the same opinion based on Jay Hamburger’s article.

But what Jay failed to mention, is that David is one of us. He has been coming to Park City since 1982 and has been a local for the better part of a decade, with a son skiing on the Summit and Wasatch Freestyle teams since 2015.



Much more importantly, at age 42, David is an extremely qualified, educated, and thoughtful individual who has spent two decades worldwide considering many of the issues that we now face, and who proposes real-world solutions that we can implement today, including a workforce housing solution, transportation fixes, and the refocusing of City Hall on the needs of residents versus tourists.

David brings a fresh perspective garnered from his experiences living and working for the governments in other mountain towns and cities across the U.S. and abroad.

When I first met David, I was very impressed and grateful that someone so successful from academics to business wanted to lead our town. I recommended that David meet with some key city leaders. Almost every meeting turned out the same; the person phoned me to thank me for the introduction and asked what he or she could do to ensure that David places 1st or 2nd in the primary so voters would have three months to make up their minds in the general election between David and Nann.

At this point, it seems probable that Nann Worel will place first this month in the primary election. If you vote for David Dobkin, David, versus our current mayor, will face Nann in the general election on November 2, 2021. Primary voting begins July 20, 2021, and closes August 10, 2021.

David is holding Town Hall meetings both this Wednesday (July 14, 2021) and next Wednesday (July 21, 2021), at 2041 Sidewinder Drive, from 6-8 p.m. As a Parkite, I encourage you to attend and hear from David yourself. But if you can’t make it, your vote for David in this primary will ensure that David’s ideas have a seat at the table for the next three months as we debate our future up until Election Day November 2.

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