The Community DID NOT Select a Preferred Scenario for the Rebuild of the Park City School District’s Kearns Campus

You may have heard that the Park City School District has plans to renovate its Kearns campus. What started out with a School Board Master Planning Committee formed to decide whether to rebuild Treasure Mountain Junior High has morphed into… something else. As part of that process, three meetings were held with community members to discuss the master planning process. It culminated in four scenarios, presented by the architecture firm VCBO.

During the final meeting, these four scenarios were presented. Out of that meeting we have heard multiple times (on KPCW) that the community has selected the design they would like to move forward with. This gives the impression that THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN and THE PEOPLE DEMAND Scenario 3. I would be remiss right now if I didn’t mention that Scenario 3 was likely the grandest of the options. Some might call it (and I think they have called it) the kitchen sink.

Yes, it is true that in the final community master planning meeting that the majority of people who made a vote selected the kitchen sink. They did this by placing stickers on the scenario that they liked best. How many people out of all the residents in the Park City School District selected this option as the ideal one? 15. Fifteen. Quince.

So, 15 people, out of 40-50 at the meeting, out of 20,000 in the District selected this option. Let’s then delve into that populace:

How many of these people were on the existing school board Master Planning Committee that had been pushing for this during previous meetings? No idea … but there were at least 5 of those people in attendance who may have placed #1 stickers.

Was this in any way scientific or representative? Of course not. Different people attended each of the 3 different meetings. I would say that teachers, administrators, and Master Planning committee members made up well more than the majority (I could be wrong on that but I would guess not).

Were costs addressed or factored in by community members? No (a community member asked about that during the meeting but was told costs would be looked at later).

I realize that this is “how things are done.” Meetings are held with the public so that it can be said that public input was obtained. However, please don’t try to use that as marketing material.

To those who are reading this, if you walked up to a random Parkite on the street and said, “so are you for the School District’s plan to use Scenario 3 to rebuild Kearns Campus?”… Would they say:

A. Yes

B. No

C. Huh?

I don’t begrudge people for not knowing about the project yet. However, don’t tell me that the people are in favor of any plan. Most people don’t know there is one.