The State Would Never Push Something on Park City?

This morning, KPCW’s Lynn Ware Peak talked to Park City City Council person Andy Beerman about Mountain Accord. His response to a question regarding “vetoing” a tunnel from Brighton to Park City was interesting…

Lynn Ware Peak (KPCW): So if you go through the whole [Mountain Accord] process do you maintain the veto power?

Andy Beerman: I’m not terribly concerned about us having veto power over this [the Mountain Accord tunnel]. We are not ceding our land use authority to the Mountain Accord. We’ve had further reassurances, and there has been a lot of concern about this… everyone assured us that we ultimately maintain our veto power over this. At the end of the day, the feds or state could do this to us, whether we’re at the table or not, but we don’t expect that to happen. It would be fairly outrageous for something like that to happen.

Our question is … is that really outrageous? Take the Park City Film Studios. That was a very contentious project. I’ve heard many stories that if Summit County or Park City didn’t approve the studio, the state would have found a way to make it happen. Perhaps those are just rumors. Perhaps not. Either way, it doesn’t shock me. I don’t find the concept of a state “threat” as outrageous.

With the tunnel concept, it doesn’t seem outrageous to think that the state could “do this to us” if someone powerful enough in state government decided they really wanted a tunnel.

I think Mr. Beerman knows that too.