Local elections, difficult choices

Tuesday afternoon, we attended the last municipal election forum that took place on the heels of the Park City Chamber's board meeting. We had a chance to see the two candidates for mayor and the the four individuals vying for the two available seats on city council. While the mayor wannabes are known entities, the four other were not and we were curious to see who really stood behind the names. Their statements and their answers were enough to put us at ease and we agreed that one of them, John Stafsholt, was well prepared and sounded by far the best, while Alex Butwinski was not as convincing, but somehow squeaked by. Both Mark Blue and Cindy Matsumoto sounded as they were just generating “white noise” and appeared to have no real idea where they were going. As for the mayor, we'll stick with Brad Olch, the underdog but the best choice for the trying times that are in store for our city. All this to say that local elections are probably the most difficult ones to assess well and it's always essential to make the effort and go see the candidates in person into to understand who is best equipped to carry out the job.