Summit in Six

Summit in Six


July 1, 2022 – Preliminary Primary Election Results, RAP Tax Grant Recipients, & New Solid Waste and Recycling Agreement

July 01, 2022

This week we’ll talk about: 


  • Preliminary results of the 2022 Primary Election 
  • 2022 Certified Tax Rates
  • 2022 RAP Tax Grant Recipients
  • Solid Waste and Recycling Agreement with Republic Services
  • New Public Works Director
  • OSAC Update

Preliminary Election Results


The 2022 Primary Election happened this past Tuesday, June 28. We just wanted to take a quick moment to share the preliminary results as reported by the Summit County Clerk’s Office.


As a reminder, there was a Republican Primary for: 


  • A U.S. Senate Seat
  • U.S. House District 1
  • U.S. House District 3
  • State House District 4

So far, Mike Lee, Blake Moore, John Curtis, and Kera Birkeland are ahead in Summit County.


There was also a Nonpartisan Primary for:


  • South Summit School Board Seat No. 5
  • Park City School Board Seat No. 4

In these School Board Primaries two candidates advance to the General Election. So far in South Summit, Olivia Gunnerson and Troy Beckstead are ahead. In Park City, Meredith Reed and Mandy Pomeroy are ahead.


Official results will be posted after the Board of Canvassers meets and certifies the Election Results on July 12th at 4:00 PM at the Ledges Event Center.


If people have received letters asking them if they voted and questioning their signature, they should respond to those letters as soon as possible and no later than July 11th.


2022 Tax Rates


Moving on to this week’s County Council meeting, Summit County Auditor, Michael Howard, was in front of the Council to present the 2022 Certified Tax Rates.


For some background, a certified tax rate is set to guarantee the same amount of revenue each year for taxing entities. This year, Michael reported that the tax rate has decreased from  FY 2021. This rate includes the additional revenue required for bond payments.


So what does this really mean? Well Certified Tax Rates is really one way that the process of property taxes remains transparent and open to public access. Residents are often worried rates will go up if the value of their property increases, but that isn’t necessarily true. Over the entire property tax base in the County, property tax rates get lowered when home values increase, keeping the revenue the same each year. 


Keep an eye on your mail in mid-July (July 22 to be exact) because this is when disclosure notices will be sent to property owners!


RAP Tax


The Summit County RAP Cultural Advisory Committee was back in front of Council this week to present their amended 2022 grant recommendations to the Council.


For some context, the RAP (recreation, arts, & parks) tax is used to enhance or support the funding of publicly owned or operated recreational and zoological facilities, and botanical, cultural, and zoological organizations owned and operated by institutions or private nonprofit organizations. It is a (tenth of a cent) sales tax on certain goods. Citizens of Summit County first voted to approve this tax in 2000 and renewed the tax in 2010 and 2020.


This year, there were 23 applicants with a total request of a little over 1.9 million and there was a total available funds for the grant of just over 1.2 million. Council approved the recommendations. You can find a full list of recipients on the news section on the summitcounty.org homepage or click HERE


Republic Services


Derrick Radke and Tim Loveday were in front of the Council on Wednesday to present the new Solid Waste and Recycling agreement with Republic Services, which the Council approved.


Republic Services current solid waste and recycling contract with the county expires, today actually, on July 1st of 2022. After a request for proposals and a committee review of three competitive bids, staff recommend that the Council award Republic Services the contract for another five years, with option to renew for up to an additional 10 years.


During the work session on this new agreement last week, Tim shared that low cost played a significant role in the appeal of Republic’s proposal, as well as their previous 10 years of experience working in the County. In negotiations with Republic Services, he ensured that there would be additional resources devoted to recycling education and significant improvement of customer service in this new contract.


Specific changes from the prior contract include: a local customer service line separate from the national hotline, enhancing the existing recycling program with improved interaction with Recycle Utah to reduce the contamination rate we’re currently experiencing and a partnership between the County and Republic on the recycling transfer center, and, finally, a menu of opt-in services for things like food waste and glass through subcontractors like Spoil to Soil and Momentum Glass to be available to residents.


New Public Works Director


The Summit County Public Works Department selected John Angell as its next Public Works Director this week.  


John has been serving as the Deputy Public Works Director since 2020, although he’s worked for Summit County for 23 years. He will succeed Derrick Radke, who is retiring from the department this December. The transition will happen over the next months until Derrick’s retirement, the two will split the role and responsibilities until then.


A little background on John for our listeners. He has lived in Kamas his whole life and first started working for Summit County in 1999 for the Engineering Division of Public Works. At that time Derrick and John were the only Engineers on staff, so their roles were numerous. His main role was as a Project Engineer, designing and managing construction projects for Summit County. Outside of work, John enjoys spending time with his family in the outdoors riding in any kind of off highway vehicles.


A big congratulations, John!


OSAC Update


And, finally, we wanted to flag that at next week’s County Council meeting, July 6th, the County Manager will present his appointments to the three volunteer regional advisory committees.


As a reminder, these committees were established as part of the Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC) created by the Council to help them establish an evaluation criteria and evaluate properties for use of the open space bond funds adopted by Summit County voters last November. 


If the appointments are approved by the Council, the advisory committees will be officially established and can get to work on helping the Council acquire properties for open space and conservation.