Two of David Dobkin’s biggest priorities in his campaign for a seat on the Park City Council are in the nickname that will be listed on the ballot — David “Pickleball Traffic” Dobkin.
Dobkin, an investment banker, has said he wants to remind people that those issues are part of his platform.
“I think a lot of people are very concerned about housing, traffic and recreation,” he said.
Dobkin said he is running for office because Park City is at a crossroads and he has the skill set and experience needed for the job. Those qualifications include being a good listener and having the ability to work with disparate parties and find common ground, he said.
“At the end of the day, City Council is a board and it’s the job of the councilors to manage the city and make sure the city is operating and fulfilling its duties to the best of its ability,” he said. “I have a lot of experiences from other places of the world and past jobs and past interactions. I believe that I can add significant value.”
Dobkin, 44, lives in upper Deer Valley, and has been a full-time resident of Park City since late 2019 after having been a part-time resident for a decade.
He grew up in Los Angeles and attended Columbia University for his undergraduate studies and did his graduate work at the University of Southern California, earning a bachelor of science and a master of science in biomedical engineering, respectively, from the schools. He is managing director of LifeSci Capital, an investment bank that focuses on the health care and biotech industries.
Concerning where he falls on the political spectrum, Dobkin said he believes smaller government is generally the way forward.
“If you wanted to label me, I would say fiscally responsible,” he said.
Dobkin ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2021 and called then for the elimination of city property taxes on residences that are occupied full time.
He no longer is advocating for tax abatement specifically but said, “I’m just saying in more general terms, I believe that we should be more responsible with our dollars and make it cheaper for our residents in the form of lower taxes.”
To address traffic problems, Dobkin said the city in the short term should encourage carpooling and incentivize drivers to use park-and-ride lots. He cited as an example a system used at Park City Mountain this year requiring paid parking and reservations and giving free parking to vehicles with four or more occupants.
“We don’t have to invest in a lot of infrastructure, change roads, change traffic flows, do anything like that,” Dobkin said. “You just incentivize people to get out of their cars. You reduce parking spots. There are other things you can do, as well.”
A medium-term step is to work with the counties in the region, the Utah Department of Transportation and the resorts to figure out ways to move traffic to eliminate areas that get clogged with vehicles, Dobkin said.
“These are longer-term issues that need to get addressed,” he said. “We’re not going to have less people coming to town. It’s trying to figure out and managing the traffic issues around high times when there’s a lot of people coming to town and a lot of people want to use our great outdoor facilities.”
If the Winter Olympics returns to Park City, the event will come with infrastructure money and the city can invest time and effort to make a wholesale change to moving people around town, Dobkin said. That could be gondolas or other solutions, but it would have to be in conjunction with other entities, he said.
Dobkin wants the Games to come back to Park City and said it was a “magical time” when the event took place in 2002.
“I think that it’s effectively a two-week extravagance and assuming that we do get state and federal dollars for an event like that, I see no reason why we shouldn’t bring it back,” he said.
In dealing with a shortage of affordable housing, Dobkin said he doesn’t believe City Hall should be the developer. It makes more sense for the city to form public-private partnerships with developers to build affordable housing units, he said.
“I think we do have a lot of egg on our face as a result of the arts and cultural district where we spent a lot of money buying that land and it’s now been sitting fallow for a number of years,” he said, referring to city-owned land at the intersection of Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive that was acquired with the intent of developing the district.
Dobkin said the city also should not operate child care centers but that the government should have a role in helping to provide the service when the market is not functioning correctly. If there are issues that keep facilities from getting licensed or they can’t hire enough support staff, the city should work with those businesses to figure out a solution “as opposed to blindly sending money out the door,” he said.
Dobkin supports a proposed general obligation bond that would fund pickleball courts, an outdoor ice sheet and expanded fitness space, among other projects. Voters will decide at the general election whether to approve the bond.
“I believe that the reason why people come to Park City in the first place is because of our recreation,” he said. “Our summer, our winter, our pickleball, our tennis, our great facilities, our skate parks. All of those are the reasons why families choose to come and vacation with us and people want to come and live in Park City. It behooves us as a town to continue to support that in the best way possible.”
He acknowledged there have been complaints by residents who live near the city’s pickleball courts about the noise from the play but said building a dedicated facility for the sport will solve that problem.
The other candidates running for a council seat are Bill Ciraco, incumbent Ryan Dickey, John Greenfield, Matthew Nagie, Ed Parigian, Bob Sertner and Jody Whitesides.
Betsy Wallace, who was in the race, suspended her campaign on Aug. 2, saying her life had become “significantly more unbalanced” than she had anticipated. Incumbents Max Doilney and Becca Gerber are not seeking reelection.
A Sept. 5 primary will narrow the field of eight council hopefuls to the six top vote-getters, who will advance to a Nov. 21 general election. The three candidates who get the most votes in that election will take office in January and serve a four-year term.
Voters will get to vote for three candidates in both the primary and the general election because there are three open seats. State law requires that a primary be held if more than twice the number of candidates file to run than are to be elected. The election is nonpartisan.