John Curtis’s handy reelection to the US House Tuesday over challenger Glenn Wright, a Park City Democrat, provides some food for thought. Curtis won in the newly redrawn 3rd Congressional District, which will include Park City and other parts of Summit County. A former and successful mayor of Provo, Curtis knows what it takes to manage a city, albeit a much bigger, less affluent, and more conservative city than the one Parkites call home. But there is still work to be done for both Curtis and Parkites to seal this deal.
In short, Curtis needs to get to know us better — and we need to get to know him better. (To his credit, he had begun reaching out to leaders in this community long before Election Day.) He is a conservative of the rock-ribbed variety while we are bluer than BB King, yet ideologies don’t have to divide us. Curtis undoubtedly wants to do a good job of representing all of his new district, of which we are a prominent part, along with Provo — and we want good representation, which to our minds means sensitivity to our struggles with growth and the growing pains associated with success, such as traffic; environmental degradation; and the quest for affordable housing, which by itself can sometimes seem circular.
We want an advocate in DC who is willing to balance the needs of a small portion of his district, such as Park City, with the essential work he also does for places such as Provo. How can he do that? One good way would be to avoid being drawn in to what are sure to be some contentious ideological struggles in the next two years, whichever party has a majority in the House.
We know Curtis can walk and chew gum; we are simply suggesting that time spent, for example, on the pursuit of Hunter Biden and his laptop is time better spent offstage with leading House Democrats, for example, or even with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has some sharp ideas of his own about managing growth and the federal government’s role.
For our part, we extend to Rep. Curtis our congratulations and the benefit of the doubt.
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