Mayor Nann Worel and a critic of Park City’s decorations for Pride Month engaged in a tense verbal exchange Thursday evening at the Marsac Building before she abruptly ended the dialogue.
The Park City Police Department walked with the man out of the City Council chambers after the exchange and he agreed to leave the building, the agency said. Police Chief Wade Carpenter during the man’s comments appeared to attempt to reduce the tension by requesting a calm conversation.
It is extraordinarily rare for input at a City Council meeting to transpire in the manner it did on Thursday. Law enforcement is regularly in attendance at City Council meetings, but police intervention like that on Thursday hardly ever occurs.
The man identified himself as living in the 84060 ZIP code, which generally covers the Park City limits, and said he has lived locally nearly his entire life. He said his first name is Logan, but his last name was unintelligible on a recording of the meeting.
The exchange became tense almost immediately as the man complained about the Pride flags that are posted on Main Street to celebrate Pride Month. He quickly used a profanity, leading the mayor to request that he not do so.
The man then used the word ‘pedophile,’ seemingly in relation to the flags. Worel immediately interjected, saying he was violating the code of conduct at City Council meetings. He responded by requesting the mayor not stop his comments and said he was speaking truths.
Worel asked him to return to his seat and requested the man “keep your comments courteous, civil, not slanderous.”
The man told Worel and the City Council he was delivering public comments. He asked whether he could say the elected officials should resign.
“You may say that, yes,” Worel said.
He then inquired what else he could say during the appearance.
“Anything that you want to say that is courteous and is not slanderous and doesn’t attack the general public,” the mayor said in response.
Another comment, regarding gender-affirming surgery, prompted the mayor to again immediately intervene.
“This conversation is over. Thank you for coming,” Worel said.
The man said he plans to return to each City Council meeting until the flags are removed. The City Council, however, is not scheduled to meet again during June, which is Pride Month.
Park City is marking Pride Month in a variety of ways, including the posting of Pride flags and the colors elsewhere. An event at Miners Hospital early in the month drew a crowd for a flag raising and remarks by government leaders and others. The local LGBTQ+ Taskforce is readying to participate in the Independence Day parade in Park City.
Park City has long been considered one of the state’s welcoming communities to the LGBTQ+ community, a result of the left-leaning local politics and large population of people arriving from the East Coast and West Coast in recent decades. City Hall itself presses a work plan that includes the broad ideal of social equity as a priority, and the efforts of the municipal government have won widespread community praise.
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Park City mayor, Pride Month critic engage in tense verbal exchange - The Park Record
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