Up to $200K in tax money for new driveway where school superintendent lives
PARK CITY, Utah (KUTV) — Up to $200,000 dollars in tax money is being spent on a new driveway, and improvements linked to it, at the home where the superintendent of the Park City School District lives.
The district said the project is to correct safety issues — a pitch that was apparently too high, and an unsafe hard turn to get to the Jeremy Ranch house — which the district purchased with tax funds for the superintendent’s use more than a year ago.
The purchase price then was more than $800,000.
As a skilled crew worked new cement for the driveway, which has heating coils underneath the surface, neighbor Donna Riley shared a less than warm view of the upgrades.
“Don’t think I want to pay for it,” she said in a 2News interview.
“The neighbors are talking exactly what we’re talking about. Why are we having to pay for this?”
Riley said boulders at the property have been re-positioned for the project.
Said another neighbor of the price: “That is a substantial amount.” She called it “incredible.”
The district’s Capital Fund Project list showed “access and redesign work” to provide safe way to the garage at $200,000.
Some driveways in the area also have heated surfaces, but many do not.
We asked the district if this is a good use of public money.
“From a safety perspective, yes,” replied Todd Hauber, district business administrator.
He said the job had to go through a “capital committee, facility review, and board review.”
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It’s unknown if the superintendent, Dr. Jill Gildea, asked for the improvements. Repeated requests to a district spokesperson for an on-camera interview were declined.
Donna Riley says people who lived at the home before made it up and down the old driveway.
“The people who sat down and said, yeah let’s do this (the new project), I’d like to know what their personal finances are like,” she said.
