Alta voter guide 2023

Town Council

At large

Vote for up to two candidates.

Sheridan J. Davis

Occupation: Manager at Alta’s Rustler Lodge, working there for my 15th year this season.

If elected, what would you do to provide more affordable housing options to your residents? Would you support higher-density housing?

The town of Alta has the means to create affordable housing ownership now within current properties as well as land and funding that could be dedicated to this purpose and which I am actively pursuing. Many mountain towns like Park City, Crested Butte and Telluride have affordable housing programs we may emulate. Currently, we have tax incentives for residential properties and business workforce housing, which should be made more robust. I do support higher-density housing initiatives to create affordable housing opportunities.

What is your city’s responsibility in addressing homelessness, and what would you do within the boundaries of your community to help unhoused Utahns?

Caring for the unhoused is an issue that dovetails with the challenges of creating more affordable housing. Some might argue that there is not just a missing-middle regarding housing in Alta — there is a missing first rung. Yet our workforce housing opportunities are some of the most robust of any mountain town in the U.S. My candidacy is predicated on creating more livable-wage jobs in Alta and the opportunity for affordable housing ownership — two means of shoring up reasons why people become unhoused.

Besides affordable housing or homelessness, what is the biggest challenge your city faces, and how would you address it?

I believe unlimited human activity in Alta is one of our greatest challenges as a town. How do we fund the policing and emergency services needed for visitation numbers that exceed those of the most popular national parks? And how are we to manage the protection of our invaluable culinary water supply and fragile natural environment in light of this growth? I along with colleagues have advocated for a science-based human capacity study funded by the town to gain some clarity around what the upper limits of human visitation might be in order to protect and sustain this place cherished by so many.

What is a fun or unique fact about yourself?

I am a skier, mountain biker, dog lover and someone enraptured with Alta, married to my high school sweetheart for 25 years this fall.

Elise Morgan

No responses.

Dan Schilling

No responses.