Might it be the mayor of Park City providing some oversight as the organizers of the 2034 Winter Olympics prepare for the Games?
Or could figures from the Park City tourism industry and former Winter Olympians who live in the area serve in that capacity?
The community will likely have influence at some level in the group that will plan and then stage the event in less than a decade. The efforts have pivoted from the bidding to the early work of preparations in the months after the Games were awarded to Salt Lake City in July.
The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, the group that mounted the successful bid, will be disbanded as an organizing committee is created. The organizing committee will be the entity that puts on the Games and will be key to the work in the Park City area. The leadership of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games on Wednesday, meeting in the capital city, voted to dissolve that group upon the formation of an organizing committee.
An organizing committee is expected to be created in the first quarter of 2025. The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games is in talks with the International Olympic Committee about the step toward the formation of an organizing committee. The IOC is continuing to review documentation.
Fraser Bullock, the president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, said the IOC is proceeding on its own timeline. More details about the formation of an organizing committee are expected to be discussed in early 2025, he said.
The Park City area will be key during the Winter Olympics with three major competition venues — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park — identified as part of the Games map.
The creation of an organizing committee will be a crucial step and impact work across the Games region. The organizing committee will be responsible for crafting the overall plan for the Games and, in doing so, be tasked with building relations with the communities where competition venues are located. The organizing committee will be anticipated to work closely with Park City and Summit County on the Games plans. The sides will cover topics like transportation, security, celebrations and the design and operations of the venues. Much of the work will be conducted at the staff level, but the governing body of an organizing committee will be expected to have certain oversight duties.
The makeup of the governing body of an organizing committee will be of note in the venue communities like Park City. There were multiple figures from the Park City area, or with ties to the area, with seats on the governing boards of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games. Their presence was seen as providing Park City and surrounding Summit County some stature as decisions were made regarding the bid.
The rosters of the governing boards of the bid committee and an organizing committee will not be identical, and it is not known how many people with links to the Park City area will be appointed when an organizing committee is formed.
Bullock said the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games was not prepared to address whether people from the Park City area will be part of the governing body of an organizing committee. He noted the IOC is involved in the discussions as well.
“Our venue communities are very, very important to us. And they will have a way to participate, for sure, in how we’re pulling the Games together,” Bullock said.
He said it is not yet known whether individuals will be appointed to certain seats on a governing body or whether those seats will be associated with positions. As an example, if the mayor of Park City is appointed, it is not clear whether that seat would remain through the Games with the incumbent at the time of the appointment or it would move to another person should they later become the mayor. There are three Park City mayoral elections prior to the Games in 2034.
“We intend having representation on an ongoing basis, in one form or another, from all of our venue communities, and that would typically be related to their position in the community,” Bullock said.