Draper City Council interviewed and appointed three new members to the Traverse Ridge Special Services District (TRSSD) Administrative Control Board. The council selected Mark Vincent and Paul Kearsley to serve four-year terms and James Hether to serve a two-year term. 

“We really appreciate these gentlemen stepping up and getting involved in our community,” Mayor Troy Walker said. 

The TRSSD was established in 1999. Its residents pay a special tax in addition to regular city taxes to cover expenses unique to their mountain community. Those extra expenses include special streetlights, extra snow equipment and plowing, and road maintenance and repair. The TRSSD’s biggest expense is snow plowing and removal. 

The TRSSD Administrative Control Board, comprised of volunteers who are district residents, was established in 2014. The board works with the city and is tasked with managing the budget for the required special services. The board consists of five members plus a treasurer. In 2022, they held a truth in taxation hearing and increased the tax rate to recover from debt incurred by a previous board. 

Vincent is a retired businessman who moved to Draper five years ago. He told the council he has both big and small business operating experience. Vincent said he has attended all TRSSD meetings and was encouraged to get involved by current board chairperson Daryl Acumen. “I survived ‘Snowmageddon’ a few years ago and am familiar with the unique aspects of the community. I’d like to volunteer and be a part of this,” he said in his interview. Asked by councilmember Tasha Lowery if he has any specific concerns about the TRSSD, Vincent said he thinks communication could be improved, and he hopes for more regular meetings to be scheduled, perhaps quarterly.

Kearsley has lived in SunCrest for more than four years. He previously lived in Millcreek for three decades and recently retired from his role as Director of IT operations for the State of Utah. He currently serves on SunCrest’s community council/HOA. “It’s important to be involved in your community,” Kearsley told the council in his interview. Lowery asked Kearsley about communication and transparency for the board. He said he supports being upfront about costs and providing information as it relates to cost could be done using different tools to make it readily available and easily searchable for residents. Kearsley also supports a regular, ongoing meeting schedule for the board with minutes taken and published. Asked in his interview if he’s comfortable using social media as a communication tool for the board, Kearsley said it sometimes invites rants where people aren’t civil in the discourse, so he wouldn’t want to rely solely on social media. 

Hether is retired from a 35-year career as a chiropractor. He moved to Draper from Florida nine years ago. While in Florida, he was a professor at two different colleges while also working full time. He worked with the Port Orange, Florida mayor to develop a large chiropractic college. Hether said he appreciates the snow removal in SunCrest but would like to see the street lights fixed, especially since one near his home has been out for a year. Lowery described the TRSSD streetlights as “an ongoing conundrum.” 

Acumen joined the TRSSD Administrative Control Board in 2020 and has served as chair since 2021. He said things have been “smooth as glass,” for the board since the 2022 tax rate increase, including a relationship with city officials that he described as “collaborative and built on trust and mutual respect.” Acumen had high praise for the board’s treasurer, Drew Joosten. “He is brilliant and tenacious. I take the political and legal end of things, and he takes the financial,” Acumen said. 

“The 2023 snow season was a nightmare. We had budgeted for one big snow year every three or four years. The next year was a little heavy but not terrible. Since then, the snows haven’t been that bad which is bad for Utah but good for us. And the city has been diligent about costs,” Acumen said. 

Because things were running smoothly in the last several years and it was also hard to get all the members of the board together, Acumen said they haven’t had quarterly meetings like they used to. With the new board members, he wants to get back to regular meetings. Hether is his neighbor, and Acumen said the next big issue for the board is maintaining and repairing SunCrest’s unique lights, so he plans to put Hether in charge of that. “It’s an important issue and he’s passionate about it,” he said. Acumen has already communicated with the city’s Public Works department to ask what assistance is available with the special lights and he said the city is willing to fix and update them at a reasonable cost. “I think we’re going to vote and give the city permission to take over light maintenance. We have the budget and we’re going to make an investment to partner with the city and get it done,” Acumen said. 

In addition to Hether, Acumen is excited about the perspective Vincent and Kearsley will bring to the board because they live in a newer development in the TRSSD, one that has not had representation on the board before. That development has wider streets, doesn’t have the special street lights, and isn’t part of the SunCrest HOA. 

“They have unique challenges, and I think that’s important for representation,” Acumen said. “Having those guys on the board is going to be really nice.” λ