The Public Lands Podcast EPISODE 1: What is Salt Lake City Public Lands? – With Kim Shelley
Kim Davison: 00:11
Hi everyone, I’m Kim.
Finola McDonald: 00:13
And I’m Finola.
BOTH: 00:14
Welcome to the Public Lands Podcast.
Kim Davison: 00:18
Welcome, welcome, everybody, to our first episode of the Public Lands Podcast. My name is Kim Davison, and I am the Communications Coordinator for Salt Lake City Public Lands.
Finola McDonald: 00:26
And my name is Finola McDonald, and I’m the Social Media Specialist for Salt Lake City Public Lands. Throughout this podcast, we are here to tell you the story of Public Lands. This is going to look like deep dives into projects that Public Lands is hosting, what’s happening in our parks, news from the trail, and what’s going on in our open spaces.
Kim Davison: 00:45
Each episode will be about 20 minutes long, perfect for your dog walks.
Finola McDonald: 00:49
Or the commute to your favorite trail.
Kim Davison: 00:51
And our episodes will be chatting with field experts, community members, and more. And we can’t wait to keep telling you the story of Salt Lake City Public Lands.
Finola McDonald: 00:59
There is only one person who can help us introduce Salt Lake City Public Lands to you, and that is our director, Kim Shelley.
Kim Davison: 01:08
Kim started working at Public Lands in 2025, but before she joined the Public Lands team, she worked as the executive director for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Finola McDonald: 01:16
She is a kind and thoughtful leader, and we are so very lucky to have her with us.
Kim Davison: 01:22
Welcome, Kim. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. And from one Kim firm to another, we are so, so excited to have you as our very first guest on the Public Lands podcast.
Kim Shelley: 01:32
Yes. This is great.
Finola McDonald: 01:34
All right, let’s jump right in. Um, what is Salt Lake City Public Lands for people who maybe don’t fully know what that entails?
Kim Shelley: 01:45
So, Salt Lake City Public Lands, it’s the department that’s responsible for managing and caring for the community shared outdoor spaces. That’s just like the foundational uh definition of the department. Um, in a little bit more uh simple terms, we are a team that plans, builds, maintains, and stewards all of our public spaces here in the city. And um our responsibilities are long. The list is long and wide, and I’m just gonna give you a few to help put us into context. But um the department’s responsible for uh 90 city parks, 2,000 plus acres of natural land, 145 miles of trails, over 90,000 trees, the Salt Lake City Cemetery, the Regional Athletic Complex, six golf courses, citywide event permitting, and planning and design of many of our capital projects and improvements in our public spaces. So it’s a heavy responsibility in a department that does a lot behind the scenes. But we we have an amazing team, and I’m so grateful to be part of it. Um I think is important for folks to understand too that we’re really a department that works towards uplifting and in uh supporting quality of life for Salt Lakers and our visitors. That’s really important as a city, especially the capital city to have. So we have other teams like our park rangers community events that help support that. And again, I’m I’m really uh excited to be here leading this department.
Kim Davison: 03:16
Well, Kim, so you are fairly new, and under your leadership in the last few months, we have put together some new guiding statements about the Department of Public Lands. Can you tell us a little bit about the new mission statement, vision, and tagline that we’ve put together?
Kim Shelley: 03:30
Yeah, I’d be happy to. So our mission statement here is pulled from a number of different sources. We had it in our master plan and in other locations, and so we really pulled it together and refined it. And the mission is uh Salt Lake City Public Lands strengthens community connection by creating, protecting, and sustaining welcoming parks and natural spaces for all. And our vision is a place where people feel connected to nature, each other, and the places that make Salt Lake City special, and a tagline that helps everybody, right? What’s what’s the quick elevator pitch? We care for nature and we build community.
Finola McDonald: 04:04
What inspired you to create the values that are a part of this mission and vision?
Kim Shelley: 04:11
Yeah, so in my experience, um organizational values are what help really drive performance of an organization. They shape the culture, they help guide decision making, which is so important, and they create a shared sense of purpose, and that’s really what I was hoping um would come from this. We um as a department like public lands, where it’s so complex and the work is broad, and um it’s so easy to get siloed, and it really values help keep us connected and all moving in the same direction. Absolutely.
Kim Davison: 04:41
We are both are somewhat new as well, and they’ve really helped guide our framework of work and how we help tell the story of public lands. So we appreciate all the time that went into those and are excited to kind of use them moving forward. Amazing. But we are interested, it’s kind of we’re into 2026 and we’re wondering what are our public lands goals for the year? What are our priorities and things that we’re working on this this year?
Kim Shelley: 05:05
Yeah, so we have a number of goals, big and small. Um, but starting with with uh one of the larger goals is to really to activate our public spaces. That’s our parks, and we’re going to focus on the West side. Um, we have engaging and family-friendly events that we hope people will take advantage of. We have a lot of really popular events and some that aren’t as well known, and so we do hope that folks will check out our calendar and want to engage in our spaces differently maybe than they have in the past. We also have an ongoing goal of planting more trees. This is in alignment with the mayor’s goal and aspirational goal of planting over a thousand trees across the city every year. And we’ve met that so far every year, but we want to continue and continue to strengthen the urban forest care that we have in the city. Um we also want to continue to improve trail conditions and access for all of our residents and our visitors, advanced construction on about 20 uh capital projects. This is really big. These are bond-funded projects that I know Salt Lakers have been waiting for and have voted for and supported, and we’re so grateful for that. And we also plan to host over a hundred stewardship events and increase our volunteer engagement. So big things happening in 2026. Yeah, that’s incredible.
Finola McDonald: 06:18
We have so much going on, it’s so exciting to be a part of it. It is. We have so much going on, and I think anybody could see how important those goals are. But uh, we’re curious as the director of our department, why you believe the work that we do at public lands matters.
Kim Shelley: 06:35
Yeah, this is this is a really great question because that’s why we’re here, right? And and I found that um the employees here care a lot. And they they care a lot because the work that that we do that they do keep communities safe and connected. And you can feel that in our public spaces. We also support our um supports families and in a high quality of life for Salt Lakers. We’re really fortunate to have so much open space and park space for folks to enjoy. Um, another important thing is that our work builds climate resilience. I think this past winter in 2025-2026 has really highlighted the need to be resilient, protect our resources, and our work is is part of that, and I’m really proud of that. And we also deliver highly visible and interested public service through our work, and and that’s really gratifying too.
Kim Davison: 07:22
Yeah, we definitely could not agree more. Every day we pinch ourselves because we feel that the work that we do really does matter here at Salt Lake City Public Lands. So it’s a great place to work and we’re doing great work.
Kim Shelley: 07:34
Thank you. I agree.
Finola McDonald: 07:37
And I think there’s something to say about um being able to go to work every day and just love what you do and really feel like it does matter. I feel like it’s rare even these days to see that in people. So I feel like we’re all really lucky here.
Kim Shelley: 07:52
Absolutely, and I think we’re also fortunate that we have residents and visitors that care just as much as we do. So we have so many partners out there that want us to be successful, and we can really do so much more with that, too.
Kim Davison: 08:03
Yeah, well, we appreciate you for giving us that overview of the department, and you definitely made our first episode incredibly special. Oh, thank you, and thank you for having me. Really appreciate you both. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the Public Lands Podcast.
Finola McDonald: 08:19
We can’t wait to see you next week, where our Deputy Director Tyler Murdock will join us to talk about building community through shared spaces.
Kim Davison: 08:26
Talk soon
Finola McDonald: 08:27
and see you on the trail.