Mayor Bill Levitt of Alta, Utah, thinks his job description includes ensuring the well being of his town, its 400 citizens, and of all those who will treasure its stunning setting in generations to come. The way he does that ensuring has brought him threats, lawsuits—and re-election nine times.

The job hasn’t been easy and it hasn’t been lucrative; Levitt’s salary is a dollar a year. But when New Yorker Levitt first saw Alta back in 1954, he fell in love with its beauty and its people, and he settled in for the long haul, committed to preserving its wonders.

A former mining town, Alta gets 500 inches of good powder a year on its Wasatch Mountain slopes, so in the 60’s and 70’s, when developers began moving into ski country, Alta—along with Vail, Aspen and Snowmass—was a prime target for big changes.

Citizen, then Mayor Levitt saw those changes bringing environmental degradation, soaring housing costs and minimum-wage jobs, as other ski towns built jet landing strips, luxury shopping malls, restaurants, condos and mansions. It hasn’t happened in Alta.

When developers apply for building permits, they get the news from City Hall that the town has no water rights or sewage hookups available. That’s when the lawsuits get filed. And that’s when threats have come in on Levitt’s phone.

Alta does encourage development—of hiking trails. Some visitors are particularly welcome, like the geology students who come in from all over the world to study its pristine ecological systems. And you can get a run on those deep powder slopes, but only five tour buses are allowed into the valley each day.