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Show THE PARK RECORD A-15 oints. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1997 ViewD EDITORIAL World Cup is perfect opportunity to support our hometown USSA Park City residents have a unique opportunity this weekend to help the U.S. Ski Team get an Olympic race season off to a gold-medal start. Whether through donations or enthusiastic support on the sidelines, Park City's send-off for the racers will help set the tone for the rest of the circuit. The athletes are counting on our support. Unlike the teams in many European countries, whose members in many cases are government-supported, U.S. athletes must rely on the private sector to help fund their efforts. According to U.S. Ski Team officials, it takes approximately $75,000 to $100,000 to pay for an elite skier's equipment, travel, trav-el, coaching and competition expenses for one season. sea-son. The ski team, which is headquartered here in Park City, prides itself on raising funds to cover as much of that cost as possible. This year, because of the generous support of both corporate and private sponsors, funding for the team is at an all-time high. Credit is also due to USSA CEO Bill Marolt who helped to put the teams back on sound financial footing. Public support has also filtered down to the development programs which ensures U.S. success in future years. In fact, this year the "C" Team racers rac-ers will see more money for travel expenses which, last year, they had to raise themselves. The USSA, also has embraced a new sport snowboarding which, in turn, means more athletes and more coaches and, of course additional expenses. expens-es. The USSA has risen to the challenge, but only because of expanded corporate and private support. As residents of the "home of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association," Park City residents have a special connection with the racers who, along with their families, have made huge sacrifices in order to represent their country at the international level. This week, as we gather at the Eagle Race Arena to see these athletes in action, we will be celebrating not only their commitment to the sport of ski racing but also our relationship with the team, our hopes for them in Nagano, and for our own Games in 2002. For more information about how to support members of the USSA call the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Foundation, 647-2031. l ' i is i - x--r-H r Li yA w rj-'wt. m ivat m i i - m i . r 'ParkCtty' vvouia anyone iiKe ParK Ci-tys Quaint swall vnmiv-Vowv amospVM eres JOHN KILBOURNR4RK RECORD LETTERS TO THE EDITOR A youthful reflection Editor: Today, when I found out that my neighbor neigh-bor had died, I realized that there is so much in the world to be thankful for. You should be thankful for the family you have whether you have a small or large family. Be able to realize that you have so much while others have so little. Many people dont realize how thankful they are until someone or something is gone. So dont become one of these people, be thankful for all that you have, even if you feel it is very little. Sara Sturgis Age 10 Making the rug show possible Editor: Last weekend Park City was host to the Eighth Annual Adopt-A-Native Elder Rug Show at Snow Park Lodge. The response from the community was truly overwhelming. overwhelm-ing. Over 1,500 people saw the show during the three days. On Thursday and Friday, several hundred school children were enthralled by Navajo songs and stories of the Elders and their grandchildren. About 70 Navajos representing three generations traveled from the reservation to bring their rugs and crafts for sale. All in all, some 90 weavers were benefitted by the sale of their rugs. The excitement surrounding the show, the beauty of the weaving and the wonderful wonder-ful setting all contributed to the most successful suc-cessful event the program has ever held. We couldn't have done it without the more than 50 volunteers who helped with every aspect of the show, from hanging the rugs and carrying car-rying the contributed canned goods and clothing to bringing the Elders snacks and sitting at their tables while they demonstrated demonstrat-ed their music and weaving to those who came for the special performances throughout through-out the weekend. Special thanks to our major sponsors who made this event possible: The George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, Redhill Foundation, Dr. W.C. Swanson Family Foundation, John E. and Ruth E. Bamberger Memorial Foundation and Bank One Utah, NA. Deepest gratitude to the many other sponsors and supporters who made all this possible through their contributions. We gratefully acknowledge the Park City Arts Council for its work with the School Children Program and for partially par-tially funding the entertainment on Saturday and Sunday. Thank you Chili Rose, David John, Hay Charlie, Hilda's, Images of Nature, Meyer Gallery, Park City Pendleton, Southwest Expressions, Southwest Indian Traders, David Whitten and Rodger Williams for your contributions to our auction. Very special spe-cial thanks to Blooming Enterprises, Deer , Valley Lodging, Park City Coffee Roaster, Greg and Edwina Rehermann, Wasatch Video and Pat Bannister at the Prospector Athletic Club. Thanks also to Swire-Coca Cola and the GUEST EDITORIAL End logging on public land by SAM HITT Forest Guardians President After a century of terrible waste and destruction, a bipartisan bill to end logging on public lands has been introduced in Congress. This legislation redirects the federal logging budget to ecological restoration, community assistance and worker retraining while saving taxpayers money, protecting watersheds and conserving con-serving wildlife for future generations. Today, with less than five percent of America's original forests remaining, almost entirely on public lands, it's hardly a radical idea. According to a recent Forest Service poll, 58 percent of Americans favor a halt to public land logging. log-ging. Sierra Club members voted two-to-one last year for "zero cut." This legislation, sponsored by Democrat Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Republican Jim Leach of Iowa, ends a corrupt system of bureaucratic welfare while preserving rural traditions, such as gathering firewood for personal use. Giving away valuable ancient trees below cost to giant timber companies would cease. The Forest Service made money selling trees during only three years since 1950. From 1980 through 1991, the agency's logging log-ging program lost nearly $6 billion. By redirecting this money, we could pay every timber worker $25,000 yearly, provide training in ecological restoration, fund badly needed rural community assistance projects and still have over $200 million left over to reduce the deficit. Private timberlands become less valuable valu-able by opening up steeper, higher elevation eleva-tion public lands to logging. Small woodlot owners simply can't compete when the government sells 250-year-old trees for under $2, as the Forest Service did in Alaska. Dumping cheap federal timber on the market creates little incentive for the private landowners who control over 80 percent of our commercial timber lands to manage responsibly. In fact, we don't need national forest timber. The total annual U.S. wood consumption con-sumption is 100.3 billion board feet, while the annual timber volume cut from U.S. national forests is currently only 3.87 billion bil-lion board feet less than four percent. Even moderate gains in wood production efficiency, recycling and use of alternative wood fibers would more than make up for eliminating logging on public lands. Consider shipping pallets nearly half the hardwoods produced in the U.S. are used to manufacture shipping pallets, 54 percent per-cent of which are used once then sent to the landfill. Also, contrary to self-serving industry propaganda, logging will not make our forests less susceptible to fire. A congres-sionally congres-sionally funded scientific study of California's forests found "more than any other human activity, logging has increased the risk and severity of fires by removing the cooling shade of trees and leaving flammable debris." For nearly six decades, our public timber tim-ber has been logged for the private gain of a few large corporations who buy political power and maintain logging subsidies with campaign contributions to key politicians from timber states. Today, while Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig tries to gut the basic laws that protect national forests, Alaska's entire delegation pressures pres-sures the administration to continue destruction of irreplaceable temperate rain forest. Their list of campaign contributors contrib-utors reads like a who's who list of the Fortune 500 timber companies. But even without political pressure, the forestry profession's traditional agricultural agricultur-al view of how forests work, and Forest Service budgetary incentives, guarantee a dominant role for logging on public lands. The federal government has wasted millions mil-lions of taxpayer dollars creating tree farms on marginal lands, despite the fact that recreation creates more jobs and 30 times more revenue than logging does. The reason lies in little-known laws, such as the Knutson-Vandenburg Act, that allow the Forest Service to keep a large share of timber-sale money to repair damage dam-age caused by logging. The agency is not held accountable for this off-budget bonanza, encouraging them to log, waste money and create a top-heavy bureaucracy. bureaucra-cy. From 1991-1995, the Forest Service kept over $2 billion selling publicly-owned trees. In the Southwest, nearly 40 percent of these funds are spent on overhead. So much has been lost that we can no longer count on National Parks to protect ecological communities. Twenty-nine mammal populations have already disappeared disap-peared from western national parks, despite complete protection from hunting, poisoning and habitat destruction. Small island-like reserves, cut off by development, develop-ment, have become zoos where species go to die. Ending commercial logging will help "rewild" this fragmented landscape by connecting, protecting and enlarging our shrinking reserves of biodiversity. However, these science-based strategies strate-gies will never be implemented without the deedholders of public lands the American public demanding the timber industry stop picking our pockets and felling our forests. We owe it to our childrenwho chil-drenwho will ask not why we supported the end of commercial logging on federal forests but only why we waited so long. kitchen staff at Deer Valley for keeping the Elders well fed and content. Special acknowledgement to Matt Yeates and Rastar Color of Salt Lake City for the posters. Not to be forgotten, greatest thanks to the hard-working committee members, Annette Baker, Joanna Charnes, Heather Fox, Penny Montague, Karma Smith, Lisa Wishnick and Jeannie Patton. Many, many thanks go to all of you "Supporting Hands." We look forward to working with you all again next year. Bill Coleman, honorary chairman Barbara Alexander and Jill Sheinberg. co-chairs A tribute to the PTO Editor: This thank you is for our PTO 'Cause the teachers at Jeremy Ranch want you to know... We appreciate all that you do, knowing you're around our worries are few! Your acts of kindness make us feel neat, And your love and support cant be beat! ' Thanks again for all you've done and continue to do for us, Jeremy Ranch Staff Music students are "scrooged" Editor: I was very disappointed with the announcement of school architect Gary Acord of Design West and Robert Perkins of Union Point Construction at the Nov. 11 Board of Education meeting that the auditorium audi-torium would not be ready for Park City High School's Holiday Concert on Dec. 18, but that it will be ready by the first of January. They have stated more than once over the course of the last two years that the auditorium would be done. Of course, they also said that, except for the auditorium, the high school would be ready for the opening of school. Little did my students or I know that we would be cleaning up after construction con-struction crews day after day, or that we would be looking at a scaffold that one could use to practice bungee jumping for the next several weeks. As a matter of fact the only time the bungee-jumping scaffold has come down was when we had "Back to School Night." I am tired of the construction construc-tion smells and I am tired of the dust. And the last straw for me, is hearing you Mr. Acord and Mr. Perkins say that you cannot can-not finish the auditorium on time. While I am not surprised, I am extremely disappointed. disap-pointed. I am disappointed for the students who will not have the opportunity to perform per-form in this wonderful facility. For our seniors this is their last Holiday Program. It is interesting to note that when I walked through the auditorium on Friday, Nov. 14, at 4 p.m., there was only one worker work-er in the auditorium area working. Other than that one person, everybody else apparently appar-ently must have gotten an early start for the Thanksgiving holiday. And you have the courage to say that the auditorium will be ready by the first of January, coinciding of course with the Sundance Film Festival. Surely, you jest! Or are you saying that the Film Festival is more important than the students and that you are going to have crews working over Christmas holiday to finish the auditorium? Or are you relying on the "Season of Miracles" to somehow get the work done? As far as I am concerned you can put your construction crews on round-the-clock shifts and finish the auditorium audito-rium or pay penalty fees and put the money toward the school music program for much needed equipment. Or perhaps we should have "Back to School" every day for parents par-ents so that you can get some work done now. Remember when the Grinch tried to steal Christmas from the Whos in Who-ville and then had a change of heart? His small heart grew three sizes that day and he decided decid-ed to participate with the Whos in their holiday hol-iday celebration. It is too bad that my students stu-dents will remember this holiday season with what was promised and went undelivered. undeliv-ered. Or perhaps you, too, will have a change of heart and get to work. For the record, there are some very good construction workers down in the music area. They are very conscientious and take pride in their work. And the area that the music students now occupy is much better than we have ever had before. Bill Huhnke, band director Park City School District GUEST EDITORIAL Endangered wilderness by DICK CARTER High Uintas Preservation Council The High Uintas are Utah's magnificent magnifi-cent mountain anomaly. The flora and fauna of the Uintas are more typical of the Northern Rocky Mountains. The range runs east and west for 150 miles; the core 55 miles of this wrinkled ridgeline rarely drops below 11,000 feet, with at least a dozen summits roaring to over 13,000 feet (including Kings Peak, Utah's highest point at 13,528 feet.) Hundreds of glacially glacial-ly carved lakes dot small and large basins, some as high as 12,000 feet. While active glaciers no longer find refuge here, the Uintas are continually re-shaped by the harshest of weather. The North Slope is a gentle, almost plateau-like region of lodgepole pine forests surrounding meandering open parklands and high mountain meadows. Wide river bottoms are filled with willows, potholes and beaver ponds. Steep glacial stairs give rise to a belt of spruce and fir forests and the krumholz of tightly packed alpine basins. Looking into the heart of the Uintas' South Slope, one feels the massiveness of the range. Here huge glacial basins and deep canyons dominate, with vast spruce and fir forests tumbling downriver into lodgepole pine and out into the sagebrush of the Uintah Basin. This diversity and size allow the Uintas to harbor a unique and sensitive fauna Canada lynx, black bear, cougar, great gray and boreal owls, golden eagle, goshawk, osprey, ptarmigan, pileate and three-toed woodpeckers, river otter, pine marten, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, moose and elk. Grizzly bear, timber wolf, bison and wolverine once found a secure home in the Uintas. In this mountain sanctuary, sanc-tuary, both the native Colorado and Bonneville cutthroat trout still hide in a few isolated stream miles. After a decade of political bickering, a 460,000-acre High Uintas Wilderness emerged in 1984. Over 100,000 acres of pristine roadless, wild lands surround this area and still deserve wilderness preservation. preserva-tion. Against this background Summit County Commissioners now debate two ordinances which would amend the Eastern Summit County General Management Plan. One version notes, "In order to protect the rural, agricultural, small town lifestyle in Easter Summit County the traditional economic uses of all lands, public and private, must be preserved," pre-served," thus "...Summit County generally disfavors expanding roadless.. .wilderness as well as wild and scenic rivers..." The other envisions that "...Summit County generally favors expanding wilderness, wilder-ness, as well as wild and scenic rivers designations des-ignations in unique situations..." It is clear that the Uintas are a unique place adding to the sense of open space, wildness and traditional lifestyles in the county. The wild Uintas add immeasurably to our existence, not to mention that of the wild critters that live there. On Nov. 17 at 7 p.m., Summit County heard public concerns in a hearing held in the South Summit High School in Kamas. Hopefully, Summit County will engage the wilderness issue by "favoring wilderness," which will be analyzed by the Forest Service in its upcoming management manage-ment planning process. If the "disfavoring wilderness" model is adopted, I'm afraid the vicious and bitter political stalemate we've watched on BLM wilderness for far too long will occur. We will then debate positions rather than the magnificence of the Uintas. Imagine a mountain defined by the creation cre-ation of life, not the production of resources. Let a meaningful and vigorous debate begin! Who will pay the bill? Editor: Recently, cost issues relating to the 2002 Winter Games have been written about and discussed. During the city elections, it came to light that $32 million of expenses have been put in the city budget for the Olympics without any offsetting income. It was stated by the incumbents that this would not be spent unless "we" get money from the Olympic Committee or the Federal Government. Just last week, Summit County appointed an Olympic coordinator coordina-tor Park City has had one for awhile. Your recent editorial discussed who should go to Nagano, paid for by city tax money. Most everyone will recall that the campaign cam-paign to get the Olympics was premised on the fact that no tax money would be spent. The bridge sellers are still talking to the people peo-ple who believed that line. We in Park City and Summit County will be greatly impacted impact-ed by the cost of the Olympics, just by the fact that so many events will occur here. On the one hand we cannot afford to do even an average job of contributing to seeing that these events are world class. On the other hand, we cannot afford to burden ourselves with debt that could carry late into the next decade or the decade after. I suggesTWaTboth the city and the county coun-ty split out the costs for the Olympics and start publishing that part of their respective budgets on a quarterly basis. If we dont start paying close attention to the total cost and plan for the Olympics, the environment will not be the only thing in danger of being trampled when we welcome the World in 2002 so will our bank accounts! Bill Mullen The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER Editor Staff writers Contributing writers Office manager Classifieds manager Classifieds Subscription manager Advertising director Advertising sales Editorial production Photographer Production director Production Circulation CartoonistIllustrator Andy Bernhard Nan Chalat-Noaker Kirsta H. Bleyle Bruce Lewis Dave Fields Melissa O'Brien Jay Hamburger Christy Call Tom Clyde Rick Brough Jack Fuell Teri Orr Rachelle Eickhoff Jennifer Carolan Melody Pithan Jed Crittenden Tracy Harden Donna Berger Mary Hall Sharon Paterson Sid Pawar Carrie Davis Anna Hamlen Tami Searing Kat James Scott Sine Melisa Hyde Jason Osburn Amy Lucas Yvonne Ruth Scott Aste Jen Huckle Matthew Sullivan Erin Paddock Trisha Hipskind Will Walsh Carrie Thompson Karen Yetter Gretchen Campbell Tim Peterson John Kilboum The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by diversified Suburban Newspapers, 1670 Bonanza Dr., Park City, Utah. Periodicals Postage paid at Park City, Utah. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Park Record, Box 3688, Park City, Utah 84060. Entered as second class matter. May 25, 1977 at the post office in Park City, Utah 84060, under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are $32 inside Summit County, $60 outside Summit County, Utah. 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