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Show A-2 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, November 16-19, 2019 The Park Record The Park Record. Serving Summit County since 1880 The Park Record, Park City’s No. 1 source for local news, opinion and advertising, is available for home delivery in Summit, Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Single copies are also available at 116 locations throughout Park City, Heber City, Summit County and Salt Lake City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Summit County (home delivery): $56 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) Outside Summit County (home delivery available in Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties; all other addresses will be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service): $80 per year To subscribe please call 435–649– 9014 or visit www.parkrecord.com and click the Subscribe link in the Reader Tools section of the toolbar at the bottom of the page. To report a missing paper, please call 801–204–6100. Same-day redelivery is possible if you call during the following hours: * Weekdays: 6:30–8 a.m. * Saturday: 7–8 a.m. * Sunday: 7–10:30 a.m. To request a vacation hold or change of address, please call 435–649–9014 or email: circulation@parkrecord.com THE NEWSROOM To contact the newsroom, please call 435–649–9014 or email editor@parkrecord.com For display advertising, please call a sales representative at 435–649– 9014 or email val@parkrecord.com To place a classified ad, please call 435–649–9014 or email classads@parkrecord.com For questions about your bill, please call 435–649–9014 or email accounts@parkrecord.com The Park Record online is available at www.parkrecord.com and contains all of the news and feature stories in the latest edition plus breaking news updates. The Record’s website also hosts interactive entertainment, restaurant and lodging listings and multimedia features. Contents of The Park Record are Copyrighted 2015, Wasatch Mountain News Media Co. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Wasatch Mountain News Media Co., 1670 Bonanza Drive, Park City, UT 84060. Periodicals postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah, 84199-9655 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT84060. 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: $56 within Summit county, $80 outside of Summit County, Utah. Subscriptions are transferable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone: 435–649–9014 Fax: 435–649–4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Published every Wednesday and Saturday Continued from A-1 Housing available the completion of an online form, has a deadline of Dec. 6. The pre-application inquires about a work history in the Park City School District boundaries, ownership of real property and income. The pre-application stage does not require someone to gather the detailed financial information that would be required later in the process should they proceed. Completing the form, though, is mandatory to be considered for the selection process. The information will be verified. Those who qualify will then be split among pools based on whether they are eligible through their income for an affordable unit or an attainable one. City Hall also is using a weighted selection process, meaning some of the people seeking a unit will have a better chance of being picked as a buyer than others. People who are full-time emergency responders — firefighters, police officers, emergency physicians, emergency nurses, maintenance or building workers such as snow-removal and waterworks crews and emergency response managers — are given weight in the selection process, as examples. Others who have additional weight in the selection process include people considered to be community builders. The category includes municipal workers, people in the education field like teachers, administrators and day care providers, people who work for not-for-profit organizations and health care professionals and administrators. Additional weight is also given to people who work inside the Park City limits or have been employed in the Continued from A-1 Visioning event set manage an ongoing exercise designed to craft a community vision is scheduled to lead a gathering dubbed the Park City Future Summit on Wednesday. The event is seen as an important step in the overall efforts. The Minneapolis-based Future iQ envisions the Wednesday event as an opportunity to synthesize the work to date. “It’s a significant pivot point in the process,” said David Beurle, the CEO of Future iQ. Beurle said it is important community input be gathered again since the work has reached a midpoint. The event on Wednesday will act as a “mini-celebration,” he said. Some of the other topics that could be broached on Wednesday include how the Park City tourism industry may evolve. A changing climate and the possibility of another Winter Olympics being staged in the region are issues that are being considered as part of the exercise to create a vision for Park City, he said. “How do you get that balance right,” Beurle said. The event will also feature a panel discussion with four or five people from Park City who have been involved in the process. They will Direct Importer of the World’s Finest Rugs A t t h e H i s t o r i c Vi l l a T h e a t r e 3092 So. Highland Dr., Salt Lake City (801)484-6364 888.445.RUGS (7847) Mon.-Sat. 10 am to 6 pm area for longer than five years. Once the applications have been weighted, City Hall will use software from an outside firm to make the selections randomly. Officials opted for the software rather than holding a public selection process, effectively an in-person lottery, as has been the case previously. The software will generate a list of potential buyers, ranked numerically. Those at the top of the list will be requested to submit a full application while the others will be put on a waiting list. The full application will request employment verification, income-tax returns, bank statements and brokerage-account statements such as 401(k) retirement balances. The outside firm will verify the qualifications. The potential buyers will then be matched with units. City Hall anticipates the selection of potential buyers will be completed as soon as early January. The timeline of closings on the units will depend on the buyers securing financing. Officials project closings will start as early as in January. The selection and sales process for the first phase of Woodside Park will unfold amid an aggressive City Hall housing program that is designed to add 800 units of restricted workforce or otherwise affordable housing by 2026. Officials are pursuing the goal through City Hall projects like Woodside Park, units the private sector is obligated to create and partnerships between the municipal government and the private sector. Park City leaders over the years have seen the housing program as crucial to reducing commuter traffic and bolstering socioeconomic diversity in a community where the resort-driven real estate market has priced out many rank-and-file workers. Information about the selection process is available on a municipal website created for the housing programs, parkcityhousing.org. The pre-application is available at: tfaforms.com/4773724. For more information, contact Rhoda Stauffer, who is the affordable housing program manager at City Hall, at 6155152 or rhoda.stauffer@parkcity.org. offer perspectives on the efforts and, according to Beurle, present a “real human experience” regarding living in Park City. A question-and-answer session is slated. Future iQ will also ask the crowd questions about topics like the urgency of certain issues with answers compiled in real time. The visioning efforts this year are the first since 2009 and in the last 10 years there have been momentous changes in the community. Park City enjoyed a strong emergence from the recession in the years after the 2009 efforts. Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort were each sold in the ensuing years, bringing what many see as a corporate vibe to the community. There have also been widespread concerns about traffic and housing. The economy, the corporate nature of the ski industry, housing affordability and the related topics of traffic and transportation have been addressed heavily during the broader visioning efforts. It seems like the topics will be broached again on Wednesday in some fashion since many Parkites remain interested in them. The efforts will continue after the Wednesday gathering as additional sessions are held and the data is analyzed. Future iQ anticipates the final visioning report will be completed in the first quarter of 2020. The event on Wednesday is scheduled from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. in the Santy Auditorium at the Park City Library. For more information, contact Linda Jager, who is the community engagement manager at City Hall, at linda.jager@parkcity.org or 6155189. Income restrictions set for Old Town project JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record Park City has set limits on income and on net worth as it readies to select buyers for the first phase of Woodside Park workforce or otherwise affordable housing in Old Town. The limits differ between two categories of units in the project, those designated as affordable and those that are attainable, and are based on the area median income as well as the household size. The limits are critical to people considering submitting the paperwork needed to start the selection process for buyers. People who are interested in a unit that is categorized as affordable cannot earn more than 80 percent of the area median income. The income limit on a one-person household is $61,488 while the limit on a two-person household is $70,272. The limits increase as Continued from A-1 Assistance offered early, this year looks like it will have similar numbers. Armstrong described the relief and gratitude clients have felt when they walk out with health insurance. “It relieves so much worry and pressure on top of the amount of worry and pressure they have just making ends meet,” Armstrong said. “Unfortunately it’s a luxury, health insurance is a luxury. It could be a choice of getting insurance or putting food on the table every day.” The enrollment program’s director, Luis Rios, said there are nearly 60 different health plans offered in the state from five different providers. He and his Utah Health Policy Project team help clients sign up through the web portal and consider the merits of the dozens of plans. Last year, the team helped 683 people statewide buy insurance through online exchanges and helped 3,300 people enroll in Medicaid, according to the nonprofit’s executive director, Matt Slonaker. Only about a quarter of Summit County residents who are eligible for Medicaid are enrolled, according to the Center for Medicare Medicaid Services. When people who don’t have health insurance need medical care, they often go to the emergency room. Patients are then billed directly for those costs, without the discounts normally arranged by insurance companies. That can send them into debt, Utah Health Policy Project’s education and collaborations director Courtney Bullard said. If they cannot pay, hospitals may raise prices elsewhere to compensate, she said. The mission of People’s Health Clinic is to provide no-cost health care to the citizens of Wasatch and Summit counties who do not have health insurance. The enrollment specialists come to the clinic on Tuesday evenings and Friday mornings and generally have two or three appointments each. Sessions can last from about 45 minutes if the situation is simple, like renewing a plan, or up to an hour and a half or so if people are negotiating the system for the first time, Rios explained. “I challenge you to apply to ACA,” the household size becomes larger. Those seeking a unit that is designated as attainable cannot earn more than 150 percent of the area median income. The figure is $115,290 for a one-person household and $131,760 for a two-person household. The attainable limits also increase with household size. The municipal government, meanwhile, also put restrictions on the net worth of buyers. A one-person household at 80 percent of the area median income cannot have a net worth topping $307,440 while a two-person household cannot top $351,360. The figures rise alongside household size. The net-worth restrictions for a household at 150 percent of the area median income reach $538,020 for a one-person household and $614,880 for a two-person household. The numbers rise with the size of the household. Armstrong said. “God forbid you try to do Medicaid.” After the initial call with people seeking an appointment, the enrollment aids have an idea of the income and household-size parameters that will dictate which plans will make the most sense. Clients often have a preferred provider network — Intermountain Healthcare versus the University of Utah Health, for example — which can help narrow the number of plans down from 60 to less than 20, Rios said. The enrollment specialists are there every step of the way, from signing up for the health care site itself to helping explain industry terms. “Our job is to kind of help the client — the individual, the family — narrow down those options,” Rios said. “We’ll ask questions like, ‘What’s your budget?’ ... (and explain things like) what a deductible is, what a copay is, coinsurance, out-of-pocket max.” Rios estimates slightly more than half of the people Utah Health Policy Project helps speak Spanish and a similar percentage are coming in to renew their plans rather than enroll for the first time. There are 15 specialists helping with marketplace enrollment, Rios said, but the overall program has 40-50 people statewide working to enroll people in health insurance. Bullard said the program visits prisons, detox centers, homeless shelters and schools to access populations of people who are generally underinsured. She said Utah is notorious for having eligible children, especially Latinos, not enrolled, and that rural Utahns are an underinsured population, as well. “Every kid — besides undocumented kids — has a coverage option,” she said. She added that her group is advocating for a program that would extend benefits to undocumented children. She said the Utah Health Policy Project has also helped advocate for cost-saving measures like importing prescription drugs from Canada and a transparency website that would list prices and allow consumers to choose between plans. Slonaker said the group provides training to enrollment specialists, though it doesn’t certify them. He estimated the organization answered questions or discussed health insurance with about 10,000 people last year. “In this country, health insurance has typically been provided by employers and that your HR department answers a lot of questions you might have or handles that for you,” Slonaker said. “We’re really providing that service to low-income folks generally speaking that don’t have health insurance offerings.” |