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Show Viewpoints. A-15 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2000 THE PARK RECORD EDITORIAL" 'Bedroom community' might be the perfect oxymoron Maybe, if we slop referring to the Snyderville Basin as a bedroom community commu-nity for Salt Lake City, it will stop behaving like one. Think about it. The very term "bedroom community" implies the only thing one does there is sleep. All other important social functions func-tions - eating, working, playing take place elsewhere. For all the term implies. Basin residents resi-dents could just as well call a motel room home. Now. before residents of Pmebrook, Jeremy Ranch. Timberline. and all the others, get too defensive, let us quickly add that we know many of the subdivisions are comprised of closely-knit neighbors who host block parties, share carpool dunes and band together when there is a local crisis. But. when it comes to driving regional issues, the area sits in the back seat. According to the Summit County Building Department's year-end report, there are now ncaily 4.1W0 single-family homes along with 2.000 apartments and condominiums in the Snyderville Basin. An additional 2.0t)0 residential residen-tial units have received county approval and are lust waiting to be built. And yet the Basin does not have a single elected government representative represen-tative livinc within its boundaries. Locally. Basin residents rely on a network of special service districts and appointed boards to conduct their affairs. On the county level, their needs are addressed by a three-man commission with representatives from each geographic segment seg-ment of the county except Snyderv ille. At the state level they are represented by a senator from Altamont and a representative from Kamas. And. while their mail is addressed to "Park City. Utah." they live outside the boundaries bound-aries of Park City Municipal Corp.'s jurisdiction. In essence. Snyderville is an electorate without with-out a voice. But that doesn't seem to bother the residents of this "bedroom community." Previous efforts to gather support for incorporation incorpora-tion fell by the wayside and for the most part, the county has filled in by providing municipal-type municipal-type services for the area's growing population. But the Snyderville Basin s lack of a cohesive identity and the residents' unwillingness to govern gov-ern themselves will take a toll in the long run. Someday soon, when it comes down to the inevitable search for accountability for roads, for health and public safety, for air and water quality. Snyderville residents will wish they had taken matters into their own hands. YOU CAN RAISE THEIR TAXES AND RAPE THFIR LAND-BUT DON'T MESS WITH THEIR GARBAGE! LETTERS TO THE EDITOR New Year's edition Lditor: A bit belated, but your Dec. 31 "1000 Words" issue was a real joy. filled with lots of meaningful and thought-provoking ideas for the new century. Although thev are regular columnists, and possibly unsung heros. Ten Orr and Gary Weiss have provided insight for years about life in Paik City. Many thanks to Ten for always showing us her big heart and Gary for his courage to fight the often unpopular unpop-ular issues. Keep up the great work, all of you! Sincerely. Chris Auman Event of the season Editor: Next weekend, as we all should know, begins the Sundance Film Festival, where independent filmmakers bring their cre-'""'SUJX cre-'""'SUJX i nkxjl,t?tt , frUXW wants to smake that dream come true. The festival was created by Robert Redford and has become a huge event known all around. During the festival, many locals and tourists cruise Main Street in hopes of getting a glimpse of a celebrity. Some are lucky; others, well, not mi lucky. Business owners love the attention, while others just wish everyone every-one would go away and that it be peaceful peace-ful again It is only 10 days long, yet it is lull of excitement ard intrigue. I'm sure that Park City would love to welcome all of the tourists and celebrities. celebri-ties. We sure appreciate the company and the business. We hope that they ail enjoy their stay and we'll see you at the movies! Caitlin McComb Sth grade Treasure Mountain Middle School City has an attitude problem Editor: This is the city... that has an employee who takes it upon himself or herself to go onto private property, remove (steal) personal property, then lie about doing it. Then the city says it never happened because the employee is always correct and the homeowner is not. The city tries to blame BFI. Does BFI ride around in the Park City vehicle? 1 doubt it. The homeowner has to replace the stolen property and is left with no faith in city government. The stolen property in this case ts a latch that holds a chain across my driveway. drive-way. This is not a large, expensive item, but is a necessary one. Tourists, in their cars sometimes 10-15 per night use my driveway as a turnaround. Once the corner of my house w as hit and once my gas meter was hit. When I called the city about it. I was told that's just the price i have to pay for living on Main Street. I have just as much right to privacy and protection as anyone else who lives in this city. If a chain across my driveway keeps people from using it. then so be it! The city has no business or right taking my property or coming onto my property without my permission! This is the city... that makes sure it plows or shovels around the parking meters. This is the city that does not plow or shovel around fire hydrants. This is the city whose priorities are a bit screwed up. This is the city... whose vehicles love to speed up and down upper Main Street. This includes the "parking enforcement people who ride around in city vehicles. I believe the speed limit is 20 mph No one adheres to that! This is the city... that has lost focus on the locals who live here and pay their salaries. How sad for vou. W hat's worse, how sad for me. Jerry Smith Irrational comparisons Editor: I always read the "letters" in any publication publi-cation I pick up Opinions are... well, everyone has one. good or bad. right or wrong, interesting nonetheless After 25 years in PC. I've heard plenty I'suallv this column deals with issues of local interest. Things must be slow to publish a "form letter' from PET A (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals I which is probably sent to every paper in the country, coun-try, in order to further their rhetorical cause Hey. I'm all tor giving vour pets TLC: that's why we have them But. how absurd to quote someone from the lth century, and then liken it to the undeni-"abrV undeni-"abrV htrrtiNe crimes in schools recently. Those kids obviously had other social problems. Teaching children to hunt does not turn them into criminals. Rather, they end up respecting wildlife, their habitat and the environment. Their fishing and hunting license fees pay for the management of all the wildlife across this nation Without that self-imposed tav we wouldn't have the abundance of flora and fauna that evervone of you enjoys. Every National W ildlife Refuge in this country was funded fund-ed by sportsmen's dollars! I believe PETA s concern for pets' suffering suf-fering is genuine. If you can't provide for your dog or cat. don't keep one. However. "Slaughtering nine billion innocent animals'?" Get real. We are at the top of the food chain. All of us eat chicken, pork. fish. beef. etc. (some just kill plants for food!). We must eat to survive. sur-vive. This fact will never change. Just as you will probably continue to elevate animal ani-mal suffering above human sutiering. Perhaps your effort and money would be better spent on making sure there still are animals and the habitat to support them in the not-so-distant future something our county commissioners ought to lose sleep over. Think about it; we don't own this world, we are just borrowing ji from our children. Thank you I have to go kick my dog now ! Bob Thomas Winter Wonderland Editor: i would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people involved in McPolin Elementary School's Winter Wonderland. The event was a great success, suc-cess, thanks to everyone's hard work and dedication. A very special thank you goes to: Stein Eriksen Lodge. Park City Mountain Resort. Novell. Deer Valley, Nordic Equipment. Dr. Sumsion. Park City Racquet Club, Park City Marriott. Park Meadows Country Club. Brooks Brothers. Grind and Squeeze. Main Street Pizza and Noodle, Cisero's. Baja Cantina. Kathlyn Morton. Alpine Sports Medicine. The Dancing Reindeer. 350 Main Seafood and Oyster Co.. Grub Steak. Liza Grey. Sheryl Degaring. West Point Stevens. Kathv Apostolakos, Park City Bank. Mulberry Street. Park City Co-op Nursery School. Gap. Kmart. Wasatch Bagels. Starbucks, Albertsons, Smith's, Einstein's Bagels, Holiday Village Cinema. A Scent Beyond, McDonald's, Arby"s Susan Mole, Ptzza The Park Record welcomes letters to the editor on any subject Wo ask that the letters adhere to the following gutfeKnes:They should include the address and telephone number of author. Mo letter w be published under an assumed name. They must not contain libelous material. Writers are Imited to one letter every 28 days. Letters must not be toooer than 350 words (guest exlrronaJs, 550 words) and should I possible, be typed. We reserve the right to edit letters I they are too long or f they contain statements we consider unnecessarily unnec-essarily offensive or obscene. Hut and Southern Maid Donuts All these local businesses were very generous with their donation, which will fund additional programs for the kids at McPolin. Thanks to all the vendors whose beautiful beau-tiful array of goods transformed our school gym into a Winter Wonderland Last, but not least, thank you to all the local people who came out and supported our event Kay McKay GUEST EDITORIAL Issues need to be addressed Editor: It has occurred to me. as I listen to she candidates for the presidency, that while they try to appear capable and wise during dur-ing debates, the possible solutions to two important issues have not been touched It would be refreshing and reassuring to hear one of the candidates state that sur- liULbl fcUIIUHIAL In the upcoming election, U w v-woi IO 11 IVSI by JON MARGOLIS have a more immediate impact on Congratulations. Westerners, you only have to live through 10 more months or so of presidential politics. Then Donald Trump. Warren Beatty. Cybil Shepard and other great intellects of our time will be off our telev ision screens, at least masquerading mas-querading as politicians, and you won't have to think about the presidential election. elec-tion. What's that? You're already not thinking think-ing about it? Or maybe you're convinced the election elec-tion isn't thinking about you? It isn't, if one of the following two terms desenbes you: 1) a resident of the interior W est; 2) a person concerned about the quality of the world's land. air. water, flora and fauna. Westerners don't count for operational reasons. Under next year's political calendar, cal-endar, only Arizona Republicans will vote before March 7, the date of the New York and California primaries, after which both party nominations are likely to be wrapped up. The rest of you westerners west-erners might as well all live in Pago Pago. W hich is even farther from the mainstream main-stream political sensibility than environmental environ-mental issues, but not much. The first thing environmentally-conscious citizens have to realize is that they and their issues have become esoteric. And the issues peculiar to the West grazing, mining, use or misuse of public land have become esoteric within the general esotertca of the conservation debate. Even when politicians mention the subject, sub-ject, the press tends to ignore it. When he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Bill Bradley asked: "Isn't it just common sense that we make sure every child in America is covered by health care? Isn't it just common sense that we protect our natural world from destruction and do what it takes to achieve racial unity? Almost every story the next day quoted him about health care and racial unity. If any story mentioned protecting the natural nat-ural world. I didn't see it. -It's just not on the radar screen." said one of the more astute political consultants, consul-tants, referring to the subject of conserving conserv-ing the natural world. Despite all the polls showing that people peo-ple favor more open space, cleaner air and w ater. and stronger protection of endangered endan-gered species, the environment remains far less central to the political discussion than taxes. Social Security, schools, health care, crime, abortion and even some foreign for-eign policy issues. As perhaps it should. The average American knows that his mother's pension, pen-sion, her father's hospital bills, their children's chil-dren's education and their joint tax bill have a more immediate impact on their lives than dves the question of how manv trees are cut from this or that national forest, or even whether the air and water get cleaner. Especially because the air and water are cleaner. Popular policies gain political politi-cal salience when they seem to be in trouble. trou-ble. Simply recall how the tbouMi-i ights cause benefitted in the lu?sis. when the Supreme Court's Webster decision seemed to threaten it. A ruling that upholds the recent lower court decision threatening enforcement of the Clean Air Act could be the best boost for the environmental envi-ronmental movement since Interior Secretary James Watt. Then. too. environmentalism is off the radar screen because environmentalists keep it off. That s not thesr intent, or at least not their conscious intent But it's what they do by being environmentalists instead of. well, instead of being citizens who care about the natural world, among other things In the summer issue of Orion magazine. maga-zine. Peter Sauer tries to answer the question: ques-tion: "Why is the environment always o low on the political agenda1" His answer is that environmentalism has become just another special interest And. to the average aver-age voter, he is nght. Environmentalism has slipped into today's general political cacophony, and that seems to suit environmentalists just fine. Otherwise, when a dispute is portrayed por-trayed as one between them and some polluting industry, one of them, at least once in a while, would say "Wait a minute: this isn't us against them. We speak for the natural world and the humanity that has to live in it. not for our organization or our faction We re not getting rich here." Such rhetoric would be self-sen ing. perhaps cloying, and at times refutable, some environmentalists are making pretty pret-ty good money even if they're not "getting "get-ting rich." as the rich define it But because such a statement is rarely made, middle-of-the-road voters the ones who decide elections can be forgiven if they don't see much distinction between the advocates of open space and the advocates of lower capital-gains taxes. My friend the consultant is wrong Long before modern manipulative advertising adver-tising techniques made it even truer, Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that "Men are convertible... They want awakening ." It is possible to put the environment on the political radar screen, if not at its center. cen-ter. But not until its advocates remember that they. too. are part of the whole thing ! Mjrgolts is ti ewtribuior to tt'nnrrj on the Range and covers nes from the natHw's capital for High Country Sens ( hcn.ergl SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION 1 Year inside Summit County, $32. outside Summit County, $60 Mastercard Exp. or Visa No., Name Date: Mailing Address Mai ta Tht Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, Utah 84060 pluses need to be applied to fur outra geous national debt 1: is criminal io leave this debt as a legacv t r our .hil drcn. The second issue is the solve ncv ot the Social Security Program V reason able and thinking candidate might vug gesi that all KH s rv called in and no future "loans" he made from the Social Secuntv Trust fund These would stem to be common sense approaches to lessening less-ening the national debt and assunnc our citizens that the Social Secuntv vw.em will be protected re all the people aspiring to he the leader of this countrv lacking in courage or smiplv not ver intelligent' Either .tv. not much ot a choice. Same old. same old for bonus issues, vitwoni could speak out against the antiquated Mining Vet ot !"". which gives awav out federal lands and resources and the outdated right ot-wav ot-wav regulations iRS 24 i thai allows destruction ot public lands for the benefit bene-fit of a few peopk Nancy Y. Wagner fj? SanirMn, Jjn J he Park Record pnr.teJ a letter that -fu-tirJ N-jM.'e tht signature and f?i?Vr .? ; t wrti MWv Mr aiied ur office em !hhLi to .iv h.U not m .'- fen the letter St'nd jour letter to the editor tia e-mail at: editord? parkrvcord.com or fax it to: (435) 649-1942. The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER Editor Stiff iwntvrs Contributing writtn Editor's mittMt Oftic accsuntMt Clauititds MMfir ClMsrfwds CwctttatiM MMr Uvvfttsmf director AdvfttM salts Editanat product) PlMtotraptwr PrvtuctiM 4trctr Distribution Carte Na Ciaiat-Nca' Bruce Lews Ja Ha-'-tSc.rgef J-" Sson O-e .'ensen Aaron Krertce Tim Westby Tew Oyoe R-C BrOvAJb Ten Or Gary We ss Jay KWwr Jos Or Chrisf-afji Kcvfia Pitt Cins!Pf,iri Stacey Baft Carv Vax5ee3e Vaie Dewsg Sersy SNr St Net) Ba -X3 Gaye Seaman S?Won BoSb i'Skama Trxws Srwa Aooerso" Arme Cummifsgs Kai Jarrs Roger Giazic Keiisa Hyde Amy HoobS Yvonne Rutti Scott s!e Matt Gordon (DHia Lewiftsortn Knsti Masters tsiancy Bnstot Chns Oisaver Karen Yettef John Kilboum twrtrrm , thv The fW trtt trv ivrvrttn C -f;. VatN-d Vf r fvffrrs 4 rtifhn "V'flt V-' "' V rrrttrd m im htm mrrhit: f..5rf iTwfv-Wttf Mf mtmt?tti ?4t w tw IVffcAfrr th, fori N.nW U SPS 'V'm ttSS P4S-AV) P4S-AV) is putsfesixsj tkr cvkh b DtservtKxl Sirtxifhan V-stm!x, B,tnana t. Pail ( iH I l.th PefKxbc A P. .!. rmd i Pari I !.ih PiMM ASTER Scod klrc- chanees n Th, fVi tinrf. IWw Vwe. pj,, (-, itif, MiMi Entered as vesmd eta matter. M 73. KT7 at Ihe pf oftvc m Pwt Cm . I'tah Miwi tuvV-r ft Act ot Mare X tWf? SuNcnpt'.w res arc inside Summit County. n) outside Summit CouMv. I'Sah SuNpcfifKn art translerrahle: JS cancellation toi Pwne4.)MsniUof ta(4?? Puhirej every WedncscUv ami Sarunlav. . .. j Copy .J |
