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Show SCORECARD Pp O PAL Uf de Birdie WELCGME The lights got too high, the heat too hot, and the Central Utah Water Conservancy board decided not to dam TO Diamond Fork. The multi-million dollar project was said to be necessary fo save and ship water to alfalfa farmers in central Utah. Advertisements in Salt Lake City's daily press went so far as to sug- gest the project would help end world hunger. No, seriously. But the cost would be borne by Salt Lake County faxpay- ers. Once that was out in the open, the axete tetera’ tenet See eseRAK Hey, what about world hunger, guys? Now we're told that water users downstream want to change the regulation of their water from agricultural to munici- A 4 pal and industrial uses. Gee, that's funny, all along it's been for the farmers, or hasn't it? ne IK Bee oa ee eee — ees — a > O Par In a recent radio interview on Park City's KPCW, news director Blair Feulner said to Mayor Brad Olch somewhat apologet- ountain whole dam idea seemed to evaporate. ically: "Chris Smart at The Mountain Times is incessantly bringing up the matter of your brother's building on Main Street and the parking.” To which the mayor replied: "Mr. Smart continues to misrepresent the facts." Because Feulner and Olch don't seem to understand the question, here it is again: How is if that the Park City Council can make a legal and binding agreement with a property owner for parking requirements, only to have that agreement waved unilaterally by the City Attorney with no input from the council? That's what happened and the mayor's brother came out $100,000 better off for it. Olch shrugs his shoulders and says, gee, I'm only the mayor. To Feulner and Olch and the City Council: The Mountain Times will continue asking the question until it gets answered. PAGE 2 « NOVEMBER 1997 @ That's why it wasn't too surprising to see > Bogey Goy. Mike Leavitt's Legacy Highway may leave a pretty poor legacy, if planners are correct. Recently, planners discussing growth along the Wasatch Front put forth the notion that the legacy Highway wouldn't relieve traffic congestion but would lead to more suburban sprawl. Great, just what we need. Utahns apparently are intent on making all the same mistakes that Los Angeles made 25 years ago. Of course the Legacy Highway is Leavitt's brainchild. Unfortunately, he came up with the idea in a vacuum. Looking out his window one day on all the traffic below, he said, hey, let's build another road, that should fix things. And so he planned a new freeway through Utah's largest and most important wetland, More recently, Leavitt pooh-poohed notions that a new road would lead to sprawl. Yo, Mike - wake up already! tb a or the last 20 years, at least, Park City has been a "feel-good" town. That is to say, people who went around criticizing things like local government or Park City crime were looked down upon. Bad publicity could hurt tourism and the real estate market. At least, that's the notion held by some local businessmen who know how to flex their muscles. Their argument goes like this: You can't live in Akron and complain about the tire industry. ee ee ee Se ee eS ts ea ee an editorial in the local Park Record newspaper playing down racism in Park City after The Salt Lake Tribune and Rev. Robert Bussen unmasked the undercurrent of bigotry swirling through town. ancing the perceived needs of his advertisers with that of a somewhat hard-hitting news staff. Of course, occasionally things fell out of kilter, like when sports reporter Randy Hanskat was fired for offending someone. As Christopher Smart news goes, many find that to be the hallmark ofa good reporter. But not necessarily those in the resort or real estate business. Fast century. The train returned in time for church Sunday morning. One hundred years later, Park City was remaking itself as a destination resort. People came to have fun skiing and biking and to make money in the tourist trade or in real estate. At one point, The Park Record editorial If there was a so-called "negative" story in stated: "Father Bussen, in his role as priest, is permitted to add dramatic rhetoric to his sermon, but that kind of exaggeration the local paper and some guy from California read the story, he might not want to come back to ski, or worse, he might not has no place in a balanced newspaper editorial." want to buy that house in Deer Valley. No, seriously, that's the argument. forward to Olympics are coming. the 1990s: The Park City and Deer Valley are well-recognized ski resorts and real estate continues to boom, boom, boom. But local news gatherers are still quite sensitive to bad news. Racism in Park City! Yikes, there goes the season. Bigotry! There goes the real estate market. Mexicans in the local schools! There goes the whole damn thing. The fact of the matter is, that sort of thinking is ridiculous. To its credit, next to its Pollyanna editorial, The Park Record ran From the late 1970s and through the John Kilbourn's cartoon of two women dining in a local Mexican restaurant with one even 1980s, this was particularly true. During a saying to the other: "I love their food, I just though, according to the paper, he did it in an “exaggerated” manner. The fact is, Father couple of low cycles in real estate, critical news was particularly despised by some. And The Park Record, was where many of those battles took place. During that period, publisher Jan Wilking was kept conscious of the two ends of the good news/bad news battle by a deft wish they didn't live in town!" and professional editor, David Hampshire, That simply isn't the case. There are a lot of good people in Park City and surely they can stand to hear the truth, real estate prices not withstanding, @ It is nice that the Record would give the priest permission to discuss racism, Bob hit the nail on the head. Although Park City was ‘built on the backs of hard-working miners, many of whom were immigrants, known as something Saloons, gambling and a regular stop for Salt Friday night D&RGW _ battom, of Main Street it was always of a feel good town. whore houses made it Lakers who rode the to the Depot at the before the rurn of the and by Wilking's business associates in the Park City Rotary Club. To his credit, Wilking was able to walk the fine line, bal- That pretty much sums up the feeling of some Parkites. But not everyone in Park City sees things that way. And if there was anything wrong with The Tribune's editorial, it was that it might leave the impression that everyone in town is a bigot. i |