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Show L: --'-71 - . I- eather... Xlmm for Ai Volume 5 .i if 4 - lis V ", r 3 - if Vi .- Celebrate the 4th! DAWN: Sunrise Salute 7 to 10 a.m. Chuckwagon Breakfast at City Park ; $3 per person. 10:30 a.m. Parade from the top of Main Street to City Park, featuring color guards, dress horses, the Sky 2 helicopter, fire engines, children's floats, clowns and antique cars. 11 :30 a.m. Games at City Park, including pie eating, watermellon eating, a hay pile scramble, children's foot races and a TV media blueberry pie contest. Live music will be provided by the Oquirrh Ridge Drifters. There also will be a fire engine demonstration. Refreshments will be available. 2:00p.m. Rugby game, the Park City Muckers vs. the Dead Goat, at City Park. DUSK Fireworks at the Park City Golf Course, sponsored by Park City Municipal Corporation. Beyond and Back Crowley Quits, then Reconsiders Following a heated argument last Thursday with Mayor Jack Green over department priorities, Police Chief Mike Crowley turned in his badge and gun, and resigned his post of two years. But he reclaimed his gear and resumed his duties Friday morning after the pair reconciled their differences. Shortly after the disagreement, Crowley said Green indicated that Park City residents were concerned about animal control and parking problems, and he suggested the chief and his staff concentrate their efforts in those areas, rather than on investigating burglaries and other felonies. Miffed at the mayor's criticism of the police operation, Crowley stormed out of Green's office, and asked Detective Rob Berry to come to his home to pick up his gun, badge and identification. After Af-ter rethinking his actions and discussing the situation with some City Council members, Crowley met with the mayor Friday to iron out their differences. dif-ferences. "We had a discussion Thursday and I stomped out," Crowley said Monday. "We discussed it rationally Friday, and the mayor had some constructive criticisms that we talked over. The bottom bot-tom line is, there was tension and we blew up. Hopefully, that tension is relieved." As a result of Friday's conversation, Crowley said he intends to work on 1 rii ' - A areas the mayor suggested needed closer scrutiny. One priorty will be the beefing up of the animal control operation. While no funds presently are availble to hire additional personnel, Crowley said he hopes to relieve the growing dog problem by varying the one control officer's hours and better equipping the control truck. He noted that most pet owners let their animals loose after 4 p.m., when they know the control officer is off duty. By varying her hours, he hopes a greater number of stray dogs can be picked up. He added that officers on Patrol will aid the animal control officer when it does not interfere inter-fere with more pressing police work. Another priority suggested by the mayor was cracking down on parking violators. The chief agreed that drivers have overstayed their welcome in various parking zones, particularly on Main Street and near the golf course. In addition, the mayor suggested, because of the current water restriction in Thaynes Canyon, Park Meadows and Holiday Ranch, that the police patrol those areas to remind homeowners to only water ther lawns during specified hours. Crowley said he will increase his efforts in (hose areas. But he said he feels the police department, with nine officers including himself, is understaffed, under-staffed, and the smaller problems sometimes are shelved in favor of more pressing issues, like accidents and Li ii Thursday, Prospector Square Management Company Can't Renew Lease, Files for Bankruptcy In an announcement that stunned many businessmen and property owners, Management Concepts Inc., operator of the Prospector Square Conference Con-ference Center, disclosed that it filed for bankruptcy last week in federal court. Management Concepts President Bob Hutchins said he made his soi prise decision after an attempt to negotiate a lease renewal with property owner K&M Inc. failed, as did an offer to purchase pur-chase the property with several investors. in-vestors. Currently negotiating the purchase pur-chase of interest in the property, which includes the conference center, the Prospector Athletic Club and the Grub. Steak restaurant, is the Huntsman Goodson Chemical Corporation of Salt Lake City. Hutchins first came to Park City in May 1978 to direct the staffing, accounting, accoun-ting, advertising, public relations, interior in-terior design, master planning and financing of the multi-million dollar project. He currently has a three-year lease with K&M President Keith Garner. That lease was due to expire in April 1981, but because of the recent developments, Hutchins opted not to continue his association with K&M, and filed for bankruptcy last Thursday. Hutchins said Monday he has no estimates of his debts at this time, but within a week accountants will determine deter-mine the dollar figure. He did say he personally has lost a large investment invest-ment in the project. "We were making excellent money in the Grub Steak and good money in the athletic club," Hutchins said. "But we were losing our shirts on the room rentals." ren-tals." He commented that in addition to the : conference center and the two adjacent buildings, he also managed the room rental of more than 300 units that are . privately owned but part of an individual indivi-dual rental contract. He said the cost of development and operation of the entire project was not being sufficiently offset by the revenue split established with the unit owners, and he had hoped to restructure the rental contracts. "Our lease was up for renegotiation, but K&M would not extend it past next April," Hutchins said. "I feel confident that one more year in this place, and I could've turned it into a gold mine.". Because of the promising future of the property, and his now dismal future with it, Hutchins said he decided not to burglaries. He noted some of the police work load could be diminished by citizen compliance of the parking and animal control regulations. On Monday, Mayor Green said he did not intend for the police department to cease their investigations of burglaries and other felonies, but to place more emphasis on what he called "the little things" that impact a greater number of people. He said he currently is looking into seeking more county involvement in-volvement in areas that would free the Park City officers to tackle the seemingly smaller, but more insidious, problems. The mayor said he was surprised by Crowley's reaction to Thursday's conversation, con-versation, and, in fact, had not been formally notified by the chief of his resignation. He said the disagreement , did have its benefits, however, in that both men had the opportunity to discuss the problems in depth on Friday. He complimented the police department's efforts over the weekend in dealing with the water restriction situation, and said he felt confident their positive steps would continue. To help keep the channels chan-nels of communication open between City Hall and the police department, Green said regular meetings now will be held with the chief and the City Council to discuss enforcement priorities. ',,VH Page 11 j- over 700 T""1! night for the J 7 vwJ L July 3, 1980 further jeopardize the homeowners or his suppliers, or to put in additional time and effort that would further the K&M cause. : "To protect myself, I was advised to filr for bankruptcy," Hutchins said. "We did a tremendous amount to put this project on the map, and I've surrounded myself with an excellent staff. I feel the project will make a sizeable profit because of the hard work we've done. At this point, I'm going to get things cleaned up and look for something else. I've done a lot in this community, and I'd like to stay in the area. I'm not a quitter." As for the operation of the center and the future of his staff, which numbers 120 during the winter season, Hutchins said for the time being things will remain as they are. He has been asked by Huntsman Goodson to serve as a consultant during the transition period, and Russ Abell will take over as manager. As for the condominium owners, rumors have been circulating for several months that they have grievan Planning Backlog Frustrates Developers Interest rates are dropping; the weather is warm. The construction climate is improving by the day. Still, a number of would-be builders are chafing at the bit. The problem is that their plans, some submitted to the city as long ago as February, still haven't been approved. And they are understandably disturbed. distur-bed. "Everyone is very, very upset about this," Planning Director Bill Ligety acknowledged. "This time of year in particular." Ligety agrees that developers have good reason to be upset, particularly those who are used to dealing with other cities where the backlog of cases is less of a problem As Ligety sees it, the backlog itself is a symptom of another problem: the inability of the Planning Commission to review applications as quickly as they are submitted. "The Planning Commission members mem-bers are getting 'meetinged out,'" he i r - f Mike Crowley Cooler temperatures Mostly dry through the and lows in the 60s. pavement pounders turned out last Friday annual racing event, The Twilight Run. Park City, Utah ces. Shedding some light on the subject was Doug Adams of the Wardley Corporation, Cor-poration, the real estate agency that originally sold the majority of the kitchenette kit-chenette units in Prospector Square. He also is one of three members on the management committee of the Prospector Square Homeowner's Association. Adams said Tuesday that one bone of contention with the city, the commercial commer-cial property owners and the condominium con-dominium owners is a greenbelt area fronting Highway 248 that to date has seen little of the promised improvements. im-provements. But correcting that situation may be difficult, since Adams Ad-ams said it is uncertain if the responsibility respon-sibility for the improvements lies with K&M Inc., or the original owners, Murray First Thrift. He commented that the slow development of the commercial com-mercial property has been a disappointment disappoint-ment to condominium owners, who look forward to a visitor draw to the area to boost their property values. The improvement of the greenbelt area, he said, would be at least one step in the said. "If you look at last month's calendar, calen-dar, the commission met on June 11, June 18, June 25, and there was a public hearing on June 17. People on the Planning Plan-ning Commission last month spent at least part of one day a week on Planning Plan-ning Commission business." According to Ligety, the commission backlog was a lot larger last fall. "Those projects that came in in August and September, some of those probably weren't heard until March or April." He said the waiting list has since been cut in half. "Projects that are coming in now would probably be heard in September, Sep-tember, so that's two or three months." But the wait is still too long, especially since the all-too-short building season is now flying by. "Ideally, I'd like to see that down so we could hear people the same month, or the month after they come in." Members of the Planning Commission Com-mission are acutely aware of the problem. Bill Coleman noted at a recent meeting that the group was reviewing plans that had been submitted in February and March. Coleman suggested that the planning director be given more discretionary power to work with developers, rather than leave all the details to the commission. com-mission. Ligety said that one of the reasons for revising the city's Land Management Code is to reduce the load on the commission com-mission by decreasing the number of conditional uses in each zone, and by making guidelines clear enough so that the commission is called upon less often for its interpretation. "I will have guidelines where I can really make a decision, where it's very clear cut and there aren't a lot of discretionary areas. The key is that the criteria are set up clearly enough." He stressed that the code revision was not intended just to benefit the commission. "As we get the ordinance in better form, hopefully it will help developers know what to expect. ' ' Ligety pointed out that disputes over the interpretation of the Land Management Code have held up a number num-ber of recent projects. "That's something the proposed modifications in the ordinance should clear up." Revision of the code has been the focus of several marathon sessions this year, and the first proposals were discussed at a public hearing June 17. Ligety said suggestions coming out of that hearing were being studied. "Hopefully the first phase (of the revisions) should be ready for adoption this month," he said. But there are many other areas within the code which have yet to be addressed, areas such as the architectural architec-tural guidelines. "It's not going to be done by the Fourth of July," Ligety predicted with a smile. and a chance of rain expected Friday. weekend, warming to highs in the 80s 250 Number Forty-Two Bob Hutchins right direction of improving the relative bareness of the area. A more recent problem has developed, however, Adams said. K&M Inc. acted on an option in the project's restrictive covenants to expand ex-pand his property into the third floor common space area in six of nine of the condominium buildings, leaving the building owners without their common space area, for which they feel they would like to be compensated. K&M Inc. apparently offered to install air conditioning units in all of the condominiums, con-dominiums, as well as deed over to the homeowners' association the ownership of the conference center. To date, no action ac-tion has been taken. Also of concern to those six building owners are the 12 luxury units K&M developed. Adams said the units were constructed without fire escapes, and to alleviate the problem, K&M built skylights. "Then very tall aluminum ladders were placed in closets in the units," Adams said. "So, in case of a fire, Prospector to 3 Plumbers Pull Plug on Parley's Park A strike by a Provo plumbers' union may jeopardize the opening of the Parley's Park Elementary School this fall. A strike was called by Local 466 of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union, whose jurisdiction includes the Park City area, on midnight, June 30. According Accor-ding to School Superintendent Richard Goodworth, the strike could delay the completion of the school beyond opening day. "The key is how soon they get through striking," Goodworth said Tuesday. "If it lasts as long as six weeks, I don't think there would be a prayer we could be in the school at the beginning of the school year." Craig Zwick of Zwick Construction Company, the general contractor on the project, said that the walkout eventually even-tually will affect the whole job. He said the plumbers had about a week's worth of work left on a ceiling line. "We're really kind of in trouble, because we can't put the ceilings in as we'd hoped, and we can't put the (interior) (in-terior) walls in until the ceilings are in. The impact of that is just about 100 percent." per-cent." Zwick said that, at this point, construction con-struction is right on schedule. The expected ex-pected completion date is Aug. 15. He was not optimistic that the strike would be settled quickly. "We're being told that this thing will last probably no less than six weeks. The union and management are a long way apart right now. These guys are asking a $3 an hour increase." Zwick said he had other non-union personnel working on the job, but was reluctant to use non-union plumbers to finish the installation of the ceiling line. "We would void our guarantee by doing that," he said. "The right decision is that we back up until the strike is resolved." |