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Show MdDw Albapifflit lilt? 1 ' The recent winter drought has made us aware of how dependent we are on a good snowfall. What economic alternatives do you suggest so that FarK uiy is not forever at the mercy of the weather? EnnisGibbs , Ultimate development of an airport and the proposed industrial parks in the outlying areas will have a tremendous Page 2 Thursday, February o, 1981 impact upon Park City s economic base. II City ordinance doesn't deserve credit for snow We can all breathe a sigh of relief. Despite the fears of Park City businessmen and townsfolk, the month of January did not pass by without snowfall. We're as happy as anyone about the 40 inches of powder on the slopes, and the increased business on Main Street. But we hear certain parties are taking undue credit for the precipitation. And we think it's time to set the record straight. On Jan. 29, the City Council passed an ordinance mandating man-dating the arrival of snow in town by 5:20 p.m. that evening. The resolution even prescribed legal penalties for the non-arrival non-arrival of the snow, and Mayor Jack Green bragged, "This is an ordinance with teeth!" Now that snow is here, the Council is claiming that its decisive action resulted in the timely stormfront. In truth, it was a case of too little, too late. Council members may not like to be reminded, but local citizens constantly petitioned City Hall last fall with" requests to bring in snow. Mayor Green rebuffed them, pleading that he didn't have the money. "We spent all the available funds on sleet," Green said. "Don't you realize how limited we are?" Councilwoman Helen Alvarez lectured citizens. "There's only so much weather available to us. If we want a blizzard in December, we're going to have to give up that thunderstorm that cools things off in August. If the citizens want that, it's fine with me. But no one ever gives us any input. Nobody ever shows up for budget hearings except Peter Van Schenck." Then scandal broke. Imagine, if you will, the city's em-harassment em-harassment when local police discovered a city employee was keeping hundreds of snowballs in large Baggies stored inside her house. Councilman Bob Wells immediately leaped on the windfall and suggested the city should take its supply and merge it with another supply of snowballs being stockpiled at the upper end of Main Street by developer Peter Cold. "If the city acts now to work with the developer, we could, at limited risk to ourselves, have a really neat snowball fight," said Wells. ttTUTI1!w Secret report Washington President Ronald Reagan Rea-gan will soon receive from the Central Intelligence Agency a secret profile of his chief adversary, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The Kremlin boss is now 74 years old and is plagued with poor health. The CIA assessment states that "Brezhnev's major health problems are cardiovascular. He has both hypertension hyper-tension and arteriosclerotic heart disease. He probably has a pacemaker." pace-maker." He is inclined to take too much medication, which alters his already moody personality. As the CIA puts it: "Brezhnev has been described at times as depressed and at other times as alert, energetic and animated. He has long been prone to great mood swings... "But there is no evidence that his intellectual ability has been significantly significant-ly affected by these emotional problems prob-lems and no sign of a lessening of his judgment or contact with reality. "Still, on several occasions, he has been described as unable to concentrate, concen-trate, inattentive and fatigued. (This could) reflect the depletion of his limited physical reserves or the effects of excessive medication. But they could also be symptions of depression." The Kremlin czar also suffers "periodically intense facial pain," which is diagnosed by the CIA's medical experts as "trigeminal nerve pain." Continues the secret report: "This probably explains some of Brezhnev's unusual behavior his seemingly unwarranted dissatisfaction with his dental care, the frequent rubbing of his jaw, excessive salivation and abrupt disappearance from public view." Brezhnev has tried every possible treatment, including acupuncture, acupunc-ture, to relieve the facial pain. Will these health problems finally force the again Soviet leaner to retire? Qqb s i 5 lsL Aground I S-xT! by on Brezhnev's health The CIA's top secret opinion: "Brezhnev "Brezh-nev has so far made no move to establish a successor, and most present candidates lack a good claim to his mantle." Sometimes, when he is depressed, he talks about calling it quits. His younger brother recently hinted that the Soviet strongman may retire. But the CIA checked out the report and submitted this evaluation: The brother's statement "may have accurately reflected Brezhnev's outlook... out-look... during one of his 'down' periods. But later clandestine reporting and Brezhnev's more recent public behavior behav-ior suggests he now means to stay on. Clearly, Brezhnev has periods of elation and depression, and his intentions inten-tions may vary as his moods swing." Concludes the CIA: "There are able men already on the politburo, as well as others waiting on the threshold. None of them has established a special claim to consideration consider-ation as a contender for the position at the top. If the Soviets wish to achieve the first smooth succession in their history, serious collective planning will have to begin soon. There is no sign of such planning." Poor George George Bush wanted to be president, but he had to settle for the vice presidency. One of the few prerogatives he could look forward to was the redecoration of his official residence. Now he has discovered that even this small privilege has been partially pre-empted by his predecessor. predeces-sor. The departing vice president, Walter Mondale, ordered thousands of dollars worth of furnishings last fall for the stately vice presidential residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. He also purchased some new furnishings furnish-ings for his White House office. Most of the orders were placed in October. Did Mondale seriously think he was going to Councilwoman Tina Lewis suggested the city should consider con-sider other alternatives. "What if we combined the snowballs into an ice sculpture maybe a little scene from "Babes in Toyland'." Wells pointed out that it was 70 degrees outside in mid-December mid-December and the city did not have a great deal of latitude in which to act. (Meanwhile, Richard Martinez reminisced about how he used to roll lumps of coal in the thin snow on warm days, and have fights with them.) While the council debated, the opportunity literally melted down the drain in the December warmth. Throughout the past few months, the council's record has been one of malingering and procrastination. And we haven't even mentioned the spineless failure to demand an investigation into the great November Cover-Up. ( Unknown to most Parkites, six inches of fresh snow fell in the area on Thanksgiving Eve, but the powder immediately was confiscated by state and federal drug enforcement agents.) The new ordinance is supposed to improve things, but it really has no legal means to prosecute for non-production of snow. Says Police Chief Mike Crowley, "If a storm wants to do nothing more than rumble and break wind while it hangs over the city, the county attorney says I don't have a rat ball's chance in hell to do anything about it." The whole ordinance proceeds from an outdated idea. The council still is looking back to the days when Park City was an old mining town and was struck by three-day blizzards. bliz-zards. We have to accept the fact that Park City now is the kind of town where stormfronts float in, drizzle for a few hours, and then leave. The Founding Fathers knew that weather and government govern-ment don't mix. It's a lesson we've forgotten over the years. Perhaps it was best expressed by the great American humorist and meteorologist Mark Twain Euhanks. when he asked. "Ya know what a slush bank is. don't ya? It's a glacier what fell into the hands of a politician!" Think about it. -K B. Jack Anderson Joe Spear be around to use the new furnishings for another lour years? Evidently so. New carpeting worth $1,600 was installed in late September. Then some new wallpaper went up, and a chair was reupholstered. The spending continued even after the voters had made Mondale a lame duck vice president. An order for $495 worth of new drapery material was dated Nov. 6. A new, custom-built couch costing nearly $1,500 was sent to the vice presidential mansion on Nov. 21. Mondale's spokesman insisted that the redecorating splurge had nothing to do with the election. He added that only standardized, low-cost furnishings were ordered. But this last-minute refurbishing led to a quiet inquiry by federal sleuths. The probe stopped short of an official investigation. The Bushes may not like the furnishings Mondale picked out for them. But the new administration is dedicated to cutting the cost of government. So the new vice president can hardly go out and spend thousands of dollars to redo the decor he inherited from the Mondales. Potential Defector? One of the Kremlin's most celebrated allies-Cuban allies-Cuban strongman Fidel Castro has confided some shocking news to intimates. He would like to defect from the Soviet bloc. But Castro admitted it may be too late to cut his Russian ties. He is completely dependent on the Soviet Union, which pours $10 million a day into Cuba. Dollar Patrol David Stockman, the new director of the Office of Management Manage-ment and Budget, plans to form a unit of auditors who will make surprise visits on government agencies to root out wasterful spending programs. The fiscal marauders will be called th "dollar patrol." 1981 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. More professional people and capitalizing on the beautiful area we live in. The snow has not benefitted us for the last two years now, and we've got to be more professional about year round businesses. ' v, i J . More emphasis cultural and art events, bv Stanley Karnow State Department must educate Haig to make diplomacy, not war Washington, D.C. One of the paradoxes para-doxes of foreign affairs is that the Democrats, with their sensitivities to right-wing attack, frequently feel compelled to act tougher than the Republicans, who usually are under no pressure to prove their hrwkishness. Thus Eisenhower could end the war in Korea that Harry Truman had escalated, and Nixon was able to withdraw from Vietnam, fly to China and sign an arms control deal with the Russians none of which either Kennedy Ken-nedy or Lyndon Johnson dared to do. Logically, then, it is tempting to suggest that Secretary of State Alexander Alexan-der Haig, whose hard-line credentials are impeccable, will pursue a flexible foreign policy on behalf of the Reagan administration. But it probably is too early to gauge Haig's direction. For while his rhetoric is fierce, his State Department appointments appoint-ments indicate that, in practice, he may be more moderate than he sounds. There certainly was little in Haig's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to mark him as tractable. Indeed, after observing his performance, I came away with the impression that he has inherited none of the sophistication for his former bosses, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Nixon, it is worth recalling, entered office with the pledge that he would replace confrontation by negotiations, which he claimed to be qualified to conduct because of his past dealings with the Russians. Kissinger, meanwhile, mean-while, proclaimed his dedication to detente. The Newspaper Subscription Kales, $6 a year in Summit County, $12 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. , USPS :i7h-7:mi Publisher Jan Wilking Kdilur Bettina Moench Advertising Sales Jan Wilking, Bill Dickson General Manager Terry Hogan Business Manager Rick Lanman Graphics Becky Widenhouse, Liz Heimos Reporters David Hampshire, Rick Brough Plioto Editor Phyllis Rubenstein Typesetting Kathy Deakin, Dixie Bishop Subscription & Classifieds Anne Benne't Distribution , Bob Grieve Kniered as second-class matter May 25. l77, at the post office in Park City, Utah 84060, under the Act of March 3, IS!I7. Published every Thursday at Park City, Utah. Second-class postage paid at Park City, Utah. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs are welcome and will be considered for publication, however, The, Newspaper will assume no responsibility for the return of such material. All news, advertising and photos must be received prior to the Tuesday noon deadline at our office 419 Main Street in Park City, by mail P.O. Box 738, Park City, Ut. 8l(Mill, or by calling our office (801) B4!-!MII4. Publication mafrial must be received by Tuesday noon for Tluirsduy publication. ' Loretta Randi Tonnessen Have patience ... the town is growing fast Robert Flatt Pack the whole town up and move it to Baja. Mary Shults Better variety of theatres, both film and restaurants that stay open ! John Crandell on conventions, along with film festivals, and possibly building an ice skating rink. Haig, in contrast, appears to believe that military strength is primordial. He paints an apocalyptic picture of the Soviet Union's superiority over the United States, calling it "the most complete reversal of global power relationships ever seen in a period of relative peace." Not only is a U.S. arms buildup imperative, Haig contends, but the possibility of war cannot be rejected completely. Or as he put it the other day: "There are things that we Americans must be willing to fight for." So I inclined to share the apprehensions apprehen-sions of Sen. Nancy Landon Kasse-baum, Kasse-baum, who imparted her concern to Haig that he "might turn to military options more quickly than diplomatic alternatives." But given his lack of experience, Haig will have to rely heavily on his State Department subordinates, especially if he hopes to prevent the National , Security Council from dominating foreign policy, as it has under previous administrations. With some exceptions, his senior aides are professionals capable of curbing his more belligerent tendencies. Walter Stoessel, the undersecretary for political affairs, is former ambassador ambas-sador to West Germany and a veteran diplomat. Lawrence Eagleburger, who will be in charge of West European affairs, is a Kissinger protege and a strong figure whose appointment indicates indi-cates that Haig plans to improve America's somewhat frayed ties with its allies. v. . . , . ' Brown enough. live, and shops and Haig is giving international economic issues the attention they deserve by assigning two able men to the field. Myer Rashish, the incoming undersecretary under-secretary for economic affairs, is a j Democrat with a first-rate reputation, and Robert Hormats, the new assistant secretary, is equally respected. One of Haig's wisest decisions, probably made for him by President Reagan in order to please Congress, was to keep former Sen. Mike Mansfield in his job as ambassador to Japan. Mansfield has been extraordinarily extra-ordinarily effective in preventing America's economic quarrels with the Japanese from degenerating into a political dispute. Some less inspired choices include Richard Slone, the defeated Florida senator, as assisxtant secretary for Latin America. But an encouraging feature of Haig's State Department are the faces that did not surface. The right-wing extremists in the Reagan camp, some of whom were touting themselves as the wave of the future, almost entirely have been relegated to oblivion. After its years in the shadow of the White House, therefore, the State Department now has a chance to play a real role in formulating and implementing implement-ing foreign policy. Its most important responsibility, though, may be to educate Haig to the reality that, L a nuclear age, there is no sane substitute for diplomacy. Released by The Register and Tribune Syndicate 1981 A. V. |