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Show 7 fj MOW ADDdDMlt lit? The Park City Board of Education (School Board) is planning to spend about $100,000 for the relocation of a duplex and a single family home to be used as employee em-ployee housing. Do you think the School Board should provide housing for its em-ployees? em-ployees? Do you think other employers should follow that lead? newnDODiiDiiu; Jere Calmes Yes, the board should provide housing if it doesn't over-expend public funds. It's obvious that in a resort town such as Park City that it is an advantage to both business and the community to Page A2 Thursday, February 26, 19X1 IEcdllttaDirlsal provide low-cost housing for employees. -H." II NkvO'-S" pi, v c, "., 0$ x 3 'A E 2 c I 5 Book shows but reminds What the hell is Park City anyway? We're thinking about the identity of our community today because we've been looking at a recently-published book that presents the town as one of the worst cases of environmental environ-mental rape ever conceived. "Park City" is one of those big glossy books you give someone for Christmas. You don't really expect anyone to open it, but any Parkite who flips through the book will be fuming. It is page after page of handsomely-mounted photographs that show Park City's subdivisions under construction, con-struction, and focuses on the ugliest aspects of that process: fields scraped clean by bulldozer tracks; mounds of repulsive dirt crawling with debris; finished houses siting forlornly in unlawned subdivisions; even the bland sheetrock walls inside houses that are half-done. The photographs are accompanied by a long, over-intellectualized over-intellectualized essay that comes down to one bottom line: ain't it a shame how Mankind (especially developers) have screwed over the natural landscape. As far as the author and photographer are concerned, Park City is an area, where the mining-town debris was swept aside, only to be replaced by the plastic. An area of lost hopes and blasted possibilities. It's a good thing these two men told us! A lot of hardworking hard-working Parkites would still be laboring under delusion the city is worth saving! The members of the Planning Commission? Com-mission? Forget about trying to .iaintain a balance between bet-ween attractive developments and natural wilderness. City Council? Don't worry about whether Main Street can be a thriving business district with its historic roots intact. The matter's already been decided. Obviously, Park City is still struggling to define itself. And it presents many faces to the viewer. It is skiers, ffSTIfM V it by Stanley Karnow HimiteipBeitiye IEepqEirtt The U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on election confusion Paris Having just survived a tediously long election campaign at home, I am not exactly thrilled to land in the midst of an election campaign here. And just as the French often were baffled by the U.S. experience, an American can find France's political exercise equally puzzling.. The main contenders are President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who is running run-ning for a second term, and Socialist leader Francois Mitterrand, who has been r inning unsuccessfully for as long as anyone can remember. But the race is complicated by the presence of two other figures. Though the Gaullists support Giscard's government in the parliament, their chief, Jacques Chirac, is opposing him. And though the Communists usually cooperate with the Socialists in the legislature, they also are putting up their party boss, Georges Marchais. The event involves something akin to, but mercifully shorter than, the U.S. primaries. A first round of voting, in which all the candidates run, is held in late April. The two who score the highest run again in the second round, held in early May, and that determines the winner, It is almost certain that Giscard and Mitterrand will come out on top in the first round and face each other in the second. The present opinion polls indicate in-dicate that Giscard will be re-elected. He is likely to benefit rom Gaullist .votes the second time.around. He could be backed as well by a large proportion of Communists, at least in part because distorted picture of city us of problems mining trucks, flatland subdivision lawns, Rossi Hill dwellers, and small town. While New Town is built, Old Town still criticizes from the sidelines. (We recall the oldster old-ster who said one prominent member of city government was practically a Benedict Arnold for moving from a home in Old Town to a place in the suburbs. ) The book "Park City" was blatantly unfair in presenting only the worst side of the town. But before we get too self-righteous, self-righteous, we should remember that that is our worst side. It's appropriate that the photographer took most of his pictures in the Prospector Square area a living (or rather, dead) testimony to our problems with maintaining landscape. lan-dscape. At Prospector, developers made hollow promises to beautify the land, then sold their property to other investors and left them to deal with the problem. Make the money and run. It has been seven years since the area first opened for residents, and city government still slogs through the courts, searching for the legal power to make the builders do what they promised. One of the few cogent points made in the book "Park City" is that our town could become a victim of "ski sprawl" subdivisions spreading out from the base of the mountain clear through to the interstate, until the area becomes a suburb of Salt Lake. Developer A sells meadow homes with a spectacular view of the mountains, while Developer B sells hillside homes with a panoramic view of the plains. Flipping through the photos in "Park City" fills you with a sense of outrage but we should feel a little concern too. It is a feeling we should remember as the town matures into a bustling mountain community. We have not yet (thank God) totally covered the land with subdivisions, but (heaven help us) we could do it yet if we are not careful. -RB 1 f mm w r. 3 - '-i- j jst s ft i.ii nn the Soviet Union, which exerts considerable con-siderable influence over party militants here, prefers him to a Socialist who might steal away their clientele. In the legislative elections of 1978, the Communists sabotaged their coalition with the Socialists, thereby handing the parliamentary victory to Giscard's followers. Evidence that has emerged since then suggests that Moscow was pleased with that outcome. But one of the singular aspects of the current campaign is that, while Giscard looks like a sure winner, he has never been more disliked by the electorate. elec-torate. In other words, the surveys show that a majority of the French intend in-tend to vote for him, yet the same majority claims to be dissatisfied with his administration. This is indirectly reflected, meanwhile, mean-while, in another phenomenon here the soaring popularily of a comic called Coluche, who has facetiously declared himself to be a candidate for the presidency of France. A rotund character, Coluche is a wit who mocks politicians in a devastating and frequently vulgar manner. His tiny theatre is jammed to the rafters every evening, and a record of his routine sold 1.5 million copies last year. "France is divided in two," he quips, "but I've got the French doubled up." My French colleagues submit that" Coluche's appeal and the disappointment disappoint-ment in Giscard add up to the same thing. The French public, which normally nor-mally views politicians with disdain, is even more cynical than usual these uiys. I THINK We AieOURB&TS,. Much of this disenchantment stems from the state of the economy. Hard hit by the skyrocketing price of oil, France is sinking into a deep recession. Unemployment Unem-ployment is climbing and the inflation rate continues to rise. Giscard has introduced various programs designed to cope with the situation. He called for austerity a couple of years ago, and more recently he cut government subsidies to industry in order to make it more competitive. But nothing has helped, since the slump is due to global factors. At the same time, Giscard's personal style has become less attractive than it was when he first entered office in 1974. In those days, he modeled himself on John F. Kennedy, an easygoing, charming charm-ing chief executive with a common touch. Since then, though, he has become aloof and regal, the reincarnation reincar-nation of General de Gaulle. It should be added that the French have a way of puncturing their public figures so that nobody can remain a hero here for very long. De Gaulle is a case in point. They hailed him as their savior at the end of World War II, rejected rejec-ted him in 1948, recalled him to power in 1958 and eroded his authority a decade later. Since his death, of course, he has been put on a pedestal alongside Joan of Arc. The prospect for Giscard, then, is that he also will be "used up" during the years ahead. But, barring some unforeseen un-foreseen crisis, he has a few more years to go. 1 Released by The Register and Tribune Syndicate, 1981 ) It's a good idea for housing. A community works better whfn everyone worKs together to solve its problems. The School Board is different though, because it's funded by public funds and I don't think that they should subsidize employee housing. When the city needs to provide "welfare" in the form of low-income low-income housing for full-time, year-round employees, then it can honestly be said Park City is no longer a community at all, but merely a playground for the rich and noveau riche. A city that has been developed with only these people in mind eliminates the I work force and the consequences will eventually be a town resembling the facade, fairy land of Disneyland. In order to solve the problem, perhaps Park City should be turned into a military camp, and workers should be drafted to serve their time. Weekly Fitzgerald's Co Washington Last December, we urged President Ronald Reagan to appoint Ernest Fitzgerald as the new comptroller comp-troller general of the United States. The position will be open in March. It would be difficult to find anyone better qualified than Fitzgerald to ride herd on the government's big spenders. He was the Air Force watchdog who blew the whistle on the C-5A transport plane scandal in 1969. He informed Congress about the Lockheed Corporation's Corpora-tion's shoddy workmanship and $2 billion cost overrun. The Pentagon brass angrily fired Fitzgerald, but he took his case to court and forced the Air Force to rehire him. He was given a dead-end job shuffling papers; his talent for spotting waste and corruption went unused. Now we are pleased to report that our December story has stimulated support for Fitzgerald. Such influential senators sena-tors as Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., and William Prox-mire, Prox-mire, D-Wis., are now backing Fitzgerald Fitz-gerald for comptroller general. This is important because, starting this year, candidates for the position are selected by an ad hoc committee of congressional leaders. The president selects the comptroller general from the names submitted by the committee. He can reject as many candidates as he chooses and thus, as a practical matter, select the comptroller general of his choice. Unfortunately, there is one congressional con-gressional leader who may oppose Fitzgerald. He is House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, D-Mass. Why is O'Neill nervous about Fitzgerald? Sources told our associate Indy Badhwar it's because of Fitzgerald's Fitz-gerald's role in pressing for an investigation of the General Services Administration. This made life miserable miser-able for Robert Griffin, who was the deputy administrator and a protege of O'Neill's. 6 Newspaper Subscription Rates. Publisher . mptroller K,,,,or Bettina Moeiich Advertising Sales Jail wilkiiiR. Bill Dickson General Manager Tm. Hoga, Business Manager Rick Unman (iral,l,HS Becky Wirienhouse. Liz lleimos Reporters ,)avj(, Hampshj,. Kick Brough Pholo Kditor ,,nvis Rubestein Typesetting Katnv ieMlu )ixie Bishop Subscription & Classifieds ,nM Bennett Distribution '.'.'.'.'.'..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'..'.'.'.. Bob Grieve Kntered as second-class matter May 2:. 1!I77. al the post office in Park City, l lali HtlMill, under the Act of March a, IM!I7. Published every Thursday at Park City, Ctah. Second-class postage paid at Park City, l lali. I'nsoliiiled 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 (be Tuesday noon (leadline at our office lift Main Street in Park City, bv mail P.O. Box 7:iH, Park City, I t'. MKMiH, or by calling our office (Hill (il!t-fiil . Publication material must be received by Tuesday noon for Thursday publication. large employers to get involved in Judy Reid I don't see this as a problem that can be solved by providing low-income housing. Such housing would only put more burden on the few remaining full-time residents and workers of Park City by higher taxes. Until the greed barons ofthe developing syndrome are barred from communities such as Park City, the problem will remain unsolved. Grant Rory Simmons I think that the School Board and other large employers should provide low-cost housing. As a city employee, I'd love to see the city follow suit. Special KK by still tops for s post But Fitzgerald is a proven, dedicated bulldog, and we hope President Reagan will appoint him to chew on the ankles of the big spenders in the federal government. The president could do a lot worse; he could not do any better. Star Wars?: A few weeks ago, the Soviet Union launched a space satellite that could have serious consequences for the United States. It was a "killer satellite," and it is designed to destroy our spy satellites, which are relentlessly relentless-ly orbiting the Earth. These spy satellites have become essential to the security of the United States. They alert intelligence analysts to Soviet missile deployments and troop movements. The Russians have tested 18 killer satellites since 1968; 11 of the experiments have been successful. The latest test, a few weeks ago, worked to perfection. The killer satellite resembles a compact rocket. It is some 15 to 20 feet long, and about 5 feet in diameter; it weighs about 2.5 tons when it is launched. Four of its five engines are used for maneuvering in space as it seeks out spy satellites. The fifth engine makes the adjustments that are necessary to get it in the same orbit as the target. When it is about 100 feet from the target, the killer satellite is detonated and the spy satellite is brought down with flying shrapnel. Budget Blues: The governors from 18 states descended on Washington a few days ago for a meeting with the president. Half of them were Republicans Republi-cans who had made speeches against federal spending during last fall's election campaign. The governors first held a private strategy session, then proceeded to the White House where they presented the president with a confidential memorandum. memoran-dum. The meeting itself was cordial, but $6 a year in Sum mil County. $12 a year Published by Ink. Inc. I'SPS 378-7:1(1 , W vh v. - - v. Sue Bishop iow-cost Warner Jack Anderson :z IqvcM KfioH the memo wasn't. It complained about cuts in welfare and Medicaid funds and warned that planned reductions would have disastrous effects on the states. Some of the governors also pleaded for their states' special interests. The state executives from the Northeast, for example, argued against cuts in urban renewal funds. One Republican governor, Lee Dreyfuss of Wisconsin, warned the president there would be "screams" if the milk price-support program is touched. President Reagan tried to calm the distraught governors. He agreed to let them send their own state budget directors to Washington to meet with his cost-cutters. The president also promised the governors they would consult them before the final budget is sent to Congress. Fuddle Factory: Uncle Same spent four years and $75,000 building a contraption to test the durability of sofas for federal offices. The machine whacks the sofas a couple of hundred thousand times. If the couch survives, then it is certified durable enough for bureaucratic behinds. There is a hidden cost to the millions of tax dollars that are wasted on government junkets. Besides the expenses ex-penses of transportation, meals and lodging, it costs a bundle to pay for processing all the travel vouchers through the bureaucracy. Experts estimate that the paperwork for junkets cost as much as $400 million a year. The federal bureaucrats communicate communi-cate with each other in a special language that is often called "bureau-cratese." "bureau-cratese." We call it gobbledygook. What, for example, is a "re-employed annuitant?" In plain English, it's e civil servant who retires from the government govern-ment and is then rehied as a consultant at a fat salary. 1981 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. oiilsidc Sum mil County .Jan Wilking |