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Show (BW: (Thrp Park City, Utah 250 Vo. VI, No. 45 Thursday, July 30, 1981 3 Sections, 52 Pages Pickets continue What will rise from Coalition Building ashes? The Silver King Coalition Building is gone, but not forgotten. In fact, it may be back again. The City Council this afternoon is expected to discuss with Coalition owner Jack Sweeney the possibility of reconstructing the massive building which was destroyed in a spectacular fire July 20. According to Sweeney's son, Pat, the family wrote a letter to the council asking for its support in researching the feasibility of building a replica of the 85-foot building on its original Park Avenue site. "We're sort of asking the council for its official approval before we spend the money on preliminary plans," said Pat Sweeney. Sweeney said detailed plans exist that would allow the construction of an exact replica of the exterior of the Coalition, which stood as a landmark in Park City for more than 80 years. The family had intended to use the drawings as part of a facelift of the building at a future date. He commented commen-ted that "they are the kind of drawings you could hand a contractor and say 'go do it,' they were so detailed. They showed the foundation, roof, walls and windows, and enough so we were prepared to bring the interior up to Is shirt-shaped sign appropriate? What kind of store signs are appropriate ap-propriate for historic Main Street? Unfortunately, your guess is as good as ours. But City Councilwoman Tina Lewis said the present sign ordinance needs aesthetic guidelines for both the city and shop owners. Said Larry Jones of the Utah Historical Society, "What you end up falling back on is one person's taste against another." You didn't have to look very far this week for an example of what Jones was talking about. The proprietors of the "Shirt Off My Back" store were unable to gain approval for their T-shirt-shaped sign (except on a temporary tem-porary basis) from City Planning Director Bill Ligety and the Planning Commission. "This matter is as subjective as anything I've brought before you," said Ligety to the commissioners. Nevertheless, he said the sign would not be "terrifically appropriate" for Main Street. The applicants, Jim Smith and Don Higginson, contended the planning department had given them confusing direction on the sign construction, and said the city had taken an excessive amount of time to process their request. Ligety conceded the latter point. And the commission voted to allow the T-shirt T-shirt sign for 30 days. But they sent Smith and Higginson back to the drawing board for a permanent sign. The city planner said his main objective objec-tive was the shape of the sign. "A rectangle rec-tangle shape would have been an improvement," im-provement," he said, "but even then might not be appropriate. " Jim Smith said his efforts were frustrated by the various demands of ..Xjl. ... ... - , . ., 1 current code." He said state code requires that buildings be not only fire-safe, fire-safe, but earthquake-safe as well. What about the interior? Sweeney commented that at this point, the family is asking the council only to offer of-fer support to the exterior construction. construc-tion. "First we have to do preliminary architectural ar-chitectural and engineering studies to see if it is feasible to replicate the exterior ex-terior of the building," said Sweeney. "After that, we would have to have a marketing study done to see what would be best for the inside. "We've done some preliminary work, and it seems to show that if the economics are right, it would be feasible to replicate it. In other words, if we can put something inside there that would pay to rebuild it, then it seems like it would be feasible. " Sweeney offered no suggestions what the family may want to put inside. in-side. "It would be total guesswork at this time. We hope the City Council will say to go ahead so long as the inside meets the code and as long as the outside looks like the Coalition building. We wouldn't do anything on the inside that isn't already allowed in that zoning. the city. "First Ligety wanted one thing, then he wanted something else," said Smith. "The planning department depart-ment wanted the letters on the sign to be sand-blasted; we wanted to use plastic weather-proofed letters. Ligety wanted it to be the same color as the Snow Country sign next door. We kept going back and forth between Ligety and his staffer trying to find out what we were supposed to do." At Ligety's suggestion, they took their design to Larry Jones of the Historical Society. "I had no problem with the T-shirt, but it needed refinement," said Jones. "It didn't work as a shingle-style sign. It didn't quite look like a T-shirt." Jones referred the applicants to local sign companies, and suggested the letters be carved into the wood rather than set out in plastic. Smith said the T-shirt is similar to other signs they have used for their shops in Aspen and Snowmass, Colorado. The style, he said, is like the old Western shops that hung out simple emblems of their trade. "Like a barber pole, or the dentist who had a large tooth as a sign," said Higginson. But the commission didn't like the style. "I don't want to see a proliferation of signs like that," said Commissioner Bill Mammen, "so I can't approve even one. I know a lot of signage on Main Street isn't historic, but we've got to start drawing the line somewhere." Commissioner Rusty Davidson said the applicants should at least be given credit for submitting the sign to the city. "Hell, everybody else just puts one up and worries about it later," he said. Council wnm-'in J wis told The Newspaper the present sign ordinance The major concession at this point would be if we could rebuild it to its original height." -i Sweeney said that if the council gives its approval, the preliminary plans would be contracted immediately. im-mediately. He estimated the studies would take $50,000 and most of the winter win-ter to complete. "If we decided to build something and we got approval from the council, we could be ready to build next spring," speculated Sweeney. How much would it cost to replicate the Coalition Building? "Lots," said Sweeney. "I don't even have a guess. Lots. "But if we can do it, it certainly would be a calling card to whatever we put in there and for the whole area," he continued. "We could gain back some of that aesthetic value the architecture architec-ture of the Coalition. "It would be easier, certainly, to hang on to the land and sell it to some big developer who would put up the standard new Park City building. And it probably would be just as profitable if not more. "But we'd rather replicate the Coalition." W off w My VcY Does this look out of place hanging on historic Main Street.? Planning Commission considered that question last Wednesday is not very not very good and should be upgraded. Guidelines can be set up to judge the historic quality of a sign. "You can look at the material, its typeface, its size, and how it is mounted," mount-ed," she said. The city can direct applicants ap-plicants to a number of good graphic designers. It should also set up a time frame, she said, to process sign requests quickly. When Park City's current ordinance was authorized, it gave all signs two years to comply or face city action. "But ever since then, we've had City Call for rejected While fired city employees were walking in front of City Hall for the fourth day, carrying signs lambasting the city manager, Utah Public Employees Em-ployees Association officers were in Salt Lake Wednesday revealing a plan to the media to reinstate the workers. According to UPEA Executive Director Dr. Clark Puffer, attempts to convince the city to return the 28 Public Works Department employees to their jobs after they illegally walked out July 21 have been unsuccessful. On Wednesday morning, he said he had contacted an independent mediator who he hopes will resolve both the salary dispute that led to the strike, and pave the way for the employees to be reinstated in their jobs. The mediator, he said, is Tom Curdie of the Federal Mediation and Conciliatory Con-ciliatory Service in Salt Lake City. Since this is not a federal issue, Curdie has agreed to intervene in the issue only if there is joint agreement between be-tween the city and the UPEA. "No way," said City Manager Arlene Loble when asked if she would agree to the mediator. "I feel certain this (the firing) was done legally and fairly and violated no laws, and that the city has the right to do that. I see no reason why we would bring in a mediator." Loble said she intends to stand firm on her decision, and although an appeals ap-peals board will be formed at tonight's City Council meeting, final paychecks have been issued to the strikers and four new full-time employees have been hired to fill open positions. During the last week, picketers have been carrying signs claiming that Loble refused to negotiate. On Tuesday, striker C?reg Winn, who sat in on the bargaining session that preceded the walkout, asserted that Loble had "flatly refused" to negotiate any further and that the workers saw no other resolution to the problem besides striking. "On the contrary," said Loble. "At the end of the meeting on Tuesday (July 21) I asked (UPEA negotiator)Don Clawson if we could set another date to meet. He said he wanted want-ed to talk to Susan Hansen, who conducted con-ducted the salary survey, and the employees em-ployees first. The word "strike" was never mentioned by anyone in the room." "If either UPEA or the employees had said that we had reached an impasse, im-passe, that they couldn't work any longer until we had negotiated further, that would have been different. We Attorney Mike McCoy researching to find if we can legally enforce that," she said. "There are several signs that violate the ordinance. The 'Heber Lodging' billboard on Park Avenue is a notorious example." Lewis hopes the Historic District Commission will establish guidelines, and eventually there will be less room for disagreement on Planning Commission, Com-mission, she said. But a businessman like Jim Smith,, who asked, "Why start with us?" indicates the process may be a painful one. mediation by city manager could have sat down again then and talked about it. Or I would have honored the strike. " Loble said the July 21 discussion centered around an independent salary survey conducted by the Utah Intergovernmental Personnel Agency. That study, which surveyed 13 cities, school districts and companies, attempted at-tempted to show high, low and average salaries for employees with similar jobs, compared to those of Park City's hourly wage employees. Since it was agreed by both UPEA and the city that salary inequities existed within the city, job classifications and descriptions descrip-tions were assigned to each employee. It further was agreed that UPEA would not negotiate for a cost of living increase this year because that would further perpetuate the inequity; in some cases, said Loble, workers were grossly underpaid, while in others, they were overpaid. The aim of the survey, she said, was "I feel certain the firing was done legally and fairly..." Arlene Loble to give both groups a point of departure. depar-ture. The consultant used both the survey sur-vey figures and Park City's current wages, then recommended salaries for each classification. Loble then offered a salary package to the UPEA; in half the cases, her offer was the same or higher than the consultant's; in the remaining half, the difference ranged from one cent to five cents per hour lower; in one case the difference was $1.11. The two UPEA negotiators at Tuesday's meeting took issue with the consultant's recommendations, since they fell in the lower-middle range of the survey statistics. They asked Loble to raise that level. Loble contended Police talks hit familiar snags While one set of negotiations seems to have ended with a thump, another seems to be heating up. Members of the Park City Police Department hope to meet with City Manager Arlene Loble later this week in an attempt to resolve issues which bear a striking similarity to those which confronted the public works employees last week. As was the case with the city employees, seniority has become an issue with the police officers. And, like a replay of last week's charges, some of the officers claim the pay offer from the city manager has a take-it-or-leave-it ring. "This is the smallest raise, percentage-wise, that I've ever received in Park City," Officer Al Allen told The Newspaper. "This wasn't at all what we were led to believe." Allen is the president of the Park City chapter of the Utah Public Employees Association (UPEA). According to Allen, preliminary discussions with Loble centered around the hourly-vs-salary issue. Allen said she told the officers they were welcome to stay under the negotiating umbrella of the UPEA, but that she would treat them as hourly employees. If, on the other hand, they decided to leave the UPEA and deal directly with the city, she would be willing to treat them as "professional" employees. Allen said the city manager mana-ger outlined a "professional" pay scale ranging from $15,000 to $19,000. Some of the officers present during those discussions interpreted that proposed pay scale as an inducement to leave the UPEA. Not so, Loble says. She argues that a police officer paid on an hourly basis, including an average amount of overtime, would make about the same amount as with the "professional" scale. In a private meeting after those preliminary discussions, the officers voted to go the "professional" route. And they also worked out a proposed pay rate for each officer on the force, based on tho assumption that . ;:;cers with five years' experience would get the maximum According In Alien, thip -was based on the discur . neld with that based on the survey, fair market value and Park City's current wages, the salaries were fair, and that she would not negotiate for higher wages. "I was saying I thought the salaries were fair, but maybe I made a mistake on classifying someone," said Loble. "But they (the UPEA) didn't want to take a position on the classificationsthey clas-sificationsthey wanted to take everyone as a group. They came in at $1 to $2 higher per person an average of 25 percent per person raise. I said that was untenable." Was there room for negotiation? "I would've thought anyone sitting at the table would've seen that the was a corridor this wide," said Loble, spreading her arms at shoulder-width. Although she said she could not discuss salary increases, Loble said she would have entertained discussing the six-month probation required of every employee, and additional benefits to reward senior employees. Under her plan, employees within a classification were paid the same working level pay no matter when they were hired. "It is my belief that people should be paid for the job they do, not for the number of years they have worked," said Loble. "But if I had been UPEA, I would have argued the probation period, and requested that those people who had been here over a year be given the working level salary now. They wanted everyone, even new employees, em-ployees, to receive the increases retroactive to July 1. They also could Mediation to page 2 Loble. She said both sides agreed that five years' experience was enough to produce a fully-qualified officer. Because Allen has been with the department since August of 1976, he was expecting a hefty raise of $3,400 per year. It turned out that Allen had been counting too soon. At a meeting held Monday with police department personnel, per-sonnel, Loble argued that their proposal was out of whack because it assumed that everybody with five years on the force would get $19,000. "If I led them to believe that, then I'm sorry," Loble told The Newspaper. "I never meant to suggest that." Loble argued that the $19,000 figure was intended as a theoretical maximum maxi-mum for comparable professional employees with the highest qualifications. qualifica-tions. Following Monday's meeting, Allen conceded that there might have been a misunderstanding. lastead of looking at a $3,400 raise, he was looking at $1,400, or about nine percent more than his current salary. Allen told The Newspaper that he had conducted his own survey of wages and real estate prices in Steamboat Springs and Vail, and had found out that Park City officers were underpaid. under-paid. "All I'm asking for is reasonable pay for the area that I live in," he said. "It's got to the point where I don't know if I can wait that much longer for things to get better." Allen also is disturbed by a proposal which would place officers with experience outside Park City on the same level as those with comparable experience on the city police force. He argues that each town has unique problems. "I could not go into Tooele tomorrow and be an effective police officer just because I had five years experience in Park City," he said. If the discussions with the public employees are any indication, Loble will give little ground on the seniority issue. She has argued that longevity in itself is no reason to pay higher salaries, although she has not ruled out merit raises or other ways of compensating long-term employees. |