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Show t nUaDw AJtoaDomt Hit? Frank Bell is scheduled to begin work as Park City's new police chief Feb. 15. What do you think his first priority should be? Kate McCutcheon .... Everyone that lives in town should be able to have a place to park without being ticketed. PigeA2 Thursday, February 4, 1982 lEoflSitapirfial I II yrr ti i o 1 II x ziyn 1 WTpaDnnnu; Whatever the verdict on Park Avenue, don't expect residents to pay the bill There's no denying it: Park Avenue is a disaster. Its horrid condition is a source of irritation to drivers, an embarrassment to city officials and a confirmation for those who said from the beginning that it wouldn't work. What everyone wants to know is, how could such a terrible thing happen? That same question was asked by the whole nation when the Teton Dam burst and the walkways in the Hyatt Regency collapsed. Put in that perspective, Park Avenue is a small problem but getting to the root of it and resolving it are not less important. If there is any value in a mistake, it is learning from it and discovering where the error in judgment was made. The protests about the road were loud and long while it was still under construction, and yet they didn't seem to raise enough concern at City Hall to stem the problems. We admit our part in turning a deaf ear, and feel we may have been too quick to dismiss the criticism, leveled by Bruce Barcal and Bruce Decker, as campaign rhetoric. But more than just "sidewalk superintendents" were critical of Park Avenue. Bank Construction Ltd. raised the red flag early in the project, and alerted the engineers at Bush and Gudgell that the roadbed was not supporting the weight of traffic using it. Bahk owner Ken Hoover claims he also gave the information to Public Works Director Bob Lashier and the city's project coordinator Norm Dahle. Toward the end of the project, Hoover said he recommended that additional asphalt could save the road, but that his suggestion was ignored. Did Dahle and Lashier take that information to City Hall? If so, why didn't anyone listen to the advice being given by people who make their living constructing streets? One possible explanation is that the city has obviously put a great deal of faith in the abilities of Bush and Gudgell. Currently, a half-dozen engineers are working full time on nearly 100 projects in Park City, for which the firm is paid an estimated $20,000 a month. While the company may have done a number of things well, Park Avenue was not one of them. The City Council perhaps should consider taking some of its eggs out of the Bush and Gudgell Basket. How much of the blame for the failure of Park Avenue can be attributed to bad design, and how much to rushing the project in the first place? We first recall hearing about the plans to repave the road last June, and construction began in August. The City Council has said that it decided to upgrade the road last year so that it wouldn't coincide with the construction of the new state highway this spring. But the highway has been under discussion for several years. Why did the city wait until the end of the construction season to move on the project? Did Bush and Gudgell or the construction company ever voice concern that the timing was wrong? There may be a hundred reasons why Park Avenue was a disaster, but there aren't any excuses. The city currently is paying a high price to hire professionals to avoid exactly the problem it now faces. Park City is going to be a war zone again this summer. We're already resigned to that. But we're not resigned to pay ing more money for a job tha t wasn't done right the first time around. An investigation is underway to determine why the project failed. Once the results of this study are known, we expect the city to take whatever action necessary to repair the road without any further expense to the taxpayer, jjbm JEFFERSON ELMENT7RV5CH0OL, FASTMONT SCHOOL. mi CARLISLE JUNIOR HI6H SCHOOL mi WEST MAIM... by Stanley Karnow (BldDlball View Reagan still needs to develop a consistent foreign policy Washington President Reagan campaigned cam-paigned on a pledge to end the incoherence and inconsistencies that had plagued Jimmy Carter's conduct , of foreign policy. But, over the past year, Reagan's performance in global affairs has been at least as confused and contradictory. In an effort to be kind to the president, as nearly everyone is, many commentators have observed that he has scrapped his tough anti-Communist idelogy in favor of "pragmatism." The polite euphemism really means, in my opinion, that the administration is groping. For Reagan, like Carter, has lacked the conceptual and structural framework frame-work that is necessary to lend clarity and purpose to the formulation and practice of foreign policy. Like Carter, consequently, Reagan has been unable to translate his intentions and attitudes into action with the result that, like his predecessor, predeces-sor, he has plainly failed to fulfill his promise to rebuild America's world leadership. Surprisingly, this failure was noted the other day by a member of Reagan's own team, Eugene V. Rostow, director of the Aims Control and Disarmament Agency. "There is as yet no consensus as to how military power should be used, or what it should be used for," said Rostow, implying that the administration administra-tion is still floundering around as it jeeks to define a diplomatic approach to match its gigantic defense budget. Without a diplomatic parallel, however, how-ever, the arms buildup is a prescription prescrip-tion for disaster not only because it increases the danger of nuclear war, but because it drains U.S. economy already in dire straits. At the same time, I find it difficult to see the Reagan administration shaping the coherent and consistent foreign policy of its dreams without the organization, the people and the ideas that are vital to molding such a policy and making it work. In the past, presidents either conceived and managed foreign policy themselves or put their trust in strong subordinates. Thus John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon ran their own show, while Harry Truman relied on Dean Acheson and Eisenhower on John Foster Dulles. Henry Kissinger only emerged fully as Nixon crumbled under the pressures of Watergate. Cater deviated from the pattern by promoting "pluralism," which fragmented frag-mented his administration. Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security adviser, ad-viser, constantly squabbled with Cyrus Vance, his secretary of state, and other internal disputes turned his international interna-tional affairs establishment into a zoo. Reagan has gone even further in encouraging this sort of cacophony. Whatever their differences, Brzezinski and Vance both were experienced in foreign policy. By contrast, the upper echelons of the present administration are populated with amateurs, beginning begin-ning with the president himself. He has made it clear, both in words and deeds, that his preference is for domestic matters. But he has not delegated anybody of the stature or skill of an Acheson or Kissinger or even Dean Rusk to handle foreign policy. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, as the English would say, is the shilling item in the penny bazaar. Having served as commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he knows Europe. His diplomatic talents are limited, however, and his foreign policy concepts are murky at best. So his efforts have frequently been contradicted by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who has his own foreign policy notions, as well as by Reagan's inner triumvirate of Meese, Deaver and Baker, who are concerned mainly with preventing international affairs from eroding the president's base at home. Richard Allen's blunders were a pretext for replacing him as national security adviser with William P. Clark. But Clark, who is hardly a foreign policy specialist, probably will concentrate on directing traffic rather than getting into substance. Therefore, it seems to me, the administration will continue to suffer from an organizational vacuum in the foreign policy realm. And more important, it does not have anyone at the top with the vision that can be developed into practical decisions. Small wonder, then, that much of the criticism of Reagan's foreign policy currently is coming from his neo-conservative neo-conservative supporters, who are beginning to attack him for the same inconsistencies they found in Carter. Meanwhile, the administration has been fumbling in Western Europe, the Middle East, China and, most dramatically, in its relationship with the Soviet Union in the wake of the Polish crisis. The president's smile is still brilliant, brilli-ant, though. But, like the Cheshire cat's grin, it may fade as his problems abroad accumulate, as they surely will. (c) 1982 The Register and Tribune Syndicate Inc. ' V .. Dick Street His first priority should be to be a good enough officer of the law to not let outside influences interfere with his job., r ii, - . ? Vv ' Arch Wright To establish organization among his officers; and to distribute the manpower where it is most needed. Ron Perry Besides keeping Carol and Anita in check, to compare skiing in Park City and Jackson Hole and give me a report (I may spend Christmas there this year ) . V J i -' - 4 , 4 fy Julie Kimball Work harder on preventing break-ins and answering calls. Kim L. Crowe I think they should put together a better system for the enforcement enfor-cement of parking regulations for Park City. Weekly gpecnal RS& Weird case of the CIA and the missing McNeils by Jack Anderson ear : J Washington The Central Intelligence Intelli-gence Agency routinely engages in ' activities that would strike the average American as a bit sinister. And the man in charge of sinister operations at the CIA is the chief of covert operations. That's why the agency's professionals profes-sionals were more than a little dismayed when CIA Director William Casey appointed a rank outsider as head of covert operations in May 1981. The CIA's darkest secrets were about to be laid bare to someone who might not appreciate how the spy agency had operated over the years. As it happened, the man Casey appointed to head covert operations, Max Hugel, was quickly forced out. He was accused of illegal stock deals he had made as a private businessman. There was some suspicion at the time that Hugel had been sandbagged by the old pros in the CIA. The idea was that they didn't want an outsider sticking his nose into their business. This theory gained more credibility when the two men who blew the whistle on Hugle disappeared soon after. They were two brothers, Samuel and Thomas McNeil. Given the questionable nature of some of the CIA's undercover operations, opera-tions, there was a possibility that the McNeil brothers had been done away with by the agency. Why the spooks would hit the men who had gotten rid of Max Hugel was never quite clear. But in the tangled world of espionage, the suspicion thrived. Indeed, things got so weird at one point that the body of a third McNeil brother, Dennis, was exhumed to make sure that he had not been the victim of foul play. The autopsy showed that he died of natural causes. , , ,i Still,, thfc twq LMcNell .brothers w.ho blew the whistle on Hugel were missing. But now there is evidence that the McNeil brothers are alive and well and living in Dallas. A former business partner received a Christmas card from Samuel and Thomas McNeil from the Texas city. In the holiday greeting, the brothers apologized to their former associate for taking it on the lam. They asked for his forgiveness. They especially asked to be forgiven for taking $3 million from their oil and energy company before they disappeared dis-appeared from the scene. But there's still an unsolved mystery: the man who got the Christmas card from the McNeil brothers didn't tell anyone about it. But all of a sudden he received a call from the FBI asking if he had heard from the McNeils. He told the G-men about the Christmas card. This may not have been a CIA operation, but it sounds kooky enough to have been. Mob Threat?: There were some distrubing press reports last week that the mob may be threatening the key witness against Labor Secretary Ray Donovan. The witness is credible; he has already been used by the Justice Department to convict corrupt union officials. He was the secretary-treasurer of Blasters Union Local 29 in New York. This is the union that supposedly was slipped $2,000 by an official of Donovan's construction firm at a luncheon in Donovan's presence. The former union officials's name is Mario Montuoro. He has given the Justice Department sworn statements that Donovan's company lavished gifts on officials of Local 29. A special TI.A Newspaper ; prosecutor has been appointed io look into the allegations. Now, law enforcement sources have disclosed that Montuoro's charges against Donovan have angered the Thomas Luchese crime family. The Mafia godfathers have reportedly put out a contract on Montuoro. They are willing to pay a half-million dollars to silence him for good. Justice Department officials are taking the death threats seriously. They have talked to Montuoro about seeking refuge in the Witness Protection Protec-tion program. What makes the story even more intriguing is that Local 29 is allegedly under the control of Samuel Cavalieri. His name is listed in Justice Department Depart-ment documents as a member of the Luchese crime family. In other words, the same mob that allegedly controls Local 29 has now threatened Montuoro's life. Executive Memo: The Central Intelligence Agency prides itself on keeping a low profile so much so that its budget and personnel figures are kept secret. But we've seen a top-secret review of the U.S. intelli-gency intelli-gency community which reveals that the CIA's annual budget is more than $1 billion. About 25,000 people work for the agency. The Department of Education is refusing to spend a third of the $60 million it was appropriated last November for library programs. Department officials say they're just following the president's edict to be frugal; some Capitol Hill insiders say they're breaking the law. Copyright, 1982 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Subscription Rales, $6 a year in Summit County, SI 2 a year outside Summit County Publitked by Ink, Int. USPS 378-730 Publisher , ,.,.. Jan Wilkine Kdilor .... .. . . .. , . Ivid Hampshire Advening Sales Jan Wi.king, Bill Dickson Busmess Manager Rick Lanm.n Rcy Widenhouse, Lb Heimoi Slaff Reporters Betlina Moench. Rick Brough, Morgan Queal Typesetlmg Sabina Rosser. Sharon Pain. Ka.hy Ue.kin Subscription & Classifieds . . ... , .. ,, . . . . Marion tooney Distribution & Photograph .... , .. , Michael Spaulding Entered is secondlass matter May 25. 1977. at the post office in Park City. Utah 84060, under the Act of March 3 1897 Published every Thursday at Park City, Utah. Second-class postage paid at Park City, I lah. '. 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, I t. 84060, or by calling our office (801) 649-9014 Publication material must be received by Tuesday noon for Thursday publication. |