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Show MdDw Albapiinit lit? A consultant recently suggested that the Park City-Snyderville area couia benefit bene-fit by forming its own county. Do you think Park City should secede from Summit County? Wendy Tofte , . Yes, I think government should be localized as much as possible. Also, the problems of Park City may not be the problems nf Summit Countv. liiiiliBiiS pageA2 Thursday, March 11, 1982 MntiapiriiaiE sew, . Local-outsider hiring debate doesn't help city run Buy from a local? Every so often, the Chamber of Commerce puts on one of those campaigns that encourages citizens to get their goods and services from neighboring business. Now, some Parkites are saying that City Hall needs to be sold on the idea. They're charging that Park City citizenship citizen-ship is an automatic disqualification for anyone who applies for a high-paying position in city government. The locals are being shut out, they say. That argument has some problems. First of all, who can agree on what a "local" is? Is it a person who has lived here five years? Ten years? Twenty-five? In some New England towns, 30-year residents are still regarded as outsiders by the old-timers whose ancestors settled the village. Our "How About It" question last week asked residents to define "local" and the answers, while amusing, were not consistent. An old-timer might regard John Doe the realtor as a new face. But John Doe doesn't agree. In the three years he's lived in town, he's heavily participated in civic activities, maybe sits on the planning commission, and knows more about local government than other residents who have lived here five times as long. Who's the outsider? Secondly, the whole local outsider debate is not relevant to the problem of running a city. Your address is no guarantee guaran-tee of good performance. Last year, we heard criticisms of the Park City police department, which was then headed by a local Park City resident. At the same timer the repaying of Park Avenue brought blasts against the city's outside consultants and a public works department headed by a new resident. If professionals from out of town are hired, it is because, in the city's judgment, their training and skills are needed. The city's attackers say that old employee who served the town faithfully in its lean years has been passed over, now that the city is prosperous and growing. But that is exactly the point. Through no fault of their own, the workers who were qualified to serve a small mountain moun-tain town don't have the experience and the specialized knowledge to guide what is suddenly a nationally-patronized, nationally-patronized, busy, resort community. That doesn't mean local employees are hicks or illiterates. Like all of us, they couldn't anticipate the dramatic changes and demands that would be placed on Park City government. We believe the record so far shows that, faced with a rapidly growing town, the city has sought the best person for a given position and hired him, no matter where he came from. When the city looked for a Director of Community Com-munity Development, they hired local resident Mike Vance for the position. (Incidentally, a non-resident background is also no guarantee against being fired for poor performance. The city recently discharged Transportation Director Jan Sylvester, who lived in Salt Lake prior to coming here. We trust the City Council will be equally decisive when the causes of the Park Avenue disaster are pinpointed. ) The whole local-outsider argument should be set aside. It's time for the city to consider other questions, like: How much can the city afford to pay for good employees? How many additional workers do we need? Is the city top-heavy in consulting talent? And even if qualifications are important, impor-tant, what about other factors? (Should the city hire a genius supervisor with a personality like J.R. Ewing's? ) It is The Newspaper's responsibility to investigate these issues, along with Park City citizens? In the meantime, the city can take steps to let city workers know they aren't being forgotten. Supervisors should encourage talented employees to upgrade their skills. And the city council should see if there is room in future budgets to financially aid training programs for employees. em-ployees. The city will function better when it outgrows an "us-and-them" attitude among the residents. The only "them" out there, folks, are the visitors whose dollars support the town. RB I imWWlyM opportunityto WnWmWihMi EXPRESSMYVIEWS by Stanley Karnow (BldDlbaill Vnew Reagan's foreign policy is making Carter look better all the time Washington Dr. Guido Goldman, a Harvard political scientist, is the author of Goldman's Law, which holds that U.S. presidents make their predecessors look good by comparison. There are doubtless exceptions to that glittering generality. But in the field of foreign policy, it seems to me, Ronald Reagan's dismal performance is making Jimmy Carter look almost great in retrospect. This is not to exaggerate Carter's talents. His conduct of international affairs frequently was confused and incoherent, or blurred by idealistic flights of fancy that bore little relation to tough realities. Or as another Harvard professor, Stanley Hoffmann once observed, a fundamental flaw in the Carter administration's approach to the world was its naive belief that admirable intentions would somehow serve as a substitute for strategy. Even so, Carter was pragmatic enough to adapt to changing conditions and he chalked up several signal achievements as a consequence. Reagan, by contrast, appears to be a prisoner of his own inflexible ideology, which has reduced him to immobility. One of Carter's early accomplishments, accomplish-ments, now virtually forgotten, was to persuade the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaty. The issue provoked extraordinary controversy at the time, and Carter used up a lot of credit on Capitol Hill to win a victory. But imagine what defeat would have meant. It is fair conjecture, I think, that failure to approve the pact would have added Panama to the roster of Central American countries currently in turmoil. tur-moil. As it is, Panama is not on the critical list, and the canal is safe. To speculate further, my guess is that Carter would be trying to hammer out a political compromise to the Salvadoran civil war were he in office today. He might have fumbled Nicaragua was scarcely a success but the effort would have been worthwhile. Reagan, on the other hand, has contributed to the polarization of the situation in El Salvador by giving its regime a blank check. Thus he lacks the leverage to urge the Salvadoran government to negotiate a settlement, thereby increasing the prospect of a prolonged conflict with deepening U.S. involvement. The price paid by Carter to the Senate for the Panama treaty probably cost him ratification of the second strategic arms limitation agreement with the Soviet Union. But at least he signed an accord, however imperfect it may have been, which lent continuity to the quest for arms controls. Apart from the talks in Geneva, which promise to drag on inconclusively, inconclu-sively, the Reagan administration appears to be conspicuously oblivious to the urgent need to curb the frightful arms race. On the contrary, Reagan has removed restraints on U.S. sales on conventional military hardware abroad, and developing nations that cannot feed or house their people are being encouraged to squander scant resources on sophisticated equipment. Carter's relations with America's allies in Western Europe were not exactly rosy. Yet he did get them to agree to the deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons on their territory, and they also acceded to his request to spend more on their own defense. Under Reagan, the Atlantic alliance has been crumbling fast, and it might have collapsed by now if not for Secretary of State Alexander Haig, the only top administration figure with any sensitivity toward the West Europeans. Euro-peans. The defense question is not the only irritant. Reagan's tight money policy is playing havoc with Western Europe's economies as skyrocketing interest rates dampen business investment and aggravate unemployment. The threat of social unrest in Western Europe may be far worse than the danger of Soviet attack. Give Carter high marks for normalizing norma-lizing U.S. ties with China, an initiative that has brought a measure of stability to Asia. Give Reagan a big demerit for jeopardizing those ties by proposing official American recognition of Taiwanan Tai-wanan inane notion that he has yet to repudiate. Carter certainly deserves praise for the Camp David accords, a giant step toward a Middle East accommodation. Whatever its shortcomings, the agreement agree-ment between Israel and Egypt was soundly based on the principle that the region's adversaries would have to resolve their differences gradually among themselves. Reagan, mesmerized by his anti-Soviet anti-Soviet doctrine, has been pursuing the illusion of a Middle East "strategic consensus," in which the countries of the area would act in concert with U.S. assistance to resist the Kremlin. It is a pipe dream posing as a policy. For, by arming the Israelis and Arabs in the hope that they will stand together against the Soviets, the president is only reinforcing their capacity to fight each other and his endeavor augurs another devastating Middle East explosion. I doubt that Carter will be sculpted on Mount Rushmore. But if he earns honorable mention in the history books, it may only be because he was followed by a president who vowed to restore America's global leadership and has instead become the object of derision. (c) 1982 The Register and Tribune Syndicate Inc. John McFaul Yes. Our tax dollars could be better spent within Park City. illiililiMpi1 Julie Chamberlain I feel our tax dollars could be used within the Park City limits to expand our declining water supplies just one of the many uses monies could be put toward for the benefit of Park City itself. Kevin Kincaid Yes, Park City should secede from Summit County. Most taxes I pay now go outside Park City. The way the city government is run, they need all the money they can get to make up for their mistakes. 3 splSiiif v s ' Larry O'Leary They don't have enough money now to fix the roads. If they lose the help of the rest of Summit County, it could make things difficult. Dave Berton Because of the special nature of its situation, and the vital nature of county services to the tourist industry, Park City should secede to insure greater control over those services. . " P ' A Weekly Spedigall by Jack Anderson Joe Spear Reagan speech switched to avoid irking Soviets Washington A rip-snorting speech was prepared for President Reagan last month, but he never delivered it. The president was asked to speak at ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary anniver-sary of the Voice of America. The speech was changed at the last minute at the urging of the National Security Council. Instead of the hard-hitting anti-Russian rhetoric, Reagan extolled his new Caribbean trade program. He hardly mentioned the Soviet Union. A White House spokesman told us that the reason for the substitution was simply to promote the Caribbean plan. But our sources claim it wasn't that simple. They say the anti-Soviet remarks were deleted to avoid offending the Russians. We happen to have a copy of the suppressed text. Here is what Reagan's Rea-gan's speechwriters would have had the president say about the start of World War II: "The challenges we face today are no less grave and momentous than those we faced in battles 40 years ago. Indeed, it was an alliance between Soviet Communism and Germany's National Socialism in 1939 that precipitated the second world war." That would have offended the Russians, all right. They suffered more than any other people in World War II, and they are proud of their part in crushing the Nazis. It's one thing to condemn the Soviet government, but the VOA is supposed to win over the Russian people. The Russians wouldn't be pleased to hear the president of the United States suggest that they were no better than the Nazis who slaughtered 20 million of their countrymen. Although the speech was killed, the battle between the hard-liners and the moderates still goes on inside the White House. Libyan Round-up: Remember the Libyan hit squad? Lawmen across the country were on the lookout for assassins who allegedly were gunning for President Reagan. When we investigated the hit-men who were supposed to be dictator Muammar Quaddafi's hired guns, we discovered that some of them actually were sworn enemies of Qaddafi. After a brief hoo-raw in the press, the story faded away. But the lawmen have not abandoned the search for Qaddafi's killer-squad. Wanted posters, pos-ters, with names and descriptions, are still posted at border check-points. The Immigration Service, with the cooperation of the FBI, has intensified its search for any Libyans who are in this country illegally. Agents are rounding up any Libyan aliens they can find, including former Libyan diplomats who are hiding out in the United States. Our sources say that the massive manhunt has caught some Libyan suspects. A few have been arrested and some have been deported. But no known presidential assailants have been captured. Qaddafi has steadfastly denied that he is trying to have President Reagan or any other top American official murdered. But no one we know in Washington is willing to take Qaddafi's word. Headlines and Footnotes: The tax payers lost $300 million last year on administrative costs for military sales to foreign countries. Now Congress has ordered the Pentagon to add a 3 percent surcharge to all weapons sales to cover the overhead. But our sources say the surcharge won't fully cover the expenses. Teaching positions at universities are hard jobs to get. One out-of-work scientist had adopted the tactics of car dealers. The enterprising professor, seeking to teach animal behavior, is offering a toaster to any school that will grant him a job interview. And for the school that hires him, he will give a color television set. Danford Sawyer, head of the Government Printing Office, apparently appar-ently doesn't believe there's an unemployment problem. He wants to close down most of the GPO's 27 bookstores across the country. He contends that it won't be a problem for the employees to lose their jobs. The truth is that many of the bookstores Sawyer wants to close have received hundreds of job requests from other fired government workers. Uncle Sam writes millions of checks every year. But almost $1.5 billion in government checks have never been cashed. The Treasury Department subtracts funds from agency accounts when checks are written not when they're cashed. So those funds cannot be used. Our sources say that the Treasury now plans to put a time limit on those checks, so if they're not cashed within a year, they'll be voided. Copyright, 1982 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Mewspapeur Subscription Rates, $6 a year in Summit County. $12 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. USPS 378-730 Publisher . Editor JanW.lk.ng . . ... . David Hampshire Advertising Sales , ,. . . . . . . f Jan Wilking, Bill Dickson Business Manager ' . . . c . . Rick Lanman s. rr if" 1 Becliy W'd'nnouse, Lii Heimos Matt Reporters b,,,, Motnch Rjck typesetting Rosser Subscription & Classifieds J Distribution & Photography Marion Cooney Michael Spaulding Entered as second-class 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. Utah. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs are welcome and will be considered for publication, however, The Newsoaoer 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. 84060, or by calling 'J X flOlTS i m! 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