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Show Park City to host national governors' seminar As many as 40 state governors and governors-elect are expected in Park City next month for the Seminar For New Governors. The three-day event, scheduled for Nov. 12-14, is held every two years as an orientation for newly-elected state governors, according to City Coun-cilwoman Coun-cilwoman Tina Lewis. "We won't know exactly who will come until after the election," she said. "We're figuring we will have between 30 and 40 governors." Lewis said that Park City was chosen as the site of the seminar by Utah Gov. Scott Matheson, current chairman of the National Governors' Association. "This is probably the most prestigious conference that has ever come to Park City. It's going to bring a lot of national attention." She explained that the visiting dignitaries would include a "faculty" of about 12 incumbent governors, whose job it will be to explain the ropes to the newcomers. The tentative list of faculty members includes Scott Matheson, Charles Robb of Virginia, John Rockefeller of West Virginia, Richard Lamm of Colorado, William Milliken of Michigan and Richard Snelling of Vermont. Included in the three-day program will be seminars on management of the executive branch, executive-legislative executive-legislative relations, handling the transition period, and press relations . When the governors' spouses, staff and security personnel are included, it should bring the total number of visitors to 200-250, Lewis estimated. The seminars are scheduled to be held in the Holiday Inn. "A whole room in the Holiday Inn is just going to be communications systems." She said a special poster was being designed for the event. "We're working on everything from menus to transportation to check-in packages." Included on the agenda are several social events in Deer Valley, and a time designated on Saturday for the governors' wives to browse through Park City's shopping districts. Lewis said the seminar should help in attracting other conferences to Park City, like the Western Governors Policy Office (WESTPO) meetings of two years ago. "The spinoffs from that have been absolutely incredible," she said. "There is really a snowball effect to these things. That's why, for me, it's important that these things be done with a lot of class." "mm i mi Vol. VIII, No. 3 Tuesday meeting RDA helps budget, council tells schools The Park City School District "doesn't lose one penny" of revenue in tax increments- paid to the Redevelopment Agency, (RDA) the Board of Education was told by the City Council Tuesday. In fact, the City Council maintains, the school district actually is making out better, budget-wise, than it would if the RDA did not exist. This complicated and esoteric piece of information obviously took the school board members by surprise at the special meeting called by the board to discuss RDA funding. The City Council contends a rebate from the redevelopment agency to the district could be used by the district, but if tax revenues went directly to the district without passing through the RDA, that money would end up going to the state's Uniform School Fund for distribution to poorer school districts. "This is the first time we've heard of this proposal (of a rebate from the RDA)," said school board member Rand Clark. City Manager Arlene Loble said she had made the proposal to Supt. Richard Goodworth in memos dating back two years. "This is the first time I've gotten a true perception of the proposal," Goodworth said. The meeting at Marsac School was called as an "information-gathering session for the public interest" on two issues annexation of the high school-middle school-middle school complex to the city, and the RDA tax increment funding system. Last month the Board of Education filed a suit against the city attacking the validity of its Redevelopment Agency on grounds the agency illegally diverts school board funds. The suit further claimed the inclusion of Deer Valley in the RDA area is illegal because the resort is not blighted blight-ed or in need of redevelopment. CouncUwoman Helen Alvarez, who came armed with reams of information infor-mation on both school district and RDA budgets and funding procedures, asked the board to explain its version of the RDA's impact on the school districts' finances. What followed was an hour-long presentation by Goodworth of the district's complicated budgeting procedures. The result Goodworth said, is that the district will lose some $336,000 in revenues to the RDA in fiscal year 1982-83 resulting in an 8-mill increase in the levy to taxpayers. Loble then presented the city's theory that the RDA actually will end up increasing the district's revenues. Local school districts must assess the state mandated 23.25 mills to finance the basic education program in the schools, she said. School districts with a poor tax base are carried by districts with a rich tax base through the state's Uniform School Fund. In 1980, Park City income tax payers contributed con-tributed some $1.3 million to the Uniform School Fund 81 percent of all income taxes collected within Summit County. The RDA is financed on a tax increment in-crement system. The tax base is frozen at the time the redevelopment area is formed, and revenues off any increase in valuation thereafter go directly to the RDA. Last year, Loble said, the RDA offered of-fered to rebate to the school district some $374,000 to go toward its capital improvement and debt retirement fund. To do this, the RDA would collect revenues off the total $18.5 million assessed valuation of the RDA area. The alternate proposal by the city was for the RDA to collect revenues from only $14.4 million of the assessed valuation of the redevelopment area Revenues totaling some $374,000 off the F il I P7U1 i ' ,,..-...1 . s (WW' remaining $4.1 then could go directly to the school district. The district chose to go the latter route, Loble said. That plan not only resulted in less tax revenue to the district but also meant less in state aid. The district would have been some $291,000 richer had it accepted the rebate offer, Loble contended. With the RDA taking tax increments from its full valuation and rebating the $374,000 to the school district, the district's income would total $4,097,000, including property taxes, state aid and income from the sale of Marsac School to the RDA, Loble argued. When the RDA, at the suggestion of the school district, took its tax increment in-crement from the reduced $14.4 million valuation, the district's income totaled $3.8 million because of reduced state aid and no rebate from the RDA. Without the RDA altogether, the district's income would be some $3.46 million because of no rebate, no income in-come from the Marsac School and payments of some $67,000 to the Uniform School Fund, she said. For fiscal year 1983-84, the school district would end up paying some $390,000 to the Uniform School Fund to support other districts. With the RDA, payments to the state fund would total only $74,300. In the meantime, the RDA will make a rebate to the district to its capital outlay and debt retirement fund. "Isn't it better to keep that money in the district where it can be used locally rather than giving it away to other districts?" asked Ms. Alvarez. McComb had said in opening the meeting that the school board is not against RDA per se, but is concerned about the city's accountability to the taxpayers on RDA matters. "We feel we don't understand the scope of redevelopment projects and there is no representation on the RDA board," she said. Goodworth suggested the two entities en-tities recess "to allow us to consider what you have so eloquently told us. We will look to see if the proposal would work." Councilwoman Tina Lewis, joined by Alvarez, said the school district has the choice of keeping the money for local improvements or sending it to other school districts via the Uniform School Fund. The other issue during Tuesday's four-hour session centered on the school district's request for annexation of the high school-middle school complex com-plex to Park City. The city is asking the district to grant it a 3'2-acre easement of district property, free of charge, for a road to connect Park Meadows and U248. The district is opposing op-posing that move on the grounds the city should pay for the land. Alvarez, noting that the city has allowed the schools to hook up to its water system and is being charged at a reduced rate said, "We have given freely of our assets. You take them and refuse to give anything in return." McComb countered that the quality of the schools in Park City contributes to the quality of life and that the first thing people do when seeking information infor-mation about the area is to ask about the schools. Alvarez said, "You are asking for annexation, and it is our policy that Park City taxpayers should not have to pay for condemnation of land for the road." School board member Rand Clark suggested that the district enter a restriction into the deed on the land limiting its development to school use only so the city could condemn the property cheaply, at a later date. "That is no compromise," Alvarez said. "Our taxpayers have given and givn and get nothing back." Thursday, October 7, 1982 Kimball Junction residents lament shooting of moose By Morgan Queal Residents of the Kimball Junction area are irate over the poaching last weekend of a bull moose the first to take up residence in the area for many years. Frank Rino, manager of the 5,000-acre 5,000-acre Hi-Ute Ranch, said there's been a cow residing on the ranch property the last six years, and just six to nine months ago, the bull showed up. "Everybody was excited about it," Rino said. The bull was not shy, and was spotted frequently by nearby residents as he grazed in the meadows with the horses. Last Friday, hunters ignored no trespassing-no hunting signs, invaded the ranch's property and shot the moose. They quartered it and hung it from a tree, where Rino found it Saturday as he was out driving on a ranch road. "It's really sad," Rino said. This was like his sanctuary. There's no excuse for it this area is all postud. And they shot it from just 50 or 60 yards they couldn't have mistaken it for an elk." Rino said he believed the hunters had planned to come back for the meat, from the way the animal was quartered and hung. But Rino calied the poacher hot line in Salt Lake, and wildlife officials came and took rhe remains on Saturday. Terry Parkin of Kamas, conser.a- Transportation director named City Manager Arlene Loble announced an-nounced last week that W. Paul Sill had been chosen as Park City's new transportation director. Sill, 57, is currently being employed by the Knoxville (Tenn.) Transit Authority to run the transportation system at the Knoxville World's Fair. Loble said he was due to start work in Park City Oct. 25. Sill fills the vacancy left by the departure of Jan Sylvester last February. Sylvester was fired after refusing to resign, and her dismissal t tion officer for the state Division of Wildlife Resources investigating the case, said there already is a suspect. A Salt Lake City man "almost turned himself in," Parkin said, and apparently ap-parently one or two others are involved. "We can't determine what the circumstances are until we interview the gentlemen," Parkin said. The penalty for poaching a moose is a $1,000 fine, six months in jail, confiscation of hunting equipment involved in this case, a rifle and a five-year revocation of the hunting license. In first offenses, Parkin said, the jail sentence usually is suspended in lieu of two years' probation. In the meantime, the moose carcass was being processed for sale at auction, he said. The moose was about 2'2 years old and weighed 800 pounds not large for a moose. He had four points on his rack. Moose have been ranging for many years on the north slope of the Uintas, having migrated down from Wyoming, Parkins said. They began showing up in the Heber Valley and Ogden River drainage several years ago, and just recently, in the Kimball Junction and Lamb's Canyon vicinity. Larkin said about 50 permits for moose kills are issued each season in the state. The moose-hunting season was over at the end of September. The State Division of Wildlife Resources, which is under the Department Depart-ment of Natural Resources and was later upheld by a local appeals board following a 71 2-hour hearing March 30. Sill has been employed by a number of transportation companies over the past 35 years. Prior to accepting the job in Knoxville, he was manager of the campus bus service at Indiana University in Bloomington. He held, that position for eight years. Loble said the city would try to have some "basic" bus schedules worked out prior to Sill's arrival "We anticipate that there will be a If Park City, Utah Energy, this week issued a warning to hunters to become familiar with the general characteristics of the species deer, elk and moose. A young bull moose won't have the huge palmated antlers of a mature bull. Its rack is smaller and may have several tines but little or no palmation. The division warned that several species of big game animals will be found in the same areas, and that hunters should be sure of their target before shooting. Any witnesses to a game violation may report the incident on the Help Stop Poaching hotline, 1-800-662-3337, or may contact a wildlife law enforcement officer in person or through the Highway Patrol dispatcher. dis-patcher. Rino, however, said he believed the difference between an elk and a moose, at 50 yards, is like the difference between "a Cocker Spaniel and a Great Dane." In the past, he said, ranch officials have merely warned hunters and trespassers that they are trespassing on posted, private property. The ranch is owned by Paul Buehner of Salt Lake City. "We want it to be known that from now on, anyone violating the posted signs will be prosecuted," Rino said. He said he's hoping the bull was around long enough to breed with the cow, so hopefully there will be a new calf in the spring. number of schedule changes during the winter," she said. We already know we need to make a bigger emphasis em-phasis from 3 to 6 p.m. to pick up the skiers." Coinciding with the arrival of the new director will be the arrival of six new transit coaches, ordered by the city in June. Loble said the coaches are scheduled to arrive between Oct. 15 and Thanksgiving. "They are much nicer buses than we've ever had in Park City before," she said. 25 Two Sections, 24 Pages Airport study funded The U.S. Department of Transportation Transpor-tation has announced that a grant for $45,463 has been awarded to fund a feasibility study and master plan for an airport near Park City. According to Dave Gabbert, state engineer with the Federal Aviation Administration Ad-ministration (FAA) Airport District Office in Denver, the funds will go to a local governmental entity which in turn will award a contract for the study. Gabbert said the study will examine suitability of potential sites, whether activity on the area warrants an airport, air-port, and what problems might be encountered en-countered in its construction and operation. If the FAA determines from this data that an airport is feasible, Gabbert Gab-bert said, the project would be "prioritized" with other airport construction con-struction and expansion projects throughout the nation. He estimated that the study could take six to nine months. Some preliminary studies on possible airport sites in the Park City area have already been conducted by the Salt Lake firm of Buell, Winter, Mousel and Associates. Under consideration con-sideration are two sites on the east side of U.S. Highway 40 south of Silver Creek Junction. At last Thursday's meeting of the Park City Council, a motion was approved ap-proved to spend $1,515 as the city's share in the feasibility study. However, Councilwoman Helen Alvarez did express some reservations. reser-vations. "All my friends who fly say it's just ridiculous, that it's just a waste of money," she said. City Councilman Bill Coleman disagreed. "Strictly from a pilot's point of view, it does make sense," he said. Coleman claimed that flight patterns would not bring traffic over the Park City area. Becker seeks zone change The controversial Bruce Decker parcel on Utah Highway 224 will come before the Summit County Planning Commission next Tuesday, taking the next step in Decker's plan to make it a commercial property. In their August 24 meeting, the commissioners voted 4-2 to give Master Plan approval to change the parcel from agricultural to commercial. com-mercial. This Tuesday, the panel will consider a specific zone change to Commernjal-1. The parcel is about 910 of an acre, located across from Old Ranch Road. If the panel approves the zone, the application then goes to a public hearing before the County Commission. Commis-sion. When the property change was considered, con-sidered, opponents told the planning commission it would lead to an influx of commercial along U-224 that would downgrade the area and impede traffic flow. Decker countered that most properties on the highway were large subdivision parcels. The few small-parcel small-parcel owners, he said, needed to go commercial to get a good value on their land. These same issues will probably come up again at the zone meeting, said Assistant County Planner Jerry Smith. If the zone is approved, a Dublin hearing would probably take place. |