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Show Babies, like snowstorms, can come when they're least expected For most local residents, Tuesday Tues-day will get a red mark on the calendar as the day of the first big storm of the ski season. But Linda and Dennis Redding have another reason to remember Tuesday: as the day when Linda gave birth to a 6-pound, 15-ounce baby girl en route to Holy Cross Hospital. As Dennis tells the story, Linda felt the first labor pains about 4 a.m. Tuesday. Since she had been in labor with her first child for about 16 hours, they weren't terribly concerned, "I told her to turn over and go back to sleep," Dennis recalled. "She would need her rest." At 8 a.m., still not overly anxious, they phoned Dr. Bob Evers. The doctor and his wife had already made plans to drop off their son at a babysitter nearby, and agreed to stop in to check Linda's Lin-da's progress. It didn't take Evers long to realize that the baby was on its way. "He said we'd better call the ambulance," Dennis said. With a foot of snow still on the roads in Highland Estates, the emergency medical technicians (EMTs) had a battle reaching the Redding residence. One, driving his own vehicle, slid off the road into an embankment. "The roads were horrible, because be-cause they hadn't been plowed," Dennis said. Finally, Linda was loaded into the ambulance by Evers and EMTs Suzanne Shellenberger, Jim White and Mike Karnas. and the crew took off for Salt Lake City, lights flashing, with Dennis in pursuit in his own vehicle. "Before they left the house, one of the ambulance crew told me that if anything imminent happened, they would turn on the siren." With traffic on Interstate 80 restricted to one lane, the trip to Salt Lake City took over an hour. Dennis said that, on the downhill side of the summit, motorists paid little attention to the flashing lights. "Everyone and his neighbor was passing." Slush thrown up by passing vehicles repeatedly splashed on the ambulance vpHshield, forcing it to slow dow n. Then, as they turned off the Interstate onto Foothill Boulevard. the ambulance siren went off. The baby could wait no longer. Dennis reported that, other than the unusual surroundings, there were no complications. At this writing, mother and baby, Tara Lynn, are doing well at Holy Cross Hospital If Dennis seemed unruffled by the whole affair, it may have been because he and Linda are probably better equipped than most to handle such medical emergencies. He is a respiratory technician and she is a registered nurse. Both work at the Veterans' Administration Administra-tion hospital in Salt Lake City. He was asked w hat they planned to list as Tara Lynn's place of birth. "Foothill Boulevard," he laughed. igJ m 4J mmmm TTTvrnrF BjSfp- ViNJ -l J DO .x.--' ' f4 t MV 1 25 Thursday, December 2, 1982 Two Sections, 24 Pages Belbaitfe looms on beer tax by David Hampshire Park City bars aren't usually regarded regard-ed as a hotbed of political activity. But one issue seems to have united the patrons of local drinking establishments establish-ments in a common outcry against City Hall. Beer. They're talking about putting a tax on beer. "They" are the members of the Park City Council, and the beer tax issue will be discussed in a public hearing Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Memorial Building. The meeting promises to be one of the liveliest since the city employees em-ployees went on strike more than a year ago. Petitions protesting the proposal have been circulating in the bars, along with other literature warning of the potential impact of the tax. The proposal has been discussed in numerous gatherings, including a Tuesday meeting of the board of direc tors of the Park City Chamber Bureau. Speaking for the proponents of the tax were Park City Mayor Jack Green and City Manager Arlene Loble, who emphasized the need to find alternative alter-native revenue sources for the city. "The state legislature controls all of our revenue sources, and decides what we can raise, and how much," Loble pointed out. She noted that legislation has been introduced that threatens the ability of local governments to collect business license fees, franchise taxes and transient tran-sient room taxes. Green reminded the board members that Park City for years has been fighting an effort to have local option sales tax redistributed according to population instead of point of sale, a move which could cost Park City more than $600,000 a year. The right to tax beer, according to Loble, was granted to the cities shortly after prohibition. "It's one of the few that the state legislature has not already pre-empted," she said. However, she reminded the board that the legislature was considering a bill that would give the state the prerogative to do just that : tax beer. "The state legislature is not made up of people that have Park City's interests in-terests at heart," she said. "And I don't trust them." Loble argued that the revenue would be needed to help provide the type of services that visitors to Park City had come to expect. "As long as we're going to provide services for tourists, let's find revenue sources that make them pay for them." Green pointed out that there are-50 beer outlets in the Park City limits, and argued that the sale of alcoholic Fire damages condos "People just don't understand what it takes. Friday night people were standing out in the street heckling us. They thought we were going to lose another building. " by Jeff Howrey A major fire gutted most of the interior of an eight-plex at the Red Pine condos Friday, Nov. 26. The first alarm sounded at the fire station shortly before 10 p.m. It was nearly three hours later before the 27 firemen who responded had the blaze under control. Damage, which was mostly confined to the interior, was estimated at $300,000. Although fire officials have yet to announce the cause of the fire pending completion of their investigation, investiga-tion, they apparently have ruled out the possibility of arson. The fire started inside a wall in apartment number two of Building S in the Red Pine development near Park West. When firemen first responded to the alarm, they suspected only minor problems because there was little smoke or flame evident. "When we first showed up, it didn't look too bad," said fireman Jim White. "We quickly discovered that the wall where the fire was centered was very hot on the outside, though, and upon cutting it open we learned that by then the fire had actually already spread from the top to the bottom of the wall, which is common to all eight units within the building and runs three stories high. In other words, by the time we started fighting the fire, the central infrastructure of the building was already seriously involved. "Because the fire was inside a wall, it was very difficult to fight," White continued. "Additionally, it was very hot and quick burning. There was a lot of heavy smoke and most of the fire fighters had to rely on air packs while battling the blaze." Worried about the accumulation of dangerous gases within the building, a crew was immediately dispatched to the roof to ventilate the structure by opening a large hole. As soon as the opening was made, flames shot out as the firemen attempted to direct the fire's movement vertically, hoping to prevent its spread to other walls in the interior of the building. "The ventilating moved the heat up instead of spreading it through the building," said White. "We wanted to prevent gases from building up inside which might have led to the complete destruction of the building." In White's estimation, the building can now be salvaged. "There was extensive damage to the interior. They'll have to gut out about two-thirds of it and do the plumbing and sheetrocking over. But the structure itself is still intact and in decent shape except for a couple of holes we had to put through the roof." White credits the persistence and bravery of the firefighters as the main reason the building is still standing today. "Had it not been for the extra efforts of the firefighters," said White, "the building would have been nothing more than a pile of ashes. But they kept going back inside, risking their rear ends. When we had our guys up on the roof, there was a very real possibility it was going to cave in. "We're getting better at fighting fires," White said of the volunteer Park City force. "People just don't understand what it takes. Friday night people were standing out in the street heckling us. They thought we were going to lose another building. "Those people had no idea what was going on inside. There were four crew s of firefighters in there with air packs on, putting their lives on the line, while the 'experts' out on the sidewalk were giving us advice. We've had this happen at just about every fire," White concluded. No fireman was injured Friday night. Although the fire was largely under control by midnight, some men stayed on the scene until morning beverages is one of the main reasons Park City requires such a large police force." "We have the highest per capita number of police," he said, "probably six times the state average." According to Loble, the revenue from a beer tax could be designated specifically for police protection. The proposed ordinance calls for the city to levy a tax of three tenths of a cent per ounce of 3.2 percent beer sold within the city limits. Loble estimates that this would generate between $125,000 and $150,000 annually, "based on the best estimate the chief of police can get." Leading the opposition to the proposal was Mark Stedman, manager of Sneakers at the Park City Racquet Club. Stedman warned that raising the price of 3.2 beer by imposing a tax would encourage many drinkers to switch to mixed drinks and to other forms of beer not covered by the ordinance. or-dinance. "What does that do to the tax we've hoping to collect?" he asked. Stedman wondered whether the amount collected would be worth the dissention caused by the tax. Cindy David, who has an interest in The Club and The Alamo on Main Street, questioned Loble's contention that the beer tax would have a greater impact on tourists than locals. She produced figures to show that consumption consump-tion of beer was actually higher in the second quarter of 1982 than it was in the first. "We are selling a whole lot of beer when the tourists aren't here," she said. Mark Stemler, who owns an interest in several Main Street drinking establishments, argued that the beer tax ordinance was being pushed too fast. "I don't know why it came up so suddenly," he said. This is a dramatic decision they're going to have to make here." Stemler told the board that the tax would increase the wholesale cost of a keg of beer by about 25 percent, and that this percentage increase would be passed on to the customer. "Draft beer is definitely our highest profit margin," he told the board. "It's a very important thing in the bar business." After listening to both sides of the argument, the members of the board voted 7-3 with one abstention to support sup-port the beer tax proposal. "I think they were trying to do what was best for the town as a whole and the organization as a whole," Debby Symonds, executive director of the ChamberBureau said later. "This would be one tax that would tax not just the locals, but also the tourists." 4 i A 4 t -if f .4 " Teresa and Crissie Winn turn the China Steps into the China Slide. photo by Jill Snyder It had to snow. The City Council said so. On Tuesday, less than two weeks after af-ter the City Council passed an amended amend-ed ordinance requiring it to snow, the city was hit with its first big dump of the ski season. Between 5 p.m. Monday and 5 p.m. Tuesday, 17 inches of the stuff dropped on the Old Town area, with more predicted for Wednesday. At the Park City Ski Area Summit House, 22 inches fell between 6 a.m. Tuesday and 6a.m. Wednesday. The snow caused the usual traffic-snarls traffic-snarls and fender benders. Traffic on Interstate 80 was reduced to one lane for much of Tuesday. Cars caught unprepared un-prepared for winter slithered sideways along Main Street, bald tires whining on the slippery surface. City snow removal crews were on the streets shortly after midnight Tuesday, working 12-hour shifts in a seemingly endless struggle against the snow. "It's been pretty tough keeping up with the storm," a tired Hot) Johnston acknowledged Wednesday afternoon. Johnston, who works as the city's parks superintendent when there are any parks to tend, was out plowing snow from 6:30 a.m. Tuesday to 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. After a short nap, he was back at work by 7 a.m. "That's pretty typical for just alxiut everybody over here," he said. Because of the limited manpower and equipment, crews focused their efforts ef-forts on the main thoroughfares Tuesday. Some of the side streets were now plowed until Wednesday. "Hopefully, by four or five o'clock we should have everything cleared," Johnston said. Once the streets are passable, Johnson John-son said crews would start clearing some of the city-owned steps in Old Town. Then would come the job of trucking away the mounds of snow. "There's never a dull moment around here," he said. At the Park City Ski Area, the total snow depth at the Summit House had risen to 52 inches by 4 p m. Wed nesday. "Starting tomorrow (Thursday), we will have a total of eight lifts and the gondola open," Ski Area spokesman Paeky Ijongfellow said Wednesday. Ik-said Ik-said that 53 out of a possible 69 runs would be open. The only lifts not in operation Thursday would tx Payday, Victoria Station and Jupiter. "We intend to have those in operation by Saturday, so we will be 100 percent open," he said. Colo, man charged with Deer Valley Haiimdl scam by Jeff Howrey A Colorado man was charged last week with bilking investors out of nearly $1 million dollars in a phony land deal involving real estate at Deer Valley. Phillip Neeves, a well-known real estate broker in the Colorado Springs area, was charged with 60 counts of theft, fraud and forgery. The charges were the result of an extensive investigation by the Economic Crimes Division of the El Paso County district attorney's office. Attorney David Zook, who oversaw the inquiry, told the Park City Newspaper, "Our complaint alleges that Neeves solicited investments to be used to develop a real estate project in an area of Deer Valley known as the Enclave in the Silver Lake area, roughly northeast of the Little Belle parcel and west of the Silver Bird parcel. "Neeves solicited investments from about 30 or 40 individuals, mostly from the Colorado Springs area but also from Iowa. Florida, New Jersey and Minnesota," said Zook, who noted that no L'tahns were involved in the land scam. Most of those who put monev in were friends or aquamtances .jt Neeves. "We have alleged in our indictment that Neeves never owned the land he was trying to sell, nor did he have any intentions of going through with the deal he was offering investors. At this point, we don't know where the money actually went," said Zook who added that their investigation is still ongoing and that it was possible further charges might be filed against Neeves later. Zook said his office was tipped off about the scam by some of Neeves' victims. In early August, one such investor flew to Park City and discovered that Neeves had no legitimate connection with the Deer Valley development, Many of the investors were apparently ap-parently lured into the sight unseen land deal because of Neeves' good reputation in the Colorado Springs area. At the time Neeves was soliciting funds for the phony options, he was also a licensed real estate broker working for the firm of Apollo West, Inc He is no longer employed there One woman who put money in, and now wishes to remain anonymous, told the Denver Post last week that she had invested tens of thousands after Neeves showed her a letter of credit for $roo,000 from the First National Bank of Colorado Springs. The letter, on the bank's stationary, was signed by a vice chairman named John Carter. According to the Post, a senior officer at the bank claimed this week that they had no know ledge or record of any such letter being issued to Neeves and that the bank's administration adminis-tration does not include an office of vice chairman. Gordon Culver, the bank's senior vice president, did admit that a John Carter was employed at First National, but said that Carter worked in the commercial credit department and had had no dealings of any sort with Neeves. Neeves' attorney, Richard Tegt-meier Tegt-meier of Colorado Springs, told the Park City Newspaper that his client was being completely cooperative with the authorities. The warrant was issued Wednesday, Nov. 24. Although the district attorney's office spent several hours locating Neeves, he was allowed to remain free on his own recognizance over the long Thanksgiving Thanksgiv-ing weekend. Bond was initially set at $.",0,000, but was lowered to $20.0oo at a hearing Monday. Nov. 29 Tegtmeier was unwilling to discuss the charges against his client, saying, "We're reviewing the charges and will have no comment until we're done." Tegtmeier was unspecific as to when the review w ill be completed. The case will go to trial no earlier than February 1983. Locally, Deer Valley officials were equally cautious Kxecutive Vice President John Miiller had little to suy beyond a firm "no comment." addn ; only that, "It's a legal matter. We had some dealings with Neeves but they fell through at a preliminary stage. We were considering constructing a deal with him but never got into any posture that would hurt us. N'o money changed hands." Before his alleged scam fell through Neeves also made preliminary overtures over-tures to Skyline Land Company to act as his local sales agent. Harry Reed, owner of the Park City based firm, recalls, "Phillip Neeves was referred to us by another client and our office dealt with him in similar fashion as we treat any other client. No money was ever received from Neeves by either Skyline or Deer Valley Corporation." No one besides Neeves was named in the criminal charges filed last week. |