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Show e THE PARK RECORD Viewpoints. A-I5 SATSUNMONTUES, MARCH 27-30, 2004 EDITORIAL" New policies needed for rental biz For the most part, the complicated world of property management works well. Visitors get hooked up with accommodations, condo owners own-ers can leave the business end of renting and cleaning clean-ing their units to a more experienced agent and wholesalers can deal with local representatives who are familiar with the area. The system has worked particularly well in Park City, which has become increasingly dependent on the property-manager property-manager link in the tourism-industry chain. That said, the proliferation of property management manage-ment companies and the current lack of regulation in the field make it vulnerable to both intentional and accidental malpractice. The recent demise of a large local property management firm in Park City and the reverberations that followed throughout the community clearly demonstrated how intertwined inter-twined the business has become with other sectors of the local economy. In the wake of High Mountain Properties' abrupt bankruptcy filing - which left visitors who had paid for their vacations in advance out in the cold and left property owners in the lurch without reimbursements for previous rentals - it is extremely important to find out what went wrong, not necessarily to assign blame, but to prevent it from happening again. To the community's credit, other lodging corn-panics corn-panics and the resorts quickly stepped in to honor almost all of the visitors' reservations. But the costs were burdensome in an already fiercely competitive com-petitive market. The High Mountain Properties fiasco highlighted highlight-ed the absence of guidelines governing the use of those advance deposits. In response, several voices in the community have begun calling for some new rules - cither self imposed or enacted by the state. The most drastic of those rules would be hold reservation deposits in escrow until the visitor has come and gone. Though sensible, that may be too drastic a measure mea-sure for small companies struggling to survive in a seasonal economy where preseason deposits are often used to keep a business afloat until Christmas, but barring some form of self-regulation, state legislators may have to step in to protect consumers. Ideally the Park City lodging community will help craft a set of standardized policies governing property management firms' handling of advance deposits. If not. lawmakers need only look as far as Colorado, where deposits are held in mandatory escrow accounts and where nightly rentors enjoy the same protections as long-term lease holders and where property managers are held to the same standards stan-dards expected of those selling real estate. Park City's reputation as a destination resort town as well as a good real estate investment depends on it. I DONT KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT SOMETHING TELLS ME THAT THE ICE FISHING SEASON IS PERT NEAR DONE AND FINISHED! mm LETTER TO THE EDITOR Park City is more than just a resort JOHN KILBOURNP4RK RECORD Editor: There are multiple sides to Park City that should not be pushed under the resort rug. We have a leadership and entrepreneur base that on a per-capita basis could rival any town in America. We also have an entertainment base and creative community that is equally talented. tal-ented. So why is it that we continue to push everything here as tourism, and resort, in orientation? Why does the Chamber of Commerce have such a resort agenda? agen-da? Why do we spend tens of thousands of dollars in fees, such as restaurant taxes, that are 100 percent dedicated to promoting tourism? It should cause us to reevaluate when international marketing mar-keting experts like Simon Anholt have proven time and again that money spent promoting tourism is often wasted and short-term, at best, in its benefit. Has anyone bothered to measure our real return, future cost or even consider our options? There'are other models out there worth considering. Take states like Michigan for instance. Detroit, the location loca-tion known as Motor City, has rethought their dependence upon the auto industry, indus-try, investing their tax dollars instead to drive other sustainable economic engines. Our vision of community seems unnecessarily limited to sending a contingent con-tingent of local leaders to study another mountain town. Don't we understand when you benchmark P.C. with other resort towns you're bound to get yet another resort town? What's so special, let alone authentic or diversified, about that? While we love and respect our resorts for what they provide and where they have brought us, facts are tourism is a quick fix and resorts can only sustain low-paying service jobs. Our own history histo-ry as a former mining community has proven that single-industry towns eventually even-tually die. Aren't we only repeating a painful lesson that history should have taught us long ago? Could it be we're also losing sight of, and are out of touch with, what now makes our town so special spe-cial beyond resorts? And. isn't this honestly hon-estly a more realistic path to sustain our future growth? We have an abundance of everything in Park City, let's hope that leadership continues to be one of them. Greg Eisenbarth Response from the Governor The Honorable L. Alina Mansell President of the Senate The Honorable Martin R. Stephens Speaker of the House Dear President Mansell and Speaker Stephens: Reports have misconstrued my intentions inten-tions regarding the $1.4 million in funding fund-ing appropriated to H.B. 115 Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship. I clearly understand state law requires GUEST EDITORIAL Richard Clarke's inconsistencies By DIANNE WALKER Richard Clarke has certainly stolen the spotlight this week. The trouble is he seems very inconsistent. He insists that the Bush administration was shamefully remiss in not taking strong military action against the Al Qaeda threat to preempt the horror of 911. But at the same time, he criticizes the administration for taking strong military action against the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. This position seems to be very popular this week among Democrats and the media alike -- too bad it makes no sense. Look at the two threats prior to 911: Hussein's resume of terror, his power and his access to huge sums of capital make bin Laden look like a rookie in comparison. Clarke insists that Bush should have anticipated the threat from Al Qaeda and preempted it; but should have ignored Iraq. While I find Clarke's grandstanding distasteful, I think he raises rais-es a very good question. Maybe the most important question of our time: Should the United States use force to pre-empt a perceived threat? Put all your politics aside and think how you would answer this question. If your answer is NO: the U.S. should not attack unless it is attacked, then our government did not fail the victims and victim's families of 911 as Clarke asserts. We should say to them that we are horrified horri-fied by what happened, share their loss, and will never forget. But we will not anticipate and react preemptively to the next attack. We should not have invaded Iraq, because Saddam's myriad crimes did not include an attack on American soil. After all, the threats posed by Saddam came through the same intelligence community com-munity that provided that information to Clinton and Bush about Al Qaeda and, as we have all learned, the intelligence community com-munity can make mistakes. If your answer is YES: the U.S. has an obligation to protect its citizens even if it means launching a pre-emptive attack against a perceived threat, then we did fail those victims of 91 1. The Clinton administration admin-istration has bragged that it thwarted an attack on the eve of 2000 at LAX. Clinton had an entire year left after that to put in place airport security. Clinton was concerned con-cerned with both Al Qaeda and Iraq. He sent scud missile calling cards to Afghanistan, Sudan, and Iraq during his administration. But he should of done more. He should have done the unpopular thing and sent troops to Afghanistan, and Bush should have continued the effort. This would have been a big distraction to Al Qaeda and probably prevented 911. Hie combination of chilling facts that Saddam used chemical WMDs more than anyone since WWI (killing hundreds of thousands), invaded two of his neighbors, repeatedly defied U.N. resolutions intended to contain him, illegally embezzled embez-zled billions of dollars of his country's oil money, and touted his resolve to develop nuclear weapons are enough, by themselves, them-selves, to warrant drastic action. Would Saddam have attacked the U.S. directly? I doubt it. But he would have held the world hostage as he waved his nuclear prowess over the Saudi oil fields. For the peace lovers who cynically claim that the war is all about oil, try to imagine what it would be like with a long-term interruption interrup-tion in the world's oil supply. Not too peaceful, I'm sure. Our preemptive attack on Iraq also served as the incentive for Libya to turn over its nuclear weapons components. Let's face it, we are a world power. It is an election year and the world is watching to see if we are still united in our resolve to protect weaker nations and ourselves. If not us, then who will? We should put aside our differences on domestic and social issues long enough to tell the world that we are still here and will not back down no matter who wins in November. The Park Record welcomes letters to the editor on any subject. We ask that the letters adhere to the followinq quidelines They must include the address and telephone number of author. No letter will be published under an assumed name. They must not contain libelous material. Writers are limited to orje letter every 28 davs. Letters must not be longer than 350 words (guest editorials, 550 words) and should if possible, be typed. We reserve the right to edit letters if they are too long or if they contain statements we consider unnecessarily offensive or obscene. In addition, thank you letters may be limited lim-ited in length with regard to businesses and event sponsors. E-mail your letter to: editorparkrecord.com the Legislature to re-authorize the funding. fund-ing. 1 did not line item veto the funding because I did not want it simply to revert to the General Fund. I am supportive of children in this state. I hope the Legislature will work with the State School Board, the Pingrees. my office, and other interested parties to develop a solution to increase assistance to special needs children in a way that is clearly constitutional and that does not have funding problems. Sincerely, Olene S. Walker (iovcrnor Kudos to Mt. Regional Editor: I read Chris Fox's letter in the March 3 paper. All I can say is Chris is partially partial-ly informed (by the Public Service Commission) and then Chris formed his own opinions. I go to a lot of water-related meetings and have for years. I've lived in Park City since 1976. Chris Fox stated that the Mountain Regional Water Advisory Committee was hand-picked. No, you. Chris, could have been on the committee. It's comprised com-prised of: Van Martin, manager for Summit Water: Bill Coleman, of Prudential Coleman; Michael Barille, planning commissioner; Roger Fulmer; and David H. Smith, concurrency officer, offi-cer, etc. Those are the members, in addition addi-tion to the state water engineer, that I recall. I attended one of their meetings. Chris Fox also spoke of developers paying - not rate payers - for development develop-ment of water wells since concurrency and Eric Schifferli. They do - now! Before concurrency (the reason Mountain Regional now exists) you could buy a home and have no drinking water potable enough and definitely no GUEST EDITORIAL Ifl were the president... By PATRICK LOVELL The times I've been motivated to write an editorial to The Park Record have been when I encounter what 1 consider con-sider misinformation in our community, sometimes propaganda from a point of view that I feel needs to be countered in the public forum in which it was delivered. deliv-ered. The subject matter that stimulates my call to write typically concerns the War in Iraq or the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. It is always my intent to provide a level-headed position that purports common com-mon sense based in a rational, unbiased viewpoint consistent with Americana ideology promoting human dignity, ingenuity inge-nuity and forward thinking. This time, I'm writing, not as a reaction reac-tion to something expressed locally, rather as a result of my utter amazement of the lunacy of this moment in the history his-tory of mankind. This morning I watched, in astonishment, astonish-ment, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Secretary State Colin Powell's testimony to the congressional congres-sional committee hearing on the events leading up to the attacks on Sept. 11. It was truly amazing to hear, directly from Ms. Albright, what I had previously perceived per-ceived to be a fundamental disconnect between the Clinton Administration and the reality of the times. Equally astonishing aston-ishing was Mr. Powell's rigid assessment of Bush's first eight months in office and how policy changes were actually implemented imple-mented on Sept. S. 2001 that supposedly solidified the official Pakistani position. A position that Powell claimed could have had a bearing on the outcome of 911, although, recent events paint another picture in relation to Al-Zavvahiri. Al-Zavvahiri. The questions from the commission asked Ms. Albright to justify the Clinton Administration's lack of resolve in combating com-bating Al Qaeda and its terror network. It was apparent that Ms. Albright still clung to formulaic political correctness that characterized the Clinton Administration and the late '90s. It also painfully exposed how ill-equipped, unprepared, unqualified, and devoid of tangible and meaningful ability Ms. Albright was for her post. Equally tantamount are the vexing questions asked by the committee regarding the Saudi kingdom's role in support of Al Qaeda through harboring and financing. Madeline Albright responded that our relationship with the Saudis is complex. Colin Powell predictably pre-dictably mirrored this position in light of the administration he works for. Equally frustrating is the obvious reality real-ity that in light of the panel's objectives to determine the truth behind what happened, hap-pened, it started to sound like a partisan political debate. If I were the President of the United States of America, this is how I would tackle this depravity. First, I'd articulate to the American people that 91 1 was a wakeup call to put aside the acidic differences between our two political parties that perpetuate American polarization. I would make it my obsession to convince the American public through a campaign that there are nuances of problems that must be prioritized prior-itized and assessed as an undertaking on par with destroying fascism 60 years ago, i.e. destroying Al Qaeda. I would take it upon my shoulders to convince America that double-talking Saudis and corrupt Europeans do not have our best interests inter-ests at heart. I would campaign rigorously rigorous-ly to decapitate corporate corruption and truly punish it. With a clean house, I would then in gtxxl conscience campaign rigorously to our European partners that corruption and balance of power techniques tech-niques will not be tolerated when the French and Germans are guilty of promulgating pro-mulgating the corruption in the United Nations, particularly in regard to the Oil for Food program in Iraq which put over $5 billion dollars into the pockets of Saddam's regime as well as Kofi Anan's son who perpetrated the con. I would rigorously campaign to make an issue of the fact Yasser Arafat's wife walks around Paris on a $1 million per month allowance and ask where the money conies from while average Palestinians starve, thus making it impossible to have moderate Palestinians. I would implement a national effort the likes not seen since our determination to put a man on the moon, to change our national energy policy to suffocate corrupt monarchies and religious oligarchy's who are equipped to finance religious fanaticism, and who do so for their own survival. It would be my position that we'd be cleaning clean-ing up two pollutants at the same time. Simultaneously, I would admit to having hav-ing first-hand knowledge of Israel's objective to assassinate Sheik Ahmed Yassin and support the policy of assassinating assassi-nating those publicly practicing homicidal homici-dal destruction. Israel is a Democracy that advocates human rights and doesn't hide behind its women and children. Hamas is a monstrous fanatical operation opera-tion that murders Israeli women and children and hides behind its own women and children for survival. I would expound to the American public that at one point there were elements of WMDs in Iraq, and with the help of Pakistan most likely wound up in the hands of Al Qaeda which means something some-thing is headed here, probably in the briefcase of someone from Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land, regardless of whether or not Israel leaves the "occupied territories." Finally, I would campaign rigorously to make the American people aware that this will be a costly and difficult war. That the war against terror is as serious a conflict this country has ever faced and if we can remember who we are and where we came from, just as we have done throughout our history from the Revolutionary War, to the war against slavery, to the war against fascism, we have no choice but to defeat this tyranny of evil. lawn water. Mountain Regional Water Company and Jim Carbine are a Godsend. Sincerely, Maureen McAllister Do the Westgate folks ever stop? Editor: I just returned from a great ski week in Park CityThe Canyons. But. I have to make a complaint. Every morning and night while at The Canyons, the Westgate sales people bombarded us. The same thing happened while walking down Main Street. They would ask questions ques-tions like "will you be skiing again tomorrow?" then, if you said yes. go in for the attack. I have never seen this at other U.S. ski resorts and was pretty disappointed to have to deal with this on vacation. This is really a bad image for such a nice town and group of resorts. Just wanted to contact the local paper to make this comment because it takes away from the charm of your home town. Since rely. Amy Givens Miami, Fla. The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER Editor Staff writers Contributing writers Editor's assistant Classified advertising Office manager Circulation manager Accounting manager Advertising director Advertising sales Editorial production Photographers Production director Production Distribution Cartoonist Andy Bernhard Nan Chalat-Noaker Jay Hamburger Pat Parkinson Monika Guendner Jennifer R. Merback Casey Basden Brett Larsen Joe Lair Tom Clyde Teri Orr Jay Meehan Joan Jacobson Silvia Leavitt Linda Gorton Linda Jager Courtney Herzinger Inkarna Black Alice Hummons Patti Christensen Michael Duffy Kate Keesee Valerie Deming Wendy Halliday Anne Anderson Cathy Vandeweghe Christy Wilson Molly Ballard Erin Donnelly Cheryn McNicol Wendy Mair Rena Jensen Teresa Chavez Kat James Scott Sine Grayson West Matt Gordon Kristi Ruppert Scott Schlenker Katie Perhai Jason Plawecki Kyle Burress Shannon Rogers Kaya Darko Carrie Winston Justin Deuel John Kilbourn Contents of the Vie Park Record are copyright 2(X)4. Diversified Suburban Newspapers. All rights reserved No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. Vie Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Diversified Suburban Newspapers, 1670 Bonanza Dr., Park Citv. Utah. Periodicals Postage paid at Park City, Utah. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 77 Park Record Box 3688, Park City. Utah 84(160. Entered as second class matter. May 25, 1977 at the post office in Park City, Utah 84060, under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are $37 inside Summit County, $70 outside Summit County. Utah. Subscriptions are transferrable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone (435) 649-9014 or fax (435) 649-4942. Published every Wednesday and Saturday. J |