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Show Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, May 13-16, 2017 The Park Record A-18 Meetings and agendas More Dogs on Main By Tom Clyde to publish your public notices and agendas, please email classifieds@parkrecord.com Mending fences and (mostly) dodging lightning Summit County Weed Control Board Tuesday, May 23, 2017 1755 South Hoytsville Road Coalville, Utah 84017 7:00 - 9:00 PM Public notice is hereby given that the Summit County Weed Control Board will meet in a special meeting on Tuesday May 23, 2017 7:00 - 9:00 PM at the Summit County Public Works Facility located at 1755 South Hoytsville Road, Coalville, Utah 84017. AGENDA 7:00 p.m. Regular Session Welcome Public comment time Approval of the minutes from March 14 Meeting Enforcement Discussion on Chamomiles, Sulfur cinquefoil, Common Burdock Weed ordinance Review budget 9:00 p.m. Adjourn (All times listed are general in nature, and are subject to change by the Council Chair) Individuals needing special accommodations pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding this meeting may contact Marci Heil, Summit County Public Works Department at (435) 336-3970. Summit County Democrats Central Committee Meeting The Summit County Democratic Party will hold a Central Committee Meeting on Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 6:00pm to select nominee(s) for the position of Summit County At- torney. The meeting will be held at the Park City High School cafeteria, 1750 Kearns Blvd, Park City. Snyderville Basin Planning Commission Notice is hereby given that the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission will meet in SPECIAL session Tuesday, May 16, 2017 Continued review of the proposed amended Canyons Master Plan. – Tiffanie Northrup-Robinson, Senior Planner Location: Sheldon Richins Building (Library), 1885 West Ute Boulevard, Park City, UT 84098 AGENDA Agenda items may or may not be discussed in the order listed. 4:30 p.m. Site Visit-Meet at the Canyons Village Parcel RC 17/18 parking area off High Mountain Road Site visit to the Canyons, discussion of Canyons Master Plan Amendments. Estimated Return-5:30 p.m. Building Regular Session, Richins Public input for items not on the agenda or pending applications. Work Session DRC Updates Commission Comments Director Items Adjourn A majority of Snyderville Basin Planning Commission members may meet socially after the meeting. If so, the location will be announced by the Chair or Vice-Chair. County business will not be conducted. To view staff reports available after Friday, May 12, 2017 please visit: www.summitcounty.org Individuals needing special accommodations pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding this meeting may contact Melissa Hardy, Summit County Community Development Department, at (435) 615-3157. Posted: May 12, 2017 Published: March 13, 2017 - Park Record Workshop aims to help those in need of affordable housing It will offer advice to first-time home buyers By Frances Moody The Park Record Scott Loomis observed a wall-to-wall crowd on Monday in a room at the Park City Board of Realtors’ office. He said some, unable to squish into a space meant to fit 40 people, had to stay in the hallway. All were there to attend a workshop that covered Park City’s affordable housing options. “There’s a lot of people that are interested in homeownership here,” said Loomis, executive director of Mountainlands Community Housing Trust. “There has been no affordable housing here. The biggest benefit they can get right now is to find out if there is anything available.” Loomis gave a presentation on the home-buying process at Monday’s workshop — which was hosted by the Board of Realtors, Mountainlands, Park City Municipal, and Habitat for Humanity of Summit and Wasatch Counties. And he plans to offer the same advice at a second affordable housing workshop, titled Homeownership 101, scheduled from 6-8 p.m. on Monday, May 15, at the Board of Realtors’ office at 1889 Prospector Ave. Loomis expects the event will have a similar turnout, adding space is limited. Those who would like to attend need to RSVP by calling the Board of Realtors at 435-200-6900. “I’ll be talking mostly about deed restrictions and some of the qualifications for affordable housing,” Loomis said. The executive director will also give information on the 30 for-sale townhomes Mountainlands is constructing at the Silver Creek Village this summer. Loomis added representatives from Park City Municipal will be there to discuss what the government calls an aggressive housing plan that involves developing a series of City Hallcontrolled properties along the lower Park Avenue corridor. Habitat for Humanity will also give a presentation, as will the Board of Realtors. “There will be some explanations of some of the terms that are used in affordable housing and housing in general,” Loomis said. “There will also be a presentation by the Board of Realtors on what a Realtor can do to help you.” Other information that will be provided includes credit scores, mortgages and budgeting. “We’re wanting to give advice to people that are interested in homeownership and to share the opportunities that are becoming available,” Loomis said. “We’re kind of educating them on the process of purchasing a home and the ins and outs of what homeownership is all about, and on what it takes to obtain a mortgage and find financing.” Loomis added the four entities teamed up in years past for similar workshops. But available housing has been sparse the last few years, which is why the team hasn’t annually held affordable housing workshops. “Mountainlands did this for a number of years, probably 12 or 13 years, with these groups,” Loomis said. “We haven’t had opportunities for quite a while, primarily because there hasn’t been housing available. “We could have talked about homeownership, but there wasn’t anything for people to purchase, other than an occasional resale. But we all meet on a regular basis and talk on a regular basis, and we thought this would be a good time to get the word out about the opportunities that are coming.” The Homeownership 101 workshop — hosted by Mountainlands Community Housing Trust, Park City Municipal, the Board of Realtors, and Habitat for Humanity of Summit and Wasatch Counties — is scheduled from 6-8 p.m. on Monday, May 15, at the Park City Board of Realtors’ office, located at 1889 Prospector Ave. Space for the workshop is limited. Call 435-200-6900 to RSVP and visit www.parkcityrealtors.com for information. I just finished up a week of mending fences, in the literal sense. This winter was brutal on the fences around the ranch. Trees blew over. Moose and elk walk through the fences like they aren’t even there, snow plows, and just the weight of all that snow pushing on them — the fences were a mess. I had a crew of a couple of my sister’s grandsons and some of their friends. The employment specification is pretty simple. They have to be a lot younger than me. It’s hard work. As we moved around from one field to another, the differences in fencing techniques were obvious. I don’t know who built most of the fences originally. I had a hand in some, my uncle and cousins in others, but the majority of them were put in maybe 80 years ago. Somebody hand dug post holes every 16 feet along both sides of the highway when it was upgraded from a wagon road in the 1930s. The old cedar posts are starting to fail, but you’ve got to respect somebody who took that job on. Most of the land is river cobble rock, which is just miserable stuff to drive a post in. There are patches of ledge-rock where dynamite would be more useful than a shovel. And then there is one stretch where the ground is so soft that the fence sinks out of sight. I’d pulled it up to normal height with the loader on the tractor, and when my nephew released the chain, the fence slowly sank back into the ground. We ended up pushing new wood posts in there with the tractor bucket. The barbed wire is connected to the steel posts with a little clip. It’s a pre-bent piece of wire that hooks over the barbed wire, wraps around the post and can be tightened with a quick bend of a loop on the other end. There is a clear divergence of opinion on how aggressively the clip needs to be bent. Some places, whoever did the fencing bent the clips just until they would hold. Other places, somebody twisted the bejeezus out of the clips, bending the loop until it wrapped around the barbed wire a couple of times. It makes repairing the fence very difficult because you can’t easily take the wire off the post. As you work a long a mile section of fence, you can tell who patched it. The technique shows a difference between the emergency repairs on the fly and deliberate patches, and when it was getting close to quitting time or threatening rain. The most interesting part of the week was getting struck by lightning. That kind of stands out.” If there is a textbook on barbed wire fencing (and there probably is somewhere from the 1870s when it first came into use), I’ve never seen it. It’s one of those arts that get handed down from one generation to another. The fencing on a neighboring ranch could be entirely different. Our former farm hand, Myrle, had a trick for taking up slack in the fence that involved twisting the wire with a claw hammer. I’ve never been able to duplicate it, but came across several his hammer-knots in the fences. There’s a bit of a contest to see who can come up with the best artifact of the year. Sometimes it’s roadside trash, or a scrap of old machinery. One year there was a museum quality moose skeleton in the deep woods. For several years, the most unusual artifact was a hubcap from a Kaiser Manhattan that turned up a half mile from the nearest road, 50 years after the last one rolled off the assembly line. This year, the trophy was a perfectly intact coffee mug from a restaurant named “Phileppe” in Los Angeles. It’s been the “home of the French Dip since 1908.” That mug was a long way from home, with a story to tell. The most interesting part of the week was getting struck by lightning. That kind of stands out. We were installing an end-bumper for the irrigation system. Picture a small-scale football goal post. It was as pleasant a spring day as you could get, aside from hand mixing a yard of concrete. We were almost done when the weather turned. Neither of us saw the flash, but the shock and the thunder were simultaneous. Fortunately, it wasn’t the kind of lightning strike that turns you to smoldering jerky. It was one of those cartoon lightning strikes where your whole body is outlined with a zigzag arc of electricity for what seemed like a very long time. It was enough of a jolt that both of us nearly fell over. My hands tingled for an hour or so after. If it conveyed any super powers, I haven’t discovered them yet. My nephew suddenly has a French accent. Once you’ve been struck by lightning, the rest of the day seems pretty mundane. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. Sunday in the Park By Teri Orr A healthy looking spring There is something about this vibrant spring, in this school year, that feels especially hard won. The fall saw us grieving from the drug deaths of two, young, barely teenage boys and it revealed a community in crisis. There were more than 13 reasons to examine the high rate of suicides and drug deaths in our community. Groups were formed to try to find paths to healing. And conversations, which had been whispers, became focus groups examining the mental health of a small town. We cried often and openly and got to work. City and county resources joined private and public resources to start to find tools to help us all help each other. An election saw new members join the school board and conversations started again to figure out how to handle the enormous growth and failing systems in our district. Our aging buildings and burgeoning needs. For new classrooms, new rehearsal/performance spaces, new technology to keep up with new technology. New spaces to allow strong bodies exercise and competition. The national election also brought out not-so-subterranean racist expressions of hate in our district. Students came to school to find slurs sprayed on buildings and lockers and cars. Kids were chased and cornered and threatened. The ugliest underbelly that affected the very underpinnings of a resort town was exposed. The delicate balance we need to exist and survive and thrive had tipped. And the extremely long, heavy winter of intense snowfall and sunless days seemed to allow a certain level of meanness/dispirited behavior to drip and freeze into pointed criticism. At the city, the county, the school district, each other. The mean spiritedness of national politics, with the social currency of distrust and fear, found its ugly way into Our Town. Then just this week, the sun stayed out for days on end and the flowers waiting to bloom finally did. And the trees greened up and the grass became that luminescent spring color that only lasts for a short time. Groups that had been meeting and struggling all winter started to come up with solutions and plans to make the healing sought in the fall daily pathways for those fighting depression and despair and all forms of mental illness. Graduation notices came in the mail with young men and women we had watched since their childhoods announce their college choices and excitement to catapult into the future. And end of the year awards and honors started leaking out… of scholarships and opportunities for continuing growth for so many graduates. And the extremely long, heavy winter of intense snowfall and sunless days seemed to allow a certain level of meanness/dispirited behavior to drip and freeze into pointed criticism.” This week ,U.S. News and World Report — along with the Washington Post — gave top marks to our school district. Our school district! Out of 22,000 school districts we were ranked in the top 500. And on a sunny morning on the plaza in front of the high school, folks gathered to celebrate the news. Current school board members exchanged greetings with former school board members and the balloons bounced against the pillars. Fresh-faced teenagers stood up and thanked teachers and advisors for helping them receive the Edison award for their innovative work in the innovative CAPS program, where students work in real time with real business leaders to create products and solutions. The superintendent thanked the staff and students and board. And the high school principal thanked the district for listening to administrators and allowing them, years ago, to seek new paths to excellence. City officials and community leaders were on hand to share in the community excitement. I had seen nearly all these same faces at City Park on a crisp fall morning at the outdoor memorial service for one of the young boys who had died from a drug overdose. I knew a lot of their individual stories of pain from many of their lives, because one by one in the past year they had bravely shared their own family journeys of darkness and depression and despair. But on this one day, in the bright morning sunlight, there was a whiff of triumph and a preponderance of hope. And it made the impossibly long hard winter start to finally fully melt. The challenge, of course, is to manage the discourse. To keep us focused on the good that came from such tragedy. To honor the hard work of individuals who valued community health over simple selfpreservation. To remember how quickly we turned on one another when we were scared and confused. And to mark ourselves determined to find myriad occasions to celebrate, not simply grieve. We are still facing real crisis in the district and in the lives of the students and those who educate and care for the students. Finding ways to navigate childhood as it merges into adulthood has never been more fraught with obstacles and distractions. Individual mental health, we have been reminded, is a reflection of community mental health. And for this week we should take the win. And we should still seek out someone who needs our support. Any day, even Sunday in the Park… Teri Orr is a former editor of The Park Record. She is the director of the Park City Institute, which provides programming for the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Center for the Performing Arts. |