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Show Wed/Thurs/Fri, May 17-19, 2017 The Park Record A-16 Meetings and agendas Core Samples By Jay Meehan to publish your public notices and agendas, please email classifieds@parkrecord.com What, me worry? SUMMIT COUNTY COUNCIL AGENDA Wednesday, May 17, 2017 NOTICE is hereby given that the Summit County Council will meet in session Wednesday, May 17, 2017, at the Sheldon Richins Building, 1885 West Ute Blvd, Park City, UT 84098 (All times listed are general in nature, and are subject to change by the Council Chair) 12:30 PM Closed Session – Property acquisition (45 min) 1:15 PM Work Session Interview applicants for the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission (60 min) 2:15 PM – Move into auditorium (10 min) 2:25 PM - Pledge of Allegiance 2:30 PM Work Session, continued Discussion regarding three public lands legislative initiatives; Janna Young and Lisa Yoder (60 min) 3:30 PM - Discussion regarding County Resource Management Plan; Sean Lewis (45 min) 4:15 PM - Discussion regarding workforce housing obligation; Brian Madasci (30 min) 4:45 PM - Discussion regarding CVMA Assessment Area; Dave Thomas and Larry White (30 min) 5:15 PM Consideration of Approval Discussion and possible approval of Proclamation No. 2017-5, a Proclamation Declaring May 21-27, 2017, “Public Works Week”; Derrick Radke Discussion and possible adoption of Resolution 2017-05, a Resolution of the Summit County Council Adopting the Mountainland Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Plan; Chris Crowley Discussion and possible adoption of Resolution 2017-06, a Resolution Amending the Peace House Transitional Housing Plan, Resolution No. 2014-08; Dave Thomas Council Comments Manager Comments Council Minutes dated May 1, 2017 6:00 PM Public Input One or more members of the County Council may attend by electronic means, including telephonically or by Skype. Such members may fully participate in the proceedings as if physically present. The anchor location for purposes of the electronic meeting is the Sheldon Richins Building auditorium, 1885 W. Ute Blvd., Park City, Utah Individuals with questions, comments, or needing special accommodations pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding this meeting may contact Annette Singleton at (435) 336-3025, (435) 615-3025 or (435) 783-4351 ext. 3025 Posted: May 12, 2017 Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL BOARD MEETING NOTICE Public notice is hereby given that the Administrative Control Board of the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District will hold its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, May 18, 2017, at the time and location specified below. AGENDA - AMENDED DATE: and seal coating selected trails 6:00 PM Public Input 6:10 PM 2016 Annual Financial Report Presented by Greg Ogden, CPA 6:35 PM Review of 1st Quarter 2017 Financial Report 6:40 PM Questions on Department Updates Thursday, May 18, 2017 LOCATION: Trailside Park, 5715 Trailside Drive, Park City, UT 84098 5:30 PM Consent Agenda Request to approve minutes from 4/20/17 Request to approve the prior month’s expenditures Request to approve changes to aquatics job descriptions Request to approve merit increase for District Director Request to approve the purchase of grooming equipment for Trails department Request to approve the 2017 contract for crack sealing 6:55 PM Updates from District Committees 7:10 PM Director Comments 7:25 PM Board Member Questions/Comments 7:40 PM Adjourn 5715 Trailside Drive l Park City, Utah 84098 Phone: (435) 649-1564 Fax: (435) 649-1567 www.basinrecreation.org A quick look at Utah news Tourist numbers increase, Stewart holds town hall Associated Press Governor makes appointments to transportation commission PROVO, Utah — A former Utah commissioner has been recommended to serve as a chair on the Utah Transportation Commission. The Daily Herald reported on Saturday that Gov. Gary Herbert has appointed former Utah County Commissioner Larry Ellertson. His appointment is now waiting on Senate confirmation. Ellertson will be replacing J. Kent Millington, who has been in the position since early 2016. Herbert has also appointed Southern Utah University administrator Donna Law to the commission. Utah university accused of owing money to research institute SALT LAKE CITY — The founder of a cancer research institute blames University of Utah leadership for a recent dispute. The Huntsman family and the university have disputed over how much money the university should be putting toward the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Jon Huntsman Sr. placed ads in Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune on Friday which states the university owes $54 million based on a memorandum of understanding signed in 2014. The parties have a 2014 agreement that outlines that the university must pay a 50 percent share of the Huntsman Cancer Hospital’s margins. The university is also responsible for covering the institute’s operating expenses, the ad said. The university is looking to hire an independent auditor to sort out the parties’ financial relationship. Utah leaders give up on plans to pave trail at regional park SANDY, Utah — Officials say they are giving up on their controversial plans for a paved trail at Dimple Dell Regional Park in northern Utah. Salt Lake County and Sandy officials made the announcement on Friday following push back from a grass-roots group made up of equestrians and park lovers. Officials say they will put the $4 million meant for the project toward other improvements in the park. County Mayor Ben McAdams says he will assemble a team of residents, park users and elected officials to study how to spend the money. The Dimple Dell Preservation Community group collected 6,000 signatures in a petition against the proposed trail. They feared the changes would bring in bikers and other users which make horseback riding in the area difficult. Improvements are expected to come as early as 2018. Rep. Chris Stewart received warmly at town hall RICHFIELD, Utah — Republican Rep. Chris Stewart was interrupted many times at his town hall in central Utah Friday night, but this time by cheers and applause from supporters. The event in Richfield drew a friendly crowd of an estimated 300 people, with just a handful of detractors, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. “This is where I feel most comfortable,” said Stewart, wearing his signature cowboy boots like many attendees. He spoke about his recent vote to repeal and replace Obamacare before taking questions on whether he could defend Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey as the bureau investigates Russia’s role in the 2016 election, as well as possible ties between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Comey “lost the confidence of people on both sides of the aisle,” Stewart said, reiterating that there is “no evidence” to show connection between Trump’s campaign and foreign interests, the newspaper reported. Stewart held a town hall in March in heavily Democratic Salt Lake City, where attendees booed him for GOP positions on health care and called on him to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia. The Friday night event at a high school in Sevier County’s Richfield is friendlier territory for the congressman about 165 miles south of Salt Lake City. Stewart won 85 percent of the vote in Sevier County in November. Utah sees tourist increase and a record $8.2 billion SALT LAKE CITY — A new University of Utah analysis shows tourists spent a record $8.2 billion in Utah in 2015 and generated another $1.15 billion in local tax revenue. Travel to Utah is growing at historic levels, and state tourism officials have said that’s expected to continue, the Deseret News reported. The report by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah tracked a 12 percent growth from 2011 to 2015. According to the report, the wave of tourism has created about 142,500 jobs. The number of travelers visiting has also seen a steady growth, according the report. Lower gas prices and a strong economy may have brought in the foreign and domestic visitors to Utah, institute Research Analyst Jennifer Leaver said. “Millennials as a generational group prefer to have experiences, so they are very attracted to our outdoor recreation with opportunities such as hiking, backpacking, rock climbing and skiing,” she said. “(Also) our ‘Mighty 5’ campaign that highlighted our national parks has seemed to really attract a wide variety of international and domestic visitors.” Utah National Parks have seen a 16 percent increase in visits, Leaver said. While the news is good, institute officials are concerned about the impact the growing tourism has on rural towns. The increased amount of visitors has put strains on local infrastructure and park amenities that need to be addressed soon, Utah Office of Tourism Managing Director Vicki Varela said. The state has partnered with U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart to seek federal funding for Utah national parks. The hope is to find technology that will reduce wait times, improve efficiency and enhance the visitor experience, Varela said. I knew better than to put away my mud boots and Sorrels. This is Utah and all remains in flux. Except, of course, the political climate. Anyway, in these humble digs, foul weather footwear enjoys a long-term lease agreement. Their sleep-whereverthey-fall attitude is part of the feng shui. I broke the impending weather-shift news to the horses about mid-day Monday while out checking water troughs and the continually morphing horse’s head profile on East Peak of Timpanogos. They took it well. The horses, that is. The corrals are not close enough to the profile to properly judge its reaction but you can bet the barn that it rolled its eyes. As you can imagine, the snowfields up on Timp don’t suffer fools gladly, and I seem to be their poster child. From both above and below, they have teased me with catastrophe. They seem to enjoy it. You might say their collective smirk is frozen in place. In a way, the profile is like an Etch-O-Sketch. Each snow event erases whatever erosion data had been imprinted previously. You’ll have that! Refreshing, you might call it. Climate can be holy that way! No doubt the profile will reemerge on the mountain and in this space, but later in the process. Especially once it reaches the skeletal stage I refer to as its Rocinante phase. Rocinante is Don Quixote’s nag, the one upon which our fictional knight tilts at windmills in the classic two-part novel by Cervantes from the early 1600s. While not exactly the Banana Belt, Heber does flaunt a proclivity to rain when a dump is forecast. Being a mischievous sort, it also loves to give you 5 to 10 inches when only a skiff is called for. Way more often than not, I enjoy this schizophrenia. That is not to say, however, that I couldn’t live in shorts, sandals and tee-shirt year-round. Although I just affirmed my allegiance to both ends of the dichotomy-in-question, it should be admitted forthwith that, if only for its relative lack of mud, the white stuff earns the nod. I became somewhat hypnotized as they continued to fall and I continued my uphill mosey.” If you wished to add BBsized hail to the mix, however, that has proven to be my very favorite manner in which nature packages moisture. It was during an annual trek into the Grandaddy Basin of the High Uintas Wilderness that preceded one of those Holy-Cow-ErnieScow-Powwows up at Defa’s Dude Ranch that I first became smitten. As the temperature dropped on the hike back to the trailhead the soft rain turned into a quite mellow hail shower. They were so cute, those little round white pellets. As they piled up on various surfaces of my outer rain shell, it was as if they were preening and flirting with me. I became somewhat hypnotized as they continued to fall and I continued my uphill mosey. The fact that I had become pretty much covered in white and remained totally dry hadn’t been lost on even one as lost-in-the-ozone as I. A quiet, somewhat-musical muttering entered my audio cone. ‘Twas I, as it turned out. Ozone will do that to you. But I digress, therefore I am. Ozone will also do that to you. Not that I’m sitting here at the keyboard awaiting a great notion of any stripe to prompt the fingertips to action. My muse always has this orange aura in the bullpen to which I can call upon when I find myself slipping behind in the count. It might be too late. I think I’ve walked the bases loaded. Times like these, when I’m both running on empty and running scared, it’s not as easy as it should be to keep my eye on the ball. It was different back then in Grandaddy. I always treated those treks as dance, both ecstatic and rapturous. If the truth be known, we, as humans, were edging toward the cliff back then also but we had convinced ourselves we had time enough to reverse the trend. Now, with Trump and the Republicans dug in firmly with climate denial, the reality of impending free-fall becomes all the more obvious. As they say, “Ignorance is bliss.” What, me worry? We must keep the faith, however. The need to wander our red rock Edens and keep the pressure on congress to protect Bears Ears feels even more pronounced today. One thing is for sure. Reopening fossil fuel extraction leases certainly isn’t the way to reduce current CO2 levels to below 350 parts per million, the level where civilization developed and life as we know it adapted. Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and has been an observer, participant and chronicler of the Park City and Wasatch County social and political scenes for more than 40 years. Red Card Roberts By Amy Roberts The buzz about bees Several years ago I was dating a guy who was at my house one evening when his mother called. He had mentioned during the call he was with me, and his mom, whom I had not met yet, asked him, “What’s Amy like?” He paused for a moment and looked at me as if to consider how to sum me up in a brief conversation nearing the end. “Well,” he said after a bit. “She’s kind of crunchy.” They hung up and, having never before been described as a type of mid-morning snack, I immediately wanted answers. “What do you mean, I’m crunchy?” He rattled off a number of my habits to prove his point: “You walk to work. You only buy fair-trade coffee. You like that vegan bakery, and you still own Birkenstocks,” he explained. “Yes, but crunchy? That makes it sound like I don’t shave my legs or wear deodorant. Your mom probably thinks I make my own toilet paper out of leaves,” I replied. While I wasn’t particularly fond of the adjective he used to describe me back then, over time it grew on me. So this weekend, when a friend visiting from out of town referred to me as crunchy, I chuckled. We were chatting on my porch when my neighbor popped over and nonchalantly asked me if I’d recently ordered a bee hive. I was confused because I hadn’t. He pointed to my tree, where two football-sized swarms of bees had set up camp. Instead of believing that I hadn’t actually taken up beekeeping, my friend said, “Are you sure you didn’t order a hive? It sounds like something you might do. You are kind of crunchy you know.” Crunchy as I might be, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do about these swarms, which I later learned contained about 20,000 bees. I was aware of the plight of honeybees long before Cheerios started putting flower seeds in cereal boxes. I know bees equal food, and they’re declining at an alarming rate. But I was also conscious of my lack of an Epipen. And, at the end of the day, there’s only room for one queen at my house. The bees needed to find a new home quickly. So I asked around and got in touch with a bee keeper. He buzzed right over. Crunchy as I might be, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do about these swarms, which I later learned contained about 20,000 bees.” Within minutes of arriving, he skillfully removed the swarms and gave me quite a Bplus education. I learned that in this year alone, nearly 50 percent of honeybee colonies have collapsed. Changing climate patterns, herbicides and pesticides, and genetic modification of crops are mostly to blame for the rapid decline of bee populations. “Bees pollinate one out of every three bites of food you eat,” the bee keeper told me through his Breaking Bad looking safety suit. “It’s imperative we save them. There’s nothing else that can pollinate food on a commercial scale. Bees are the key that starts the agriculture engine.” He went on to explain all the components of that engine — which is far more than just flowers or fruits and vegetables. Bees pollinate herbs for seasoning, nuts, cotton for our clothing and coffee. They also pollinate clover and alfalfa, which is the main feed for the cattle industry. Without food for cows, dairy and beef products decline. If you can’t bring yourself to care about bees, at least think of the ice cream. Of course, there’s honey to consider, and beeswax, which is used in cosmetics. “Even if you can live without ice cream or lipstick, you can’t live without food. Which means, we can’t live without bees,” the bee catcher told me. So while I’m happy my temporary swarm has been safely relocated, the crunchy in me needed to find out what else I should be doing to save the bees. The expert consensus seems to be: • Eat organic produce as much as possible. • Don’t use pesticides or chemicals on your lawn. • Leave the weeds. Clover and dandelions are like dessert for bees. • Plant bee-friendly flowers. • Buy raw, local honey to support local bee keepers. • Bees aren’t just busy, they’re thirsty too. Leave some water out for them. Above all else, remember bees are vital to the ecosystem. A future without them really stings. Amy Roberts is a freelance writer, longtime Park City resident and the proud owner of two rescued Dalmatians, Stanley and Willis. The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer. Follow her on Twitter @amycroberts. |