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Show A-14 The Park Record Meeting and agendas Wed/Thurs/Fri, January 17-19, 2018 Core saMples By Jay Meehan TO PUBLISH YOUR PUBLIC NOTICES AND AGENDAS, PLEASE EMAIL CLASSIFIEDS@PARKRECORD.COM Jumpin’ at the Woodside AGENDA SUMMIT COUNTY COUNCIL Wednesday, January 17, 2018 NOTICE is hereby given that the Summit County Council will meet in session Wednesday, January 17, 2018, 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) 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM - Council Members to attend the EV Fast Charging Ribbon Cutting Event; Lisa Yoder 12:00 PM – Travel to Public Safety Communications Center (25 min) 12:25 PM – Site visit to Public Safety Communications Center, located at 6300 Justice Center Road, Park City, Utah; Justin Martinez (30 min) 12:55 PM – Travel to Richins Building (25 min) 1:20 PM Closed Session – Property acquisition (30 min); Personnel (1 hour 15 min) 3:05 PM - Move into auditorium (10 min) 3:15 PM Work Session 1) Pledge of Allegiance 2) 3:15 PM - Presentation regarding wattsmart Communities Program offered by Rocky Mountain Power; Chad Ambrose and Clay Monroe (45 min) 3) 4:00 PM - Introduction of Calendar of Events for the issuance of 2018 Transportation Sales Tax Bonds; Matt Leavitt (15 min) 4:15 PM Convene as the Governing Board of the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District 1) Discussion and possible approval of a Trail Easement by and among Utah Athletic Foundation and Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District; Bob Radke (15 min) Dismiss as the Governing Board of the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District 4:30 PM Consideration of Approval 1) Council Comments 2) Manager Comments 3) Consideration and possible approval of Memorandum of Understanding between Summit County and Rocky Mountain Power for participation in the plan development phase of the Wattsmart Communities Program; Lisa Yoder 4) Appoint members to serve on the North Summit Recreation Special Service District 5) 5:00 PM – Discussion and possible approval of appeal of Colby School conditional use permit; Appellants: Joe Wrona, representing Andrew Levy, and Park West Preservation Coalition; Ray Milliner, County Planner (90 min) (break for public input at 6:00 p.m.) 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: January 12, 2018 A new affection for fat bikes EUGENE BUCHANAN Steamboat Today STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — “Hold the pepperoni!” That’s the thought going through my mind as I lay body-pizza’d in the snow next to the boardwalk bridge on Emerald Mountain’s Blair Witch trail. I’m fat biking for the first time, and in a brief moment of spasticness (“Hey, this is the bridge…it’s higher than the rest of the trail”…splat), I’d pitchpoled over into the snow, flat on my back. At least it’s soft. No fearing the ground, stumps, rocks and other obstacles from biffing off your bike in summer. This is pure down comforter. In fact, I might as well do a quick snow angel while I’m down here. I stifle a giggle. Dusting myself off, I grovel back up and onto my steed. Somewhere ahead of me is my friend Butch, who cajoled me into joining him. He had gone out the day before and came back raving. So we met at Orange Peel Bicycle Service at 1 p.m., which rents fatties for just $17 for two hours, got outfitted and headed out. Giggling came with the tires’ first gyration. The oversized, cartoonish tires harken back to your youth, releasing stress and inhibitions just as their valves do in getting the air pressure down to a traction-friendly 5 psi. Their blimpyness had me humming that “Hey, Hey Hey It’s Fat Albert!” song from childhood on the first crank. The giddiness didn’t last long. On hikes, skis and sleds, I’d seen supposed hard guys seemingly laboring up the first steep pitch of Blackmer Road on them. Crawling at a sloth’s pace, it looked like a dismal pursuit for die-hards and no place for an Average Joe like me. But the climbing’s easier than it looks. The bikes have a way lower gear than conventional mountain bikes, and even at the speed of molasses, you’re still going faster than you would hiking or skinning. So with that, we snailed our way upward in a slow motion ascent to the quarry. I nodded and gave that little in-the-know finger wave to all passersby, as if I’d been fat biking all my life. Butch even mentioned that if I ever wanted to do that cool stall-out-when-you’re-stopped thing, like trials rider Danny MacAskill, this was the time; the Texas-sized tires make them as stable as the reconstructed Steamboat barn. Of course, all that changed once we hit the singletrack of Blair Witch. Those same wide tires mean little wiggle room or margin for error when winding across a narrow, packed-out trail. One lapse of concentration, or slight turn of the wheel, and your tire is off in the soft stuff. And touching down spells a posthole. A few touches in, I found myself back balancing again somehow. That’s when I noticed myself atop the boardwalk, well above the surrounding snowfield. “Hey, this is the bridge!” I enthused, proud of my pedaling prowess. That’s all it took for my tire to turn, domino-ing me into a body pizza. Back on the bike, I’m excited to see Butch in a similar position, brushing off his own shoulder roll — we’re both relative rookies, still getting the feel. Then we pass local Pat West, who fat bikes every day. His clothes are as spotless as his technique. It’s here I learn that, instead of yielding to the uphill rider, the right-of-way goes to whoever isn’t splatted in the snow. From here, we pass Angry Grouse and head up the short climb on Blair (way to clean it, Butch!). I step off again, learning another important lesson: Don’t duck-walk the bike with the crossbar between your legs—your feet sink into the side snow, leaving you singing soprano. Eventually, we make it onto the wider and more forgiving Prayer Flag Road, our own prayers answered. But it’s still soft in places, as evidenced by a groan from Butch ahead. Then we drop down to the top of a more packed-out MGM. Like finding an untracked slope of powder on rockered skis, this is where the behemoth bikes excelled, the smooth banked turns seemingly made for them. If MGM was scripted for them, Mollie’s is even more so, a luge course of banks and whoop-de-doo’s in a natural ravine that has us grinning and spinning. Before we know it, we’re back at Orange Peel with smiles as wide as our tracks — and the body imprints we left on the hill. Don’t get buried in news you don’t need. Call 435–649–9014 to get the news you care about Actually, if referring to that jewel of the Sundance Film Festival known as the “Sundance ASCAP Music Café,” most of the jumpin’ is once again going to take place a couple of blocks east of Woodside on lower Main. I just couldn’t resist brazenly riffin’ on the old Count Basie big band blues. As has become the norm over recent years at the Café, when all is said and sung, I’ll be walking out a much more erudite musical wag than when I first entered. With the many branches of Americana best fitting the room ambiance and festival vibe, I’m very much looking forward to continuing my cultural education. Being one whose finger has slipped off the pulse of current trends in music over recent years, it’s a blessing to truly get “schooled” on an annual basis by ASCAP Assistant Vice President and Music Café producer Loretta Muñoz and her crew. As I sit here typing, however, with my head boppin’ to new headphones and local favorite Michael Franti’s rappin’ reggae, life is very good. Franti’s was the first name to jump out from the schedule when it arrived at my humble digs last week. And as soon as his rhythms had their way massaging my audio muscles, I moved onto less-familiar but similarly stimulating fare. Franti, who performs near the end of the Festival on Thursday and Friday Jan. 25 and 26 always seems to pack the room or hillside whenever he shows up in Park City and I can just see the line forming now outside the Rich Haines Gallery at 751 Main St. As with most musical gatherings that partake of a regular schedule, at the front of the line it’s all about community. There they are: the usual suspects. Whether Red Butte Garden, the Stateroom, Eccles Center, Deer Valley, the Canyons, or the Sun- dance/ASCAP Music Café, birds of a feather flocking together. Some only cross paths once a year, especially those of the film festival persuasion. But once “how-ya-beens” have been voiced, it’s as if it were yesterday. It takes a certain breed to stand in line outdoors in Park City for an extended period of time in January. And it very well should be noted that most of those shivering and smiling souls, at the Café anyway, haven’t a clue as to a particular day’s lineup. I mean they might have heard the music For many, many years they have put their cultural fortunes in the hands of the aforementioned Loretta Muñoz and her tried-and-true ASCAP crew. And let the word go forth that the time has yet to arrive when disappointment of any stripe has cut the line.” and had a rough familiarity with a few of the artists in question, but mostly, and I’m certainly speaking for myself here, they are clueless in that regard. What they do know is that, for many, many years they have put their cultural fortunes in the hands of the aforementioned Loretta Muñoz and her tried-and-true ASCAP crew. And let the word go forth that the time has yet to arrive when disappointment of any stripe has cut the line. So here I remain, still typing and bobbing my head to the output of hot-off-the–press noise-canceling off-scale audio response thingamajigs on my head that show little sign of losing their show-room-floor twang. “Who are these people?” I ask prior to taking the logical step of reading the artist’s-blurb that accompanies each act and each audio link. What is it that infuses live music with that indefinable je ne sais quoi that for whatever reason has difficulty translating to “streaming” or other audio technologies of the time? (You’ll always find me opting for a clever italicized foreign phrase in support of my inherent awkwardness at improvisational composition.) Anyway, back to a brief look at a few of the performing artists whom I’m now hearing for the first time in preparation for this year’s Music Café. First up, Madison Cunningham, a 20-year old from Orange County, California of all places. What initially jumped at me was a quite sophisticated sense of melody and arrangement that belie her years. I would love to take a gander at her folk’s record collection. Singer-songwriter Brett Dennen is a ski-town, beach-town, wine-geek kind of guy inhabiting a complex aura that includes beat poetics and a quite wry sensibility. Shawn James, as you would expect from a card-carrying born-and-raised south side Chicago multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter worthy of the geographic connection, infuses even his soul and folk with the blues. So, anyway, slap on some headphones, go online before you get in line and try it yourself at ascap.com/sundance or through the SFF online program guide. See you on lower Main. 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. Writers on the range By Jim Lyons A once nonpartisan law is now endangered Nearly a half-century ago, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act by a vote of 92-0 in the Senate and 355-4 in the House. Republican President Richard Nixon said that the legislation “provides the federal government with needed authority to protect an irreplaceable part of our national heritage, threatened wildlife. … Nothing is more priceless and worthier of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed.” As the Trump administration continues to roll back America’s commitment to conservation, we should fear that it will succeed in turning the federal government away from its responsibility to protect species from extinction. Recently, the administration denied petitions to list 25 wildlife species as endangered. As Kathleen Harnett-White, who is a Senate-vote away from becoming the administration’s chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, put it, the Endangered Species Act is “economically harmful” and a “formidable obstacle to development.” So perhaps it should not have come as a surprise when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced that he would reopen areas of sage grouse habitat to mining and oil and gas leasing. Zinke, along with the USDA Forest Service, also plans to revisit the state-federal sage grouse conservation plans that successfully led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide not to list the grouse as threatened or endangered. Some critics are encouraging a rewrite of the law itself, arguing that the ESA has failed because relatively few of the already listed species have been brought to “recovery.” Many states also want more control over determining when a species should be listed, or removed, from the list, and in identifying “critical habitat” for the survival of a listed species. The Endangered Species Act has prevented some important and iconic species from going extinct, including bald eagles, the Yellowstone grizzly and gray whales. The primary impediment to recovery has always been a lack of resources. A recent study found that most listed species with recovery plans received less than 90 percent of the amount of money needed for their recovery, and that overall funding for the act has declined since 2010. Only sufficient funding from Congress — not changes in the law itself — can fix this problem. Many states also want more control over determining when a species should be listed, or removed, from the list, and in identifying “critical habitat” for the survival of a listed species.” Critics also complain that “consultations” — the required reviews of projects that may harm listed species or their habitat — are costly, time-consuming, and increase uncertainty in project planning. In December, the Trump administration announced plans to change the rules governing endangered species consultations and critical habitat designations. Yet a recent review of all Fish and Wildlife Service consultations from January 2008 through April 2015 found that no project was stopped or extensively altered due to reviews. On average, approvals took only 14 business days. The 10 percent of consultations that required further review took 61 days. In virtually all cases, the agency acted within the time limits set by the law. Although determining whether a species is in danger of extinction is based solely on biological grounds — as it should be — economic factors are already considered in identifying habitat that is critical for the survival of a species. In 2015, Wyoming Republican Gov. Matt Mead, as chair of the Western Governors’ Associ- ation, launched a review of how the Endangered Species Act was working. One outcome was a Western Governors’ policy statement supporting “all reasonable management efforts to conserve species and preclude the need to list a species under the ESA.” The 2015 Fish and Wildlife Service decision not to list the greater sage grouse as threatened or endangered illustrates the benefit of this approach. That decision, based on state and federal land-management plans, initiatives by public-land users, and voluntary efforts by private landowners across the remaining 11-state range of the grouse, was a victory for conservation. It proved the wisdom of the authors of the act, who understood that the key to conserving imperiled species was protecting the ecosystem on which a species depended. As Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee put it: “What is a bird without a tree to nest in? What is an Endangered Species Act without any enforcement mechanism to ensure their habitat is protected? It is nothing.” Yet the act seems to work best when it encourages voluntary measures to protect habitat. The flexibility built into it has permitted innovative conservation measures that benefit both the species and the public-land users and private landowners who implement those measures. And, in many instances, federal funding and technical assistance is available to help defray landowner costs and encourage collaborative conservation efforts. As the rate of extinctions and the loss of biodiversity accelerates, the act is essential for keeping vulnerable species alive. Unfortunately, if President Trump’s administration and Republican leaders in Congress have their way, the Endangered Species Act itself could be extinguished. Jim Lyons is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. |