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Show Viewpoints The Park Record. Snowstorm renews optimism for strong finish to ski season W letters to the editor Metal detectors needed in schools U Linda Giebe - Park City . d dividual has set them down to preserve their own seat. Personally, I asked dozens of individuals three to four times if persons were “ticketed and in house.” As head usher, I knew the “click counter” at the front door indicated dozens of others could be placed into the theater, which means some of the patrons were being dishonest. Feeling the pressure of many friends at the door waiting to get in house, I tried the unconventional by explaining to the patrons “there are no saving seats,” “the theater is closed” and further explaining “if you are saving seats for your friends, your friends will not be allowed in house because there are no reported available seats.” Upon hearing this explanation, many seats opened up, though not all. Much to my embarrassment, a few minutes before the movie was to start, the director of the movie asked why there were so many empty seats and I explained it is because some people in the theater are being dishonest. My apologies to Anna Lea and Howard and the others who were turned away from the Townie Tuesday experience. Cheryl Dejno Head usher, Redstone Theater Team B, 2018 Townie Tuesday Resident grateful for emergency care Editor: I just want to thank the medical providers of both the Insta-Care and Main Intermountain Hospital Emergency Care units this past weekend when I needed their help. We should all be thankful for their presence in Park City. Residents and visitors should feel confident of the care they will receive if needed. Thank all of you again for your help. Willis Richardson Oakley Apology for Sundance - ticket mishap Coyote slaughter is unethical Editor: In response to Anna Lea Kantor’s message, my apologies. As head usher e it is my responsibility to ensure the the- ater is full and the movie starts on time, r neither occurred. During the thirty mine ute process of loading the theater it customary for an usher to ask neighboring individuals if a seat with stored personr al belongings is available or if the ine e y The Park Record Staff g Editor: Utah taxpayers have been subsidizing coyote slaughter since 2012. Hunters are paid $50 bounties from a fund established by the “Mule Deer Protection Act” (Senate Bill 245). The fund tops out at $750,000 annually. 74,460 coyotes have been slaughtered since 2012 thanks to Utah tax dollars — that’s an average of nearly 15 thousand dead coyotes every year. Coyotes are killed by trapping, shooting and poisoning with no end in sight of this ethnically indefensible and fiscally foolish bill. “Coyote hunting contests” are held annually “for entertainment” and even youngsters are invited to participate in the slaughter. Taxpayer money is being squandered for the “entertainment” of a minority of citizens while peer reviewed science proves mule deer decline is rooted in lack of adequate food sources, caused p r c e y - g r e s - e o y - Wed/Thurs/Fri, February 21-23, 2018 editorial Editor: On October 9th, 2015 I wrote an article calling for mandatory metal detectors in our Park City schools. I grieve for all the innocent children murdered since that article. Just think how many children, and staff, would be alive today if America would have installed metal detectors in schools since the Columbine massacre in 1999. I wonder how many more school shootings we will endure until metal detectors in schools are as commonplace as they are in airports. Unfortunately America is building a tolerance to such horrifying news that should be bringing us all to our knees. We should be demanding action, not asking for it. Working on mental health is always a good idea, but we saw in Florida that glaring red flags of mental instability didn’t stop Nikolas Cruz from walking into a school and becoming a mass murderer. He literally posted that his goal was to become a “professional school shooter.” Students said they knew if anyone was capable of this, it was Nikolas Cruz. Teachers were warned that he was not allowed in the school, especially with a backpack. If all of that wasn’t enough, the FBI was alerted. The FBI. If alarms would have sounded the second he attempted to bring his weapon into the school, lockdown would have ensued, police would have been on the scene and Nikolas Cruz would have be arrested for attempted mass homicide. Today, families would be eternally grateful for that fateful decision to install metal detectors instead of planning funerals for children. And those 17 victims would be going about their - day right now. I don’t know about you, but I am on my knees in agony over the suffering of those families. How much - longer? . e m g e e A-13 PUBLISHER ....................... Andy Bernhard Editor ................................... Bubba Brown Staff Writers ......................Jay Hamburger Scott Iwasaki Angelique McNaughton Ben Ramsey Carolyn Webber Contributing ............................. Tom Clyde Writers Jay Meehan Teri Orr Amy Roberts Tom Kelly Joe Lair Copy Editor ............................ James Hoyt Engagement Editor.........Kira Hoffelmeyer Photographer .........................Tanzi Propst Office Manager ..................... Tiffany Piper Circulation Manager ............. Lacy Brundy Accounting Manager ......... Jennifer Snow ADVERTISING Classifieds/Legals ............. Jennifer Lynch Advertising Director ........... Valerie Spung Advertising Sales ......................... Lori Gull Jodi Hecker Erin Donnelly Lisa Curley Olivia Bergmann Production Director ..................Ben Olson Production .......................... Patrick Schulz Linda Sites Letters Policy The Park Record welcomes letters to the editor on any subject. We ask that the letters adhere to the following guidelines. They must include the home (street) address and telephone number of the author. No letter will be published under an assumed name. Letters must not contain libelous material. Letters should be no longer than about 300 words (about 600 words for guest editorials) and should, if possible, be typed. We reserve the right to edit letters if they are too long or if they contain statements that are unnecessarily offensive or obscene. Writers are limited to one letter every seven days. Letters thanking event sponsors can list no more than 6 individuals and/or businesses. Send your letter to: editor@parkrecord.com hat a difference a bit of snow can make. After Parkites collectively spent the first three months of ski season scratching their heads and wondering where the white stuff was, we finally got the pounding we’ve been waiting for. It waited until the President’s Day holiday, a marker that typically means we’re nearing the end to ski season, but we’re holding out hope that, this year, we’re just getting started. The lack of snowfall has certainly made it a difficult winter for many in the ski industry and those who rely on the tourism sector it fuels. This late, there will be no making up for some of the opportunities missed in December, January and the early part of February. But with the last week of this month and all of March ahead, there’s still time to make it a season worth fondly remembering. Perhaps the early-week snowstorm, which dropped more than 16 inches at our resorts, was a harbinger of things to come. Maybe Mother Nature was simply biding her time — more than few locals have joked in recent weeks that the poor winter so far means we’ll be knee deep in snow in May. A couple months of neverending fresh powder would be a welcome development. For one, it would entice vis- itors to get in a ski vacation before springtime. And at the very least, a strong finish to this season would provide momentum heading into the next one. It would go a long way toward getting rid of the taste the last few months have left and would remind everyone why this time of year is special in our town. Of course, as this season has shown, the weather doesn’t always cooperate. If this week’s storm turns out to be merely a blip on the rader, the exasperation many Parkites have felt will return. But even then, it would be important to finish the season with a sense of optimism and keep the winter in perspective. Just one year ago, we were in the middle of one of the best seasons in memory — in fact, there’s never been a better one as far as statewide skier days. Major snowstorms seemingly occurred every other day and thousands of visitors returned home with stories about our epic skiing and snowboarding offerings. Uneasiness about how climate change will affect the ski industry notwithstanding, there’s no reason to think next season and those after won’t be more similar to the 2016-2017 winter than the first months of this one. For the time being at least, that kind of optimism should be easier to come by — it always is when we’re looking up at mountains flush with powder. guest editorial After another shooting, it’s clear the right to safety is greater than right to bear arms CELESTE RAFFIN Park City It happened again, with sickening regularity. Another mass shooting, 17 dead and 14 injured. And, of course, the Gun Lobby is saying, “Now isn’t the time to bring up the argument of the 2nd amendment. The left is using this tragedy to further its political agenda. First give us time to grieve and then we will discuss it.” Well news flash, YOU, the gun lovers, have never discussed it. You bury your heads in the sand, cover them with the second amendment, and the shootings continue to happen. I can only conclude that the gun lobby feels that the mass shootings and the tens of thousands of other deaths from firearms that happen every year in this country are a reasonable price to pay for the right to bear arms. But death is not the only price we pay. We are losing our freedom so that you can bear arms. We are turning our schools into fortresses, our hospitals have armed guards and metal detectors, we are searched at public events. Active shooter drills are being held at every workplace. We are spending untold millions of dollars to keep us safe from gun owners. And guess what, it doesn’t work. The shootings continue. We live in fear, because after all you have the right to bear arms. What about the rights of the rest of the nation? Neighborhoods, the workplace, hospitals, schools, parks, churches, nightclubs, concerts, theaters, post offices, restaurants, and homes are no longer safe. No one knows when or where by climate change and human development. A Care2 petition was initiated at https://www.thepetitionsite. com/takeaction/765/960/256/. “Trophy hunting” harms our ecology and is senseless slaughter. Utah “values”? No thank you. Maria Roberts Park City Congress has role in opioid battle Editor: Kudos for your February 15 editorial (Opioid fight will be long, but Utah Legislature is on the right track) for noting that many steps are needed to address the opioid crisis. There is also an important role for the U.S. Congress here. For more than a year, it has been well documented that large amounts of opioids enter America, from China, via mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. We need to do a much better job tracking this mail and intercepting fentanyl and other drugs. The way to do it is to require — not suggest or hope for but require — advanced electronic data (AED) on all incoming mail. This is trackable information about the shipper, contents and destination. With AED and advanced analytics, the next armed nut job, exercising his/her right to bear arms, will strike. Do we really think that our right to bear arms is greater than our right to be safe in our own country? A friend of mine travels all over the world. She goes to the most out of the way countries, places where there is political conflict and places that are considered dangerous for Americans. I asked her, “Aren’t you scared to visit these countries”? She replied, “That’s funny, because the people of those countries ask me, ‘aren’t you scared to live in the United States?’” So here’s my challenge to the gun lobby: Prove that the cost of the right to bear arms is worth it. Show me that more people have been saved by having a firearm than killed by a firearm. Prove that the cost of taking care of all the gunshot victims and the cost of personal freedom that we give up is offset by your right to bear arms. Convince me that whatever it is you get from owning a gun is worth the lives of all the people killed by guns in the US each year. Prove it to all of us. Now IS the time to have this discussion. I agree, guns don’t kill people, PEOPLE WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE. I don’t get where the confusion is. Whether you like it or not, you are saying, in a very loud voice, that the mass shootings, the carnage of all the deaths and injuries, and the loss of personal freedom that results from unfettered access to guns in this country is a reasonable price to pay for your right to bear arms. And I am saying right now, NO IT IS NOT. law enforcement is much more likely to find and seize this poison. The Postal Service’s refusal to support this measure, even though private carriers are already required by law to provide this information, is troubling. AED is also a relatively simple technology to implement. In Congress, a bipartisan group is pushing the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Protection Act (STOP Act) to require AED, thereby helping law enforcement work more efficiently to protect more people. Paul Steidler Senior fellow, Lexington Institute Treasure is a headache Editor: The 1986 approval by the Park City, City Council of the Sweeney Master Plan, aka Treasure Mountain, was a completely different proposal, compared to the Disneyland like 1,000,000 square foot plus plan that has been attempted lately. Even with the previous much smaller approval, the project was still subject to conditional use permits. Those permits have never been approved. Given the increased density and traffic, I seriously wonder if such a conditional use permit would ever be granted for this obsolete 31 year old approved plan. Now we learn of secret back room deals with our City officials offering a non-refundable immediate $6,000,000 payoff to be applied against a voter approved $64,000,000 purchase. The citizens of Park City reject this offer. The times have changed. Simple Solution: Either the City Council, or if they won’t do it, the voters will amend the zoning map per City ordinance number 15-1-7, and designate the entire land which is the subject of this controversy, be restricted to only 1 (one) 2,000 square foot house, consistent with local architectural guidelines, may be built on the property. The result: Consistent with the legal standards in the two applicable U.S. Supreme Court decisions of Agins v Tiburon 447 U.S. 255 and Lingle v. Chevron, 544 U.S. 528, this will ensure that the city has no legal exposure to any eminent domain actions, because the Treasure Mountain applicants will not be completely deprived of “all economically beneficial” interests. They get to build the one house. The tax payers of Park City, assuming the $6,000,000 has already been paid out, will save $58,000,000, this headache will be over, and we can move on to more important things. Steven Miller Park City |