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Show A-18 The Park Record Meetings and agendas Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, April 21-24, 2018 More dogs on Main By Tom Clyde TO PUBLISH YOUR PUBLIC NOTICES AND AGENDAS, PLEASE EMAIL CLASSIFIEDS@PARKRECORD.COM Annual tax rant (EXTENSION FILED) Notice is hereby given that The Summit County Board of Adjustment will meet in regular session Thursday, April 26, 2018 Location: Summit County Courthouse, Council Chambers, 60 North Main Street, Coalville, UT 84017 AGENDA Agenda items may or may not be discussed in the order listed. 6:30 p.m. Regular Session cel SU-M-34; Larry Hedrick, applicant.-Steven Taylor, Engineering Dept. 1. Public input for items not on the agenda or pending applications. 2. Continued public hearing and possible action regarding a variance for additional building height; 100 Matterhorn Terrace; Parcel SU-M-2-128; Roderick Nix, applicant. – Ray Milliner, Principal Planner 3. Public hearing and possible action regarding a variance to decrease the required 60 foot Kilby Road setback and a decrease from the required 100 foot stream setback; 4055 West Kilby Road; Parcel PP-38-E; Kellie Wheeler, applicant. – Amir Caus, County Planner 4. **This item will not be discussed** Public hearing and possible action regarding a driveway slope variance; Par- 5. Approval of minutes: August 24, 2017 and October 26, 2017 Board Items Staff Items Adjourn To view staff reports available after Friday, April 20, 2018 please visit: http://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) 3363157 Notice is hereby given that the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission will meet for a RETREAT Tuesday, April 24, 2018 Location: Rossignol Building, 1413 Center Drive, Park City, UT 84098 AGENDA Agenda items may or may not be discussed in the order listed. 12:00 pm-2:00 pm To view staff reports available after Friday, April 20, 2018 please visit: www.summitcounty.org 1. Executive Session 2. Commissioner 101 continued discussion: Creating a record of final action decisions 3. Commission Collaboration 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. 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) 6153157. ALLEN BEST pay more. People with modest incomes and no mortgage interest will likely pay less. And the top 5 percent of incomes will pay a lot less. The whole plan is that they are supposed to be so happy with their reduced tax burden that they will share it with the rest of us. I distinctly recall being promised a $4,000 a year raise, which has not shown up yet. Anyway, I got my taxes filed and have no illusions that it will be cheaper or easier next year. The computer system at the IRS probably won’t be any better equipped to handle it, and since the agency’s funding keeps getting reduced, there’s probably nobody there to get the new tax law changes entered into the computer system that was designed around the old tax law. The Feds aren’t unique in their failure to deliver on basic stuff. There are several street lights on my drive home that haven’t functioned in years. At one intersection, there are two lights. It’s unusual to see either working, and I don’t recall ever seeing them both on. There’s a street light in Woodland that turns off whenever a car approaches it. The headlights shine on the sensor and the light turns off just in time for cars to enter the intersection. It shines brightly when nobody is there. That’s gone on for 40 years. If it’s important enough to traffic safety to have installed street lights, how come it isn’t important to keep them working? 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 OUNTAIN TOWN NEWS A Roundup of News from Other Western Ski Resort Communities Mountain Town News Warnings abound of ‘megafires’ in forests soon and in the future BANFF, Alberta – Across the Rocky Mountains, from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Banff, Alberta, firefighters are bracing for what could, in some areas, be a brutal season. In New Mexico, which is coming off an extremely dry winter, firefighters from the National Guard and U.S. Forest Service last weekend were simulating the air components of a wildfire fight. The exercise was intended to ensure that, in real situations during coming months, the helicopters and planes don’t end up colliding. The Santa Fe New Mexican described the firefighting effort that uses helicopters and fixed-wing air tankers as being an “orchestrated, if sometimes, chaotic, aerial ballet.” Colorado’s driest spots are in the state’s southwest corner. There, rivers around Durango and Telluride last week were running at 36 percent of average for this time of year. Klaus Wolter, a climate scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science in Boulder, told the Associated Press that the warm temperatures at lower mountain elevations have been causing snow to melt earlier than usual, and that could worsen the danger. Wolter, however, said further spring snows might dampen the fire risk. “It’s not all gloom and gloom,” he told AP. “It’s just not a good setup.” In 2012 and 2013, Colorado had three massive wildfires, each exacting fatalities, in the foothills along the Front Range population corridor. In the aftermath, Colorado spent nearly $20 million to buy two fire-spotting planes and contract helicopters and single-engine tankers. In Utah, a forum devoted to wildfires was on the community seems to be operating at about that same level. Congress has one constitutionally mandated job. They are supposed to adopt a budget. They haven’t really done a budget in years. It’s always a series of short term patches, threatened shutdowns, and then, finally, halfway through the fiscal year, they proudly adopt a formal budget. It comes too late to materially affect most programs that have been operating under temporary funding for half the year. And the full-year budget (adopted when the year is half over) tends to just maintain whatever was happening last year. There are always a few symbolic changes — increases on military hardware, border walls and the like. But the national conversation about broad priorities and spending that is supposed to take place in Congress never happens. We just blunder along, spending more than we take in and hope we will be gone before it becomes a problem. The good news is that the tax reform bill Congress crammed through this year will fix everything. Yep, next year, we will be filing our taxes on that slightly oversized post card that President Trump and Congressman Ryan held up when they were promoting the new tax bill. They promised. They will be able to get rid of that huge, antiquated computer system at the IRS and operate the entire tax collection system with a smartphone. Most deductions either go away, or get swallowed up by an increased “standard deduction.” I don’t think most people know whether they will be paying more or less. People with big families will lose the personal exemption on each child, and may Posted: April 20, 2018 Published: April 21, 2018 – The Park Record WSD Board Meeting Weilenmann School of Discovery will hold a meeting of its Board of Directors on Tuesday, April 24, at 5:30pm. Address is 4199 Kilby Road, Park City. The public is welcome. M Wednesday was tax day. We got a couple of extra days because the 15th landed on a Sunday; Monday was a holiday in Washington, DC. So taxes were due on Tuesday. Except there was a little problem. The IRS computer system crashed and wouldn’t accept payments or returns. So tax day became Wednesday. The IRS being unable to receive tax payments is just a perfect metaphor for where the country stands at the moment. Every year, on the same day, IRS is set up to receive our tax returns. They have done this before. It should not be a surprise. On the one day the system absolutely, positively had to work, it didn’t. It seems like there could be a way to have us file in batches, like car registration. Tax filings are a lot more complicated, and involve third parties closing out their books, issuing the W2s and other forms so it all happens at once. The computers choked. The most favorable view is that it was some internal problem, a bad hard drive or a loose cable. The system is unique to the IRS, so there isn’t an 800 number for tech support. But it wouldn’t be surprising if the system got hacked. Maybe Putin is trying to help expedite tax reform. We’ll never know. They were back online Wednesday. Operating our overly complicated and corrupt tax system is difficult. It’s also kind of important. It needs to operate as smoothly as it can, and it’s reasonable to expect that when we file our returns, they will get processed promptly. If a refund is due, we expect that to get paid quickly. That’s their only job, and they botched it. The entire federal government calendar in Park City this week. The session is titled “The Era of Megafires: Is Summit County Next?” The session was put together by Glenn Wright, an elected councilor in Summit County, which includes Park City. It was, he said, prompted by questions about whether wildfires that occurred last year in the coastal ranges of California could occur in Utah, too. In Alberta, the author of a book called “Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future,” told an audience in Banff that people will have to die before wildfire policies change. “We have a lot of false expectations about how we can deal with wildfire,” said Edward Struzik. Experts think the number of wildfires will double in coming decades or even triple, he said. “Big fires can’t be stopped,” said Struzik. “In the firefighting world, that’s pretty much unanimous. Once it gets to a certain size … there’s little you can do. You can drop retardants on it, you can hit it with an army of firefighters, but the best thing you can do in most cases is slow the fire or change its direction. But you cannot stop it.” Struzik said that 60 percent of all cities, towns, and settlements across Canada are vulnerable to wildfire. Most vulnerable are First Nation communities, as Native Americans are called, in Canada. “Right now they represent just 4 percent of the population, but 40 percent of evacuations that take place in Canada. There’s something really wrong with that picture,” said Struzik. Fire resiliency programs are needed that parallel efforts to improve energy efficiency of homes., said Struzik. He also called for more fire breaks around communities, FireSmart work, and controlled burns. Struzik’s comments parallel those of Arthur DeJong, who heads sustainability efforts for Whistler Blackcomb. Two years ago, he told a Whistler visitor that the single most important thing Whistler can do in the sustainability realm is to prevent its houses from going up in flames. In the Canadian Rockies, a major question is what role Parks Canada has in mitigating fire risk in the national parks it administers. Struzik said elected officials must be pressured to give the parks agency “the resources and the social license to do what they have to do.” In Jasper, foresters shared their concerns that the town within Jasper National Park could go up in smoke. The Jasper Fitzhugh reports that the primary target of the 1,464word letter that contained the warning was Parks Canada. The foresters, who are from Prince George, charge that the fire last summer at Waterton Lakes National Park provided evidence that Park Canada is “unlikely to be able to address any mega-fire situation” in a way that provides for public safety. Jasper is at the early stages of a mountain pine beetle epidemic. Vail skier, 91, goes heli-skiing and may get Guinness record VAIL, Colo. – Stan Friedberg, who is 91, this winter went on a heli-skiing trip in Canada with his son and three granddaughters. For this holiday he may yet be bestowed with the distinction of being the oldest heli-skier ever. The Vail Daily says that the record certified by Guinness Book of World Records currently is 88 years. The son, Steve Friedberg, told the Daily that his father works out every day and, when in the Pittsburgh area, where the family business is located, he can often be found running the stairs at a high school football stadium. For more news from North America’s mountain towns, check out the digital edition of this story at the Park Record’s website. By Teri Orr Educating ourselves to hope At a recent weeklong global conference in Vancouver, about 20 of us were selected to discuss, “Equipping future generations to thrive.” Those around the dinner table were from New Zealand and New England, the UK and Utah (OK that was me). A pediatrician/author who has appeared repeatedly on Good Morning America. An educator from deep in the Canadian wilderness. A Hollywood producer of one of this season’s hottest new television shows and a 20-year-old Stanford student, who for many, many years already has been a successful Ford model and human rights activist/speaker at the United Nations. It was heady company in the private dining room overlooking the twinkling harbor lights. Especially for someone who never finished college. The format was a Jeffersonian-style dinner — a discussion where reasonable decorum was expected and moderated around a single topic. Regardless of age or geographic location or personal educational opportunities, everyone agreed quickly education is severely broken. We have embraced and emphasized mastery of technology but we have lost the ability to connect to the reasons why. The humanity of learning has disappeared and the result is a generation that has (largely) lost both curiosity and compassion. Almost all those at the table had their children in a variety of private schools. One couple had started their own private school. The young Ford model admitted her high school experience — because she was working all those years — was online — from Stanford — and it had worked well. She now calls her current style of education “gapyear-ing” her life. We agreed with educator Sir Ken Robinson’s mantra — we are still educating children in an industrial age model to create better factory workers — when what need are better humans. We talked about the high rate of student depression, mental illness, gender fluidity, increased drug use and really smart students just dropping out. The way these students learn is completely out of sync with how they are being taught. And we spoke of those remarkable kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High who, in the face of what was clearly unspeakable horror and tragedy, became national spokespeople who created a movement #NeverAgain and intuitively included the faces of BlackLivesMatter and understood how to speak bravely. They understood — in part — because they were drama students and reporters for the school paper. That public school in Florida has been doing a lot of things right and we should all be looking carefully at how the young humans there have been educated to be whole people. They were suddenly enrolled in a national dialogue and they had the tools to stand in the hottest of spotlights and shake up — and lead — the adults around them. I am in awe of those kids. And I’m hardly alone. Just this week Time Magazine named them in the rarefied class of 100 Most Influential People. No less than former President Barack Obama wrote their tribute. It concluded... “Our history is defined by the youthful push to make America more just, more compassionate, more equal under the law. This generation — of Parkland, of Dreamers, of Black Lives Matter — embraces that duty. If they make their elders uncomfortable, that’s how it should be. Our kids now show us what we’ve told them America is all about, even if we haven’t always believed it ourselves: that our future isn’t written for us, but by us.” My final statement as we circled the table was something like — while we are in the thrust of the greatest accelerant of new learning and discovery perhaps the world has ever experienced and all kinds of devices are available to teach young humans how to explore with existing machines and create new machines and Artificial Intelligence and space travel and the like — the intensity with which we were pushing and rushing young people into adulthood is alarming and without context. As the Old Broad in the room, I reminded them of the famous words of wisdom from the refrain of The Grateful Dead’s “Uncle’s John’s Band” ... but are you kind? We can teach them so many wondrous things about how the world works and the mechanics of all of that will mean nothing if we haven’t taught young people compassion and empathy. How the arts — all of them — are the foundation for that unique kind of learning. So while teaching STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) sounds either very forward thinking or something that could have come from the Eisenhower Era, I suggested putting Arts into teaching and learning really does create STEAM that can move abstract ideas into action with compassion. We didn’t leave there having solved anything, in nearly three hours of stimulating, spirited conversation but we did agree — across continents, countries and counties — to keep talking. We all want “future generations to thrive” but there is no road map to take us there. How we learn determines what we learn. When we are taught by big-hearted humans who are supported in creative problem solving, young minds ignite. Along with how to diagram sentences and how to understand nuances of story, crawling inside award-winning Broadway shows — from Spring Awakening, and Fun House to Hamilton — maybe the learning could be relevant enough to engage students and challenge them to challenge us. Given the state of Our State — Dead Last in the nation in per pupil spending for education — we can only go up. Maybe sideways or into the rafters, around the world, into the wild ... and into a kind of global classroom that really prepares the future generation to thrive. Here’s what stayed with me about the night — besides all the stimulating conversation — the first person to introduce herself to me — in a room of strangers — was the youngest — the over-sixfoot tall, United Nations speaker/Ford model and 20-year-old Stanford student. That kind of hope in (red) heels — looks really beautiful. Any day you want to consider it — like 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. |