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Show A-14 The Park Record Meetings and agendas TO PUBLISH YOUR PUBLIC NOTICES AND AGENDAS, PLEASE EMAIL CLASSIFIEDS@PARKRECORD.COM AGENDA SUMMIT COUNTY COUNCIL Wednesday, August 1, 2018 12:55 PM Closed Session Personnel (15 min); Property acquisition (90 min) 2:20 PM Work Session 1) Interview applicants for vacancies on the Summit County Arts & Parks Advisory Committee-Recreation (RAP Tax Recreation Committee) (1 hour 30 min) 4:10 PM -Move to Council Chambers 4:20 PM Work Session, continued 1) Pledge of Allegiance 2) 4:25 PM - Presentation by Central Utah Water Conservancy District regarding decision to go through Truth in Taxation; Bronson Stewart (20 min) 4:45 PM - Consideration of Approval 1) Discussion and possible adoption of Parental Leave Policy; Brian Bellamy 2) Discussion and possible action regarding the Promontory Employee Housing; Amir Caus 3) Council Comments 4) Manager Comments 5) Council Minutes dated July 11, 2018 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 Council Chambers and Conference room, Summit County Courthouse, 60 N. Main, Coalville, 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: July 27, 2018 Cops: Parkite arrested said he had meeting with Putin Associated Press HEBER CITY – Authorities say a Utah man, who claimed he was an FBI agent and on his way to the airport to see Russian President Vladimir Putin before carjacking a vehicle, has been arrested. The Deseret News reports the 30-year-old Park City man was arrested Sunday for investigation of aggravated robbery, impersonating an officer, aggravated assault, theft of a vehicle and driving on a denied license. Authorities say the man approached another man at a 7-Eleven and forcibly stole his Honda CR-V. A Heber City police officer spotted the vehicle, pulled over the man and arrested him. A Wasatch County Jail report says the man, while being taken into custody, “was rambling about working for the FBI and that he was on his way to the airport to go to Russia to ‘meet with Putin.’” Crews lament longer fire season, more erratic blazes Veterans say the problem grows worse yearly MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press ANDERSON, Calif. — Exhausted and hungry, some 12,000 firefighters are working 24-hour shifts battling deadly California wildfires and becoming resigned to fire seasons that start earlier, burn longer and unleash increasingly unpredictable blazes. “There’s a lot going on up here, endless fires, and they’re all characteristically pretty much the same — windy, hot and dry,” firefighter James Sweeney said before heading out for a meal and a nap. Sweeney, from St. Petersburg, Florida, is a “hotshot,” part of an elite team of highly trained wildland firefighters who spend fire season battling the fiercest blazes in the country. Weary after more than a day on the fire lines, the 43-year-old said when his Gila, New Mexico-based crew does leave California, he expects to go north into Oregon, where new fires are kicking up. “These days it’s crazy,” he said. “We give up our whole life all summer.” Crews made progress this weekend on the Carr Fire near Redding, about 230 miles north of San Francisco. But it was still threatening thousands of homes and was not expected to be fully contained until mid-August at the earliest. For many of the firefighters slamming down 9,000-calorie meals between shifts, the nonstop effort has become routine. Last year, a fast-moving series of fires in Santa Rosa, just north of San Francisco, and elsewhere in Northern California killed 44 people and destroyed more than 8,000 structures. Last December’s Thomas Fire near Santa Barbara burned almost 282,000 acres, becoming the largest wildfire in California history. In his 19 years on the job, Cal Fire Capt. Chris Anthony said the most significant change is that hotter, drier conditions now mean that firefighters are trained to take a “tactical pause” to reconsider before charging in against the flames. “Fire has become a lot more unpredictable,” he said. “In the past we could plan, but these days a fire can take a sudden and deadly turn.” That’s what happened Thursday, when the fire near Redding pivoted and exploded in size, taking down hundreds of homes and killing five people, two of them firefighters. Another firefighter was killed earlier in the month battling a giant fire near Yosemite National Park. Firefighter Jason Campbell was on the front lines Thursday near Yosemite when the Carr Fire destroyed his home, an RV and a boat near Redding. Redding Police Chief Roger Moore also lost his home. Capt. Jarrett Grassl, a 19-year veteran who works for the Higgins Fire District in Northern California, said his crew ran into homeowners trying to save their own properties. The threat to homes reflects the shrinking divide between wilderness and urban areas. “Every year it seems to be a bigger problem,” Grassl said Saturday, in 110-degree weather with zero precipitation. Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said he can see the fatigue on the faces of the firefighters when they come in to Core saMples By Jay Meehan Brief examinations “The center cannot hold.” ~ Yeats NOTICE is hereby given that the Summit County Council will meet in session Wednesday, August 1, 2018, at the Summit County Courthouse, 60 North Main Street, Coalville, UT 84017 (All times listed are general in nature, and are subject to change by the Council Chair) refuel. “What really helps to encourage them is a thank you,” Bosenko said Sunday. “Maybe something posted near the fence that gives them encouragement ... that is a big plus for the firefighters that are coming in to recover.” Fighting wildfires is almost always dangerous and grueling, but experienced firefighters said the Carr Fire has been even hotter, drier and more erratic than they are accustomed to. Crews used shovels, hoses and chain saws to corral giant walls of flame that burned through canyons and up steep gulches. The air was thick with smoke and dust as they hauled heavy gear up and down unstable hillsides, grabbing gulps of water whenever they could. They largely worked in silence, with the sound of crashing tree limbs and roaring flames drowning out radios. Nevada County Fire Capt. Nathan Menth calls California’s weather system “the prolonged summer.” Replenishing fire hose gear after spending the night protecting a Redding neighborhood, he said he was surprised by how quickly the fire spread. “The winds came in,” he said. “It was out of control.” But 13 years into his career, that chaos is something he’s come to expect. There was one small bright spot in his last shift. As flames leaped from one pine to the next, creating a canopy of fire, his team stopped its truck in a driveway near scattered oak trees, expecting the wildfire to continue unchecked. “But this one oak, it slowed it down,” he said. “I don’t know why, but it just didn’t torch off. And that allowed us to turn the fire from those homes, to be proactive instead of reactive.” Wed/Thurs/Fri, August 1-3, 2018 Sometime during the night the gyroscope deep within my cognitive centers went on the fritz. Focus lost its balance. Concentration lay barely beyond reach. Just as I would get a grasp of whatever issue was at hand, another would interrupt without propriety. Parliamentary procedures had jumped off the ledge. Order had left the building. To keep my faculties from totally spinning out of control, I held a line-up of the usual suspects and quickly identified two of the more notorious: political correctness and the “war on football.” See what I mean? Even when order is located, an undercurrent of chaos looms. I’ll lead off with a plausible identification of terms. I’m pretty sure that’s where most of our differences can be found, somewhere in the bushels and pecks of apples and oranges. First of all, I am not afraid of learning that one of my specific cultural choices offends a fellow member of my species or, for that matter, an entire clan within the tribe. I’m very seldom married to the notion in question and am usually able to modify behavior in order to smooth the waters. What makes these changes seamless, I suppose, is that I never take the act of having it brought to my attention as an attack upon me personally. Which goes back to the concept of learning. As I mentioned, I’m not afraid to learn, which at its core, is changing behavior. A favorite recent example of this was my discovery that the term “Anasazi,” when used to identify the cliff dwelling peoples that disappeared from the Southwest around 1300 A.D., was viewed as insulting by their descendants, the current Pueblo tribes of the area. What I “learned,” in this case, was that the term itself had roots in the Athabasca language of the Navajo and roughly translates to “ancestors of our enemies.” Well, I quickly transposed, wouldn’t that be somewhat akin to the English having a word for we Irish that we found objectionable? Oh, that’s right, they already have a lexicon full. But that’s my choice. If asked, I would explain my process, but not inflict it upon the group as a matter of course.” So, I no longer use the term. I opted for “ancestral Puebloans,” which, at least in the current literature on the subject, appears to be the consensus of choice. But that’s my choice. If asked, I would explain my process, but not inflict it upon the group as a matter of course. Now, if others who knew better chose to flaunt the term in a pejorative manner, well, they would certainly run afoul. They would have my complete attention. And that’s how I see “political correctness.” Now, as to the “War on Football,” I find that notion to be as pathetic as I did the perceived “war on Christmas” as attributed to Starbucks when they redesigned their to-go cups. Now, I’ve done it! I’ve introduced religion into the conversation. And, of course, when you get right down to it, that’s at the root of all of our differences. To those on the right, the separation of church and state is an oxymoron. But to the rest of us, that’s exactly where we find the bedrock of our freedom. It’s as apparent in our opposing views on right-to-life as it is in these various culture wars. Where they find the cohabitation of God and science to be blasphemous, we see it as a most natural and logical love affair. All is one, as it were. It’s the quantum religion. If the Higgs Boson, which is responsible for attaching mass to other particles, isn’t holy, then one must question all else that has been declared sacred. Likewise, if a body of medical research continues to link the repeated head injuries incurred by football players with lasting brain damage, then one must question the irrationality that views those results as part of a great Chinese conspiracy against the American way of life. Just sayin’. Let my testimony further reflect that, as a lifelong sports fan, I am as guilty as any when it comes to cause and effect. I celebrated the resounding hits my son would put on opposing players even when the effect would be that neither would move for moments on end and x-rays would prove positive. Damn Chinese! Again, the malfunctioning gyroscope notwithstanding, the attempt was not to sermonize but to briefly examine. 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 At the speed of summer Editor’s note: Amy Roberts is the senior director of marketing and communications for the Kimball Art Center. Every Sunday night, just before I sit down to pound out this column, I first glance at my calendar to prepare me for the week ahead. It startled me a bit when I noticed August had plans to appear by midweek. After all, August is pretty much the end of summer. Which means ski season is right around the corner. So basically I should start this column by writing, “Happy New Year.” Summers always go fast in the mountains. But this one in particular should get a speeding ticket. Most years, if my garden produces more than a dozen tomatoes before a frost, I consider it a bumper crop. This year, I haven’t even planted them yet. Like most people in this town, my summers are measured by the number of Silly Sundays, live music, al fresco dinners, parades, softball games, hikes, days on the lake and mountain bike rides I can cram in between snowfalls. Given that June and August snowstorms aren’t exactly unheard of, there’s an almost desperate urgency not to waste a single ray of sunshine. And while I didn’t waste them, I’m not sure I can account for them either. If I had to write a “What I did on my summer vacation” essay, there would be little more than a confused face emoji and a question mark on the paper. Much of this is because I took a new job last February, working for the Kimball Art Center. After a few months of learning the ropes, I left town in May for an extended, preplanned vacation. When I returned, there was a lot of mak- ing up for that break. The making up quickly morphed into ceaseless planning, promoting, and organizing a massive deadline intensive project — the Park City Kimball Arts Festival. (Shameless plug: it begins this Friday night. Visit ParkCityKimballArtsFestival.org to learn more.) I’ve attended Arts Fest every year for the last 20 or so I’ve lived here; but always on the consumer side. Being on the planning side is a far different experience. I’ve attended Arts Fest every year for the last 20 or so I’ve lived here; but always on the consumer side. Being on the planning side is a far different experience.” There are binders 300-plus pages thick, filled with details so minute, I wouldn’t be surprised if our operations team knows the exact time, down to the second, each participating artist was born. And their shoe size. There are precise load-in times (also down to the second), drawn to scale renderings ensuring every square inch of Main Street is thoughtfully used, and the ice order is placed down to the cube. It would not surprise me if everyone on this team moonlights as a forensic scientist. It’s an interesting experiment — to mix these hyper detail-oriented people with the creative minds at the Kimball. Creatives tend to be big-pic- ture thinkers, far more inclined to express themselves using a paintbrush than binders filled with Excel spreadsheets. And the detail people tend to have little use for a paintbrush, unless it doubles as a tape measure. But somehow, despite these drastic differences in event planning approach, this group complements each other. It must be similar to the relationship between a contractor and an interior designer. The contractor might be intensely focused on pouring the foundation for a home, knowing the rest of the house hinges on getting that step right. But the designer believes the color scheme is the home’s most critical feature because it’s what a buyer will notice first. And somehow, they’re both right. We’ve been in the thick of Arts Fest planning — both big picture and tiny details — for months. And this weekend, it will all pay off. Arts Fest benefits both our community and local businesses — the event brings over $20 million to the state in one weekend. But even more important is the weekend’s direct benefit to local students. The money raised from Arts Fest helps fund art education programs in our public schools — a curriculum proven to increase confidence, build creative problem solving skills, and result in both academic and social success. Because as important as the detailed thinkers are, it’s equally as important for people to use their imaginations to get the job done. Amy Roberts is a freelance writer, longtime Park City resident and the proud owner of two rescued Dalmatians, Stanley and Willis. Follow her on Twitter @amycroberts. |