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Show A-2 Wed/Thurs/Fri, February 13-15, 2019 The Park Record Falling snow leads to rising tensions in city The Park Record. Serving Summit County since 1880 The Park Record, Park City’s No. 1 source for local news, opinion and advertising, is available for home delivery in Summit, Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Single copies are also available at 116 locations throughout Park City, Heber City, Summit County and Salt Lake City. Police Department has responded to reports of plowing disputes JAY HAMBURGER SUBSCRIPTION RATES The Park Record In Summit County (home delivery): $56 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) The falling snow in Park City has led to rising tensions in the community. The snowstorms have provided fine skiing conditions, but there have been reports of problems in neighborhoods as people continue to dig out. The Park City Police Department was summoned in several of the cases last week, illustrating the strain that the snow can put on a community during an exceptionally busy stretch of the ski season. The Police Department logged cases involving claims that people moved snow onto someone else’s property, essentially adding to the amount of snow that the property owner must clear on their own. In one of the cases, reported on Feb. 6 at 7:20 p.m., someone on Norfolk Avenue told the police a neighbor was moving snow into the caller’s driveway. The person told the police they attempted to talk to the neighbor, but the practice continued. Earlier on Feb. 6, at 4:40 p.m., the police received a complaint from Woodside Avenue that a driver of a private firm’s snowplow was seen pushing snow onto the caller’s property and into the street. The Police Department on Feb. 7 at 3:37 p.m. were told of a dispute between neighbors on Daly Avenue that centered on snow removal and parking. The people were eventually separated, the police said. On Feb. 4 at 1:05 p.m., meanwhile, someone on Meadows Drive reported a private-sector snowplow moved snow onto the caller’s driveway, making it difficult for the person to drive out. There Outside Summit County (home delivery available in Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties; all other addresses will be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service): $80 per year To subscribe please call 435–649– 9014 or visit www.parkrecord.com and click the Subscribe link in the Reader Tools section of the toolbar at the bottom of the page. To report a missing paper, please call 801–204–6100. 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No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Wasatch Mountain News Media Co., 1670 Bonanza Drive, Park City, UT 84060. Periodicals postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah, 84199-9655 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT84060. Entered as second-class matter, May 25, 1977, at the Post Office in Park City, Utah, 84060 under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are: $56 within Summit county, $80 outside of Summit County, Utah. Subscriptions are transferable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone: 435–649–9014 Fax: 435–649–4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Published every Wednesday and Saturday JAY HAMBURGER/PARK RECORD The Park City Police Department protected the FIS World Championships, including a detail at the moguls competition at Deer Valley Resort, shown. The Police Department would hold a crucial role in security at local venues should the Winter Olympics in 2030 be awarded to Salt Lake City. The security plan for the FIS World Championships appeared to be consistent with other Park City special events rather than at all resembling the one that blanketed the Winter Olympic region in 2002. Continued from A-1 A glimpse at Games? ference would require a much more intensive crowd-management system for a Winter Olympics. The organizers of the FIS World Championships did not require the crowds to have tickets, meaning they do not have a precise spectator number. They also did not have an estimate of the crowd sizes by the day after closing ceremonies. The organizers, though, said the crowd at the Saturday night moguls competitions at Deer Valley likely was the largest. The Winter Olympic events in 2002 consistently drew packed houses to PCMR and Deer Valley. The organizing committee that put on the Games said afterward PCMR drew 95,991 spectators, averaging 15,700 per competition session. The organizing committee sold 99.8 percent of the available tickets to the PCMR events. Deer Valley was also jammed in 2002, with 96,980 spectators, or 99.4 percent of the tickets sold, and an average of 13,800 per competition session. • the FIS World Championships employed parking and transportation plans, but the blueprints were not required to be at the levels of an Olympics since the crowd projections were so much smaller. The team that planned the FIS World Championships partnered with City Hall and the County Courthouse as the details were crafted. The overall plan relied on outlying parking lots and buses running between the lots and the competition venues. Although the concept during the recent event was at some levels similar Continued from A-1 One dies in avalanche that equates to is some heavier than usual density snow and then the other thing that was really the game changer was very strong winds,” he said. Strong, southernly winds across multiple days helped load the north-facing slopes, creating dense slabs of snow, Gordon said. “The problem with that is before we saw these storms, we had enjoyed clear, cold weather,” he said. “So what that did Direct Importer of the World’s Finest Rugs A t t h e H i s t o r i c Vi l l a T h e a t r e 3092 So. Highland Dr., Salt Lake City (801)484-6364 888.445.RUGS (7847) Mon.-Sat. 10 am to 6 pm to the vision of the Winter Olympic planners in 2002, the scale was vastly different. The Winter Olympic organizers built giant temporary parking lots and secured a fleet of buses to use. Bus after bus loaded passengers at the lots and then ferried them to the Olympic venues before returning to the lots to pick up more passengers. There were also heavy restrictions on traffic in Old Town, including a Games-long closure of Main Street to traffic in favor of a pedestrian-only celebration zone, further illustrating the complexities the team that planned the Winter Olympics needed to confront. • the FIS World Championships involved a security plan that appeared to be consistent with other Park City special events rather than at all resembling the one that blanketed the Winter Olympic region in 2002. Organizers of sporting events of any scale are hesitant to discuss security planning, saying doing so could jeopardize the efforts to protect the crowds and the athletes, and little is known about the methods employed at the FIS World Championships. The Park City Police Department and Summit County Sheriff’s Office were the key law enforcement agencies. Police officers from outside agencies were seen alongside the local ones. The level of involvement of federal and state agencies during the FIS World Championships was not clear. The security plans for the Winter Olympics in 2002 were far more ambitious, addressing numerous threat categories in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. There were airspace restrictions, a military presence and security teams protecting dignitaries. Assets that smaller agencies like the Police Department typically do not have the resources to acquire on their own, such as robots designed to detonate suspicious packages, were also deployed locally. The sheer number of security personnel assigned to the Park City area in 2002 remains unmatched. is weaken the snow surface. It is sort of like potato chips, and then we just parked a bunch of semi-trucks on top of the potato chips and they will be the first to give way. The problem is with the structure we have in the snowpack, particularly in outlying areas like the western Uintas.” Gordon said several false, green-light indicators are suggesting to backcountry users that the slabs are stable. False indicators could be other tracks on the slopes, dropping cornices and snow pit tests that suggest stability. But, he cautioned, strong snow on weak snow is always a red flag. Avalanches are being triggered low on the slopes and taking out the entire season’s snowpack. Avalanche avoidance is the “big ticket item” right now, Gordon said. For those who are venturing into the backcountry, he stressed the importance of carrying Continued from A-1 was also a complaint on Ina Avenue, reported at 10:08 a.m. on Feb. 9, that someone was blocked into a driveway, apparently by plowed snow. The cases are in addition to the numerous problems Park City drivers had on the roads during the storms. Numerous slide-off accidents and other problems on the roads have been blamed on the snow. “People get frustrated. ... The weather in general is complicating driving and keeping your sidewalks and driveways clear,” said Phil Kirk, a Police Department captain. Kirk said the Police Department has received complaints about snowplow companies moving snow where it becomes problematic for someone else as well as reports of snowplow companies operating in the overnight hours. “They’ll push the snow out of the contracted owner’s driveway, but they’ve got to push it somewhere. Sometimes that might impact one of the neighbors,” Kirk said. He said the practice could lead to damage to a neighbor’s property. Kirk said in some of the cases someone hires a snow-removal crew and does not realize the workers move the snow onto a neighboring property. He said the Police Department typically resolves disputes by talking to the sides. In rare cases, enforcement action is taken, he said. Charges could include counts of trespassing or vandalism. Kirk said none of the recent cases escalated after the initial Police Department response. “Nobody wants to be a bad neighbor,” he said. The issues could continue over the next week as snow is expected to continue. The National Weather Service forecast on Tuesday called for the possibility of more than two feet of snow in Park City through Friday with the chance of snow lingering through Monday. “I was hoping for a medal, but I just came out to ski like I know how,” she said. The winner of the event, Kelly Sildaru of Estonia, is just 16, while Sigourney picked up the mantle of being the oldest competitor on the scene. Just last season, that wasn’t the case. “I’ve been competing with people who are older than me for last 10 years, and all of a sudden they are all gone and I’m the lone one left,” she said. But Sigourney is excited about the future of the sport, and for now, she still considers herself part of that progression. And may continue to be for some time to come. Though she’s had multiple knee and shoulder surgeries over her career, she’s healthy once again. “It’s all about how you feel,” she said. “And my body is feeling really good right now.” Her skiing is good. She’s having fun. Why stop? A good reason doesn’t come to her mind, so long as the sport is still bringing her joy and her body is up to the task of hurling out of the halfpipe and — more importantly — sticking the often-dicey landings that follow her multiple flips and twists. Sigourney said she will continue to pursue the top level of freeskiing indefinitely on a bi-yearly plan, stopping to check in on how she’s doing every other year to evaluate where she’s at physically and mentally. She’s not ruling out the possibility of competing at the Beijing Olympics — “It could definitely happen” — but that is a long time away in a sport with a risky, draining competitive season. Sigourney, who has trudged over enough peaks and through enough valleys in her career to know when it’s time to clip in and when to sit out, understands the time to call it quits could be lurking over the lip of any competition. But as Sigourney stood on the podium at PCMR Saturday, that was all just hypothetical. For now, it’s still medal season. safety equipment, including a beacon, probe and shovel. He added, “We need to have all the gear and we need to know how to use it in conjunction with each other.” The region will continue to experience an active weather pattern starting midweek, Gordon said. There may be a little bit of a break toward the end of the week. But, he said, avalanche danger may still be present as new snow falls. The snowpack will need time adjust to the additional weight of new snow. Oth- erwise it will remain particularly vulnerable to avalanches, Gordon said. “This is great that we are getting these storms and it doesn’t mean you can’t ride,” he said. “We just need to ride safely. It is a long season here and we can exercise a little bit of patience. Wait for it to settle out, gain strength and then you pull the trigger. Until we get to that point and the storms continue to evolve, we need to tone down our objective. The snow isn’t going to be as stoked as we are right now.” A Parkite wins bronze |