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Show Viewpoints The A-11 Park Record. Wed/Thurs/Fri, February 27-March 1, 2019 editorial Stop, and stay, on red: Stoplight bill would make roads less safe O guest editorial Help People’s Health Clinic help the area’s uninsured BETH ARMSTRONG People’s Health Clinic executive director People’s Health Clinic (PHC) started 20 years ago as an ambitious dream ... to provide health care to anyone in Summit or Wasatch counties without health insurance. A mobile van initially provided care from area parking lots but as demand grew, rental space throughout Park City was used as a base of clinic operations. Twenty years after embarking on this noble vision, People’s Health Clinic has a permanent home alongside the Summit County Health Department. This transformation is due largely to the kindness and generosity of the community. The numbers are astounding. During the first year of operation, the mobile van hosted 706 patients. In 2018, the clinic recorded 9,800 patient visits, a staggering increase. Equally impressive is the number of volunteers who give their time to PHC. Last year over 6,200 hours were recorded by medical providers, midwives, phlebotomists, translators, fundraisers and clerical staff. That compassion to keep community members healthy and strong has kept clinic operating costs from going through the roof. Locals and visitors alike are often dumbfounded by the need for a clinic that treats the uninsured. Isn’t this a ski resort town? Aren’t we one of the wealthiest areas in the state? Doesn’t everyone have health insurance? What people don’t realize is a big gap exists for individuals who don’t have insurance. Many work 30 hours or less and are not offered coverage. Others make too much to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to afford insurance in the marketplace. These individuals are the people who keep our beautiful resort town so beautiful. They are the landscapers, musicians, restaurant workers, Realtors, housekeepers and construction workers. It’s this workforce that keeps Summit and Wasatch counties desirable. They get sick like everyone else and deserve health care like everyone else. More than 50 percent of our support comes from local residents who donate to People’s Health Clinic because people care. That is why I wanted to tell you about the upcoming KPCW Winter Pledge drive on March 4-7. We need your help. Please support us by calling during our on-air hour on March 4 at 7 a.m. If you would like, you can let us know prior to that morning what your pledge is and it will count! Help us kick off the week and make a big difference for the people who really need it! Remember, every dollar counts toward our challenge. Call People’s Health Clinic with any donation during KPCW’s Winter Pledge on March 4 from 7 to 8 a.m. at 435-6499004 or you can call the clinic to prepledge at 435-333-1875! Thank you. letters to the editor Inspiration abounds A niche for Utah brewers Editor: Dear Mayor Andy Beerman and Park City Council, Thank you for focusing on community successes and my individual power to be a loving steward of my environment and helping my neighbors in need. Tolstoy intelligently noted, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” I only have the ability to change me. I cannot change others, that is up to each individual. It is the things that I do every day that make a bigger difference. I appreciate the inspiration from the city, from my neighbor that bikes everywhere, every day, every season and would never think of telling anyone to bike, she just does it and from my neighbor that always looks for ways to be helpful stealthily and takes action without ever a thought of acknowledgment, accomplishing more inspiration this way. Truman said, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets credit” Editor: May I offer an alternative take to the Park Record editorial supporting making full-strength beer easily available? If the few states that have 3.2 percent as their standard presently move to 4.8 percent, we may see national/international brewers quit making 3.2 percent beer for small areas like Utah. This is a fine outcome, actually even better than fine. Should this occur, we all get to increase our support for existing and new local brewers. We end up with interesting brewing companies with local employees and owners supporting our state. Our country is overwhelmingly commercially homogeneous. Homogeneity is dull. Making the Utah beer market unique will help make our state more interesting. Creating a niche for Utah brewers to thrive is worth making national brands slightly more inconvenient to purchase. Let’s make Utah a little more unique by sticking with 3.2 percent and thereby encouraging national brands to focus their efforts elsewhere. Signing off, but heading to the refrigerator for a Bohemian Pilsner. Allison Florance Park City The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER ....................... Andy Bernhard Editor ................................... Bubba Brown Staff Writers ......................Jay Hamburger Scott Iwasaki Angelique McNaughton Ben Ramsey Carolyn Webber Alder Contributing ............................. Tom Clyde Writers Jay Meehan Teri Orr Amy Roberts Tom Kelly Joe Lair Copy Editor ............................ James Hoyt Engagement Editor..Christopher Samuels Photographer .........................Tanzi Propst Circulation Manager ............. Lacy Brundy Accounting Manager ......... Jennifer Snow ADVERTISING Advertising Director ........... Valerie Spung Advertising Sales ................... Jodi Hecker Erin Donnelly Lindsay Lane Sharon Bush Events Manager Julie Bernhard Production Director ..................Ben Olson Production ........................Chelsea Babbitt John Fry Park City Make the world a little greener Editor: Recently, we have been trying to make our school more environmentally friendly in various different ways. But, we decided that we also wanted to reach beyond our school and help this entire county become a more environmentally friendly place to live. So, on Wednesday, Feb. 13, with the help of Mary Closser from Recycle Utah, we were able to speak about the plastic bag ban that we would like to enforce at a council meeting. We proposed to spread the ban that is enforced in parts of Park City to all of Summit County. Currently, the ban only covers distributing single-use plastic bags from local stores such as Fresh Market and the Park City Market. Our plan would be to include larger stores in Summit County, like Smiths, and Walmart, and eventually we would like to spread the ban to stores in Kamas and Coalville. Currently, the plastic bag ban in Park City only applies to certain stores and types of plastic bags. n Monday, the Utah House of Representatives gave the green light to a bill that would allow drivers to head through red lights if no other vehicles are approaching. Lawmakers would have been wiser, though, to pump the brakes on the legislation. H.B. 151, sponsored by West Jordan Republican Rep. Ken Ivory, aims to solve a problem most drivers in Utah have likely encountered — waiting alone at an intersection for a red light that is taking way longer than it should to change. Ivory’s proposal would make it legal for vehicles to proceed through red lights after 90 seconds if no other drivers are approaching and there are no other hazards present. But in attempting to eliminate what amounts to a minor inconvenience, the bill is destined instead to make Utah’s roads more hazardous. The included provisions aimed at safety are thin — especially in a place like Park City. S.R. 224, one of two main entryways into the city, is a prime example. The speed limit is 55 mph for long stretches — drivers frequently go 5 or 10 mph over — and the road is dotted with stoplights. Given the speeds involved, it’s easy to imagine a driver failing to see cross traffic and heading through a red light when they shouldn’t. The thought of drivers pulling the maneuver in the dark or when visibility is poor due to weather is even more unsettling. And that’s to say nothing of the increased risk for bikers, who are not always easy to see. Such concern wouldn’t be necessary in a world in which drivers never make mistakes. Alas, anyone who’s driven in Utah knows that’s not the case. The reality is that the bill would invite drivers to make irresponsible decisions that could end in serious injury or even death. Many local officials seem to think so, too. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office and County Courthouse staffers have expressed significant misgivings about the safety implications of the bill. Janna Young, deputy county manager, went so far as to say there are some intersections in the county that wouldn’t be safe under any circumstances for a driver to go through a red light. Making it legal for them to do so, all in the name of getting rid of an occasional frustration, is ill-advised. Hopefully Utah’s state senators will understand that when they take up the legislation. Hopefully they’ll ensure the bill doesn’t become one more thing drivers have to worry about on Utah’s roads. guest editorial Unlike other health professions, we still treat mental health like a rescue mission KAREN CHRISTIAN, M.D. Park City Are we living in an era of enlightenment about mental health — or are we fooling ourselves? We might have to answer in the negative when we consider the progress other health professions have made. Unlike most other health fields, we are usually in crisis when we contact a mental health professional. Yet, many mental health risks provide ample warning: 50 percent of all lifetime mental health disorders start by age 14. The average diagnosis of a mental health disorder usually occurs 10 years or more after the onset of first symptoms. Why is mental health treatment nearly always a rescue operation? Medical and dental wellness are well-integrated into professional practice and insurance policies. Early detection through routine checkups is a cornerstone of cancer medicine. A routine blood test is chock full of checkpoints for early detection of disease. The six-month dental checkup is an icon of American culture. Why is mental health missing the wellness boat? Most people think of going to a mental health professional only when things get “really bad.” One of the main fallacies about mental health is that only negative events cause risk. Another is that we should be able to cure ourselves. Despite major contrary evidence, people and institutions still tend to believe these things, and attitude change is happening slowly. Life is a roller coaster of positive and negative changes, all of which cause stress: children are born, children grow up and leave home, parents get older and sometimes ill, friends move and new friends arrive, jobs are lost and found, bank accounts rise and fall. The concept of a periodic “men- tal health checkup” is a powerful recognition that mental health issues are unpredictable, often escalate slowly, and need professional expertise. Checking in with a mental health professional once a year, even if nothing is “wrong,” is a way to gain new coping strategies, identify coping strategies that no longer work well, and prevent the suffering that mental illness entails. Regular screening would also help identify periods when we are “stuck” and don’t understand why, would help set goals and keep us moving forward in our sense of ourselves and our happiness. Insurance may not pay for this service currently, but remember that insurance in the not-too-distant past did not pay for physical therapy, chiropractic treatments or acupuncture for example. Patients saw value in these treatments, paid out-of-pocket for the services and over time the insurance companies came to see the benefit of preventing problems rather paying for them later. There have been small advances in establishing a mental health checkup practice. Some physicians and networks use the PHQ-2 and PHQ-9 self-administered depression screenings. The Medicaid Early and Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment Law and The Mental Health in Schools Act of 2015 include screening, early identification and treatment for young people, but these received limited state adoption and are currently the target of cutbacks. Bottom-up demand from patients seems to be more effective than government action in establishing medical convention. My recommendation to readers: If you’ve had helpful treatment from a mental health specialist in the past, check with them about the possibility of doing periodic checkups, whether covered by insurance or not. If you’ve never had treatment, ask for a referral from your physician or health network to a professional, and have the same discussion. The Park record Pulse Here’s a sampling of the conversation readers are having on our Facebook page. To visit the page, go to Facebook.com/parkrecord/. Having moved here from Ohio, I think Utah liquor laws are ridiculous. I do think eventually it is going to hurt Park City. It’s all about education!” Kim Miller-Clifton, on “Dining club license removal proves to be buzzkill for Park City restaurants” If that were my teenager, I’d want him to have to do community service. Most teenagers will make some stupid choices along the way, that’s a fact of life... but so should be consequences.” Christy Seaberg Rothkopf, on “Park City driver steers Jeep onto cross-country track, becomes stuck” The parents of this teenager should make a large donation to Mountain Trails to cover the cost of repairing the track, plus some. Then make the kid get a job to pay them back.” Nikki Norton Nelmark, on “Park City driver steers Jeep onto cross-country track, becomes stuck” Truly sad. Restaurants we used to go to as a family when we were in town, we can no longer enjoy. I hope this changes in the future.” Karen Gallucci Shabel, on “Dining club license removal proves to be buzzkill for Park City restaurants” How about we teach people to use roundabouts correctly first.” Charlotte Cass, on “Summit County Sheriff’s Office leery of bill that would allow drivers to go through red lights” The stores must, firstly, operate year round as a full line, self-service market offering staple foods, meats, produce, or other perishable items, and secondly, must be over 12,000 square feet, and plastic bags that are included in the ban are less than 2.25 millimeters thick and contain cadmium or any other heavy metal in toxic amounts. We hope we can make this ban available to all kinds of stores and restaurants, and make our world a little greener. Sonja Preston, Dax Marshall and Shiva Minter McPolin Elementary School fifth-graders Crony capitalism Editor: Why is there such controversy over energy choices when we’ve got this wonderful system called capitalism? Capitalism performs a vital service to humanity. It takes a miasma of human emotions and the reality before us and converts it into dollars, whereupon otherwise intractable problems that we only bicker about and get nowhere become more manageable. Capitalism is wonderful. But remember, capitalism is only as good as its accountants are honest. When capitalism makes a mess, it’s almost always The Park Record attained permission to publish these comments. because costs get swept under the rug. The fact that we today, right now, are saddling our children with the ruinous costs of our greenhouse gas emissions is not capitalism, but crony capitalism designed to keep greenhouse gas emissions costs off the books. There is a growing consensus among conservatives and progressives that we need a way to price carbon emissions into the public reservoir, our atmosphere. That’s why I support H.B. 304, which Rep. Joel K. Briscoe has introduced into our Utah Legislature. Charles Ashurst Logan |