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Show A-2 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, June 1-4, 2019 The Park Record 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. SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Summit County (home delivery): $56 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) 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. Same-day redelivery is possible if you call during the following hours: * Weekdays: 6:30–8 a.m. * Saturday: 7–8 a.m. * Sunday: 7–10:30 a.m. To request a vacation hold or change of address, please call 435–649–9014 or email: circulation@parkrecord.com Continued from A-1 Sundance slips slightly wanted to see and understand our sponsors,” she said. Also slightly down from 2018 was the festival’s statewide economic impact. The study, conducted by Salt Lake City-based research firm Y2 Analytics, tallied that figure at $182.5 million compared to $191.6 million the previous year. The 2019 festival accounted for roughly $18.6 million in state and local taxes and generated 3,052 jobs. Wallace attributed the slight decreases in attendance and economic impact to the festival being held later than usual in accordance with an agreement with Park City that prevents the festival from overlapping with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, a prime period for ski tourism. That meant the last weekend coincided with the first three days of the FIS World Championships and left the festival’s closing day to compete with the Super Bowl. Still, organizers were pleased with the overall figures. “It reemphasizes that the festival is a great driver of economic impact for the state of Utah,” Wallace said. According to the report, 64 percent of attendees were from Utah, which was in line with previous years. Californians, perhaps unsurprisingly, made up the largest group of non-Utah residents attending. Sundance-goers from within the state spent an average of $352 over the Continued from A-1 THE NEWSROOM To contact the newsroom, please call 435–649–9014 or email editor@parkrecord.com For display advertising, please call a sales representative at 435–649– 9014 or email val@parkrecord.com To place a classified ad, please call 435–649–9014 or email classads@parkrecord.com For questions about your bill, please call 435–649–9014 or email accounts@parkrecord.com The Park Record online is available at www.parkrecord.com and contains all of the news and feature stories in the latest edition plus breaking news updates. The Record’s website also hosts interactive entertainment, restaurant and lodging listings and multimedia features. Contents of The Park Record are Copyrighted 2015, Wasatch Mountain News Media Co. All rights reserved. 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 Fest traffic discussed cess-pass system that covered Old Town as well as the neighborhoods surrounding the competition venues at Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort. Officials posted checkpoints and access passes were needed to clear a checkpoint. The Old Town access passes during the Olympics, the most relevant to the current talks about Sundance, were needed from 8th Street south and from Park Avenue west, including streets like Daly Avenue and King Road on the southern reaches of Old Town. Main Street itself was closed to traffic during the Olympics in favor of a pedestrian-only celebration zone. The Olympic organizers, meanwhile, created giant temporary satellite parking lots on the outskirts of Park City and employed a large fleet of buses to shuttle people from the satellite lots to the venues, another crucial step in the efforts to reduce traffic inside Park City during the Games. The mayor and City Council at the Continued from A-1 Deal nears deadline is awaiting decisions from the other three. She said the organization raised the $10,000 needed to match a separate challenge grant within two days. “It’s really going to come down to a community effort,” she said. Utah Open Lands and Park City officials want to protect Snow Ranch Pasture for the scenic views toward Park City Mountain Resort and the wildlife habitat. A herd of elk and sandhill cranes have long been seen there. The 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 course of the festival, while the spending of non-residents reached $3,410, mostly on lodging, meals and entertainment. People aged 25 to 35 made up the largest age group of attendees at 28.9 percent. Wallace said the organization was excited at that figure because of the festival’s recent efforts to appeal to millennials, such as Sundance Ignite, a program aimed at the 18-to-25 age demographic. Wallace said another encouraging data point was the percent of attendees who said they either definitely or probably planned to return to Sundance in 2020: 92.8. That figure has remained high in recent years as the Sundance Institute has worked with Utah’s tourism arm to promote the festival and with officials in Park City and Summit County to ensure attendees have a positive experience, she said. Returners made up 63 percent of festival attendees in 2019, according to the study. “I think when people get here, they see clearly how beautiful it is, and we had a lucky little bit of snow and that probably helped, too,” she said. “It’s a full picture.” This was the third time Y2 Analytics has conducted the annual study. Sundance officials have said the firm’s methodology captures a fuller picture than earlier studies. Having access to more accurate numbers is critical as organizers plan for future festivals with an eye on making the operations run as smoothly as possible, Wallace said. “What it allows us to do is get a better sense of the size of the festival and how to manage it a little bit more consistently from all different aspects,” she said. “So I think it’s really important to have those kinds of numbers and be honest about them.” meeting on Wednesday were not prepared to discuss the idea in any detail. It seems likely they will return to the discussions later, and the elected officials may eventually focus on the opening weekend of Sundance rather than the full 11-day run. It is unclear whether there is an opportunity to implement such a dramatic new restriction on the roads for the film festival in 2020 since a system modeled after the one during the Olympics would require a significant amount of planning and public-relations efforts beyond the typically heavy workload required each year for Sundance. The comments about modeling Sundance traffic restrictions on the Olympics were made as City Hall and the various interest groups are struggling to craft a traffic and transportation plan for the festival that meets the desires of residents, Sundance, the festival-goers and transportation firms. There have long been concerns about the traffic crush overwhelming the roads during Sundance as film lovers, celebrity gawkers and an eclectic crew of others descend on Park City for one of the top film festivals on the global circuit. Steps have been taken like expanding transit opportunities and increasing parking prices — both seen as traffic-fighting measures — but the concerns have continued to mount as Sundance has grown. zoning underlying most of the Snow Ranch Pasture land would allow three lots on each acre. Utah Open Lands has calculated up to 48 houses are possible on the acreage should the conservation agreement not be finalized. The not-for-profit organization has said the conservation easement is valued at more than $16 million and the two branches of the Armstrong family have contributed a significant amount to the efforts by pricing the agreement at $6 million. Fisher has said for months Utah Open Lands encountered difficulty in the fundraising as some people in Park City were inaccurately under the impression the monies were secured as part of the successful $48 million ballot measure in November. “The strategy is really raise people’s awareness that this is not saved,” she said. “Every dollar is going to count on this one.” Brakes fail, forcing a truck onto safety ramp The Marsac Avenue incident continues series of mishaps JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record A dump truck’s brakes failed on Marsac Avenue between upper Deer Valley and Old Town on Thursday evening, forcing the driver onto the runaway-truck ramp, another in a series of problems on the steep stretch of road that dates back decades. The Park City Police Department said the driver told officers the brakes failed as the truck descended Marsac Avenue at approximately 6 p.m. The Police Department said an inspection conducted afterward determined four of the truck’s 10 brakes were deemed to be ineffective. The Police Department ordered the truck out of service based on the findings of the inspection. Phil Kirk, a police captain, said the driver, who is 36 and from Layton, received a citation for operating a vehicle without adequate brakes. Kirk said the truck was traveling at a high rate of speed at the time it reached the runaway-truck ramp. The driver brought the truck to a complete stop at a brake-check area toward the top of the steepest section of Marsac Avenue as he started the descent, the police said, an indication the brakes were functioning at that moment. Two heavy wreckers were summoned afterward to remove the dump truck from the runaway-truck ramp. A long cable was attached to the dump truck and one of the wreckers. The other wrecker, attached to the one with the cable, slowly moved forward with the other one as they pulled the dump truck, backwards, up the runaway-truck ramp in a process that appeared delicate even as it involved large, noisy vehicles. Nobody was injured in what was the most recent runaway-truck case on Marsac Avenue. The Marsac Avenue route between upper Deer Valley and Old Town is an especially steep stretch of road and has challenged truck driv- Continued from A-1 Trip has focus water and verdant, mountainous landscape often sit steps away from villages stricken with poverty. While the volunteers on any given Hope Alliance expedition come from many backgrounds and don’t necessarily need experience in health care, an ophthalmologist and optometrist will accompany the group in Central America to provide diagnoses and testing that, for many Lake Atitlàn residents, is too expensive. “There is eye care available for those that want to pay for it; or have the ability to,” Fuller said. “Most of the people we serve just don’t. They’re looking for their next nickel.” Another facet of the trip that requires a specialist is the fact that in rural Guatemala, a knowledge of Spanish isn’t necessarily a ticket to a smooth ride through conversation. The people who live around the lake are largely ethnic Mayans who may not have had access to the schooling necessary to learn Spanish and communicate in a modern dialect of their JAY HAMBURGER/PARK RECORD A dump truck was forced onto the runaway-truck ramp Thursday evening after the brakes failed on Marsac Avenue between upper Deer Valley and Old Town. Two heavy wreckers were summoned to remove the dump truck from the ramp. ers for years. There has been extensive development in upper Deer Valley — in places like Silver Lake Village and Empire Pass — that has necessitated significant construction traffic like dump trucks. There were a number of cases involving truck brakes failing, sending the vehicles careening down Marsac Avenue, prior to the construction of the runaway-truck ramp. The safety measure has been an important outlet, but the problems have continued nonetheless. One of the recent accidents, in September of 2018, left a scene of wreckage close to the Old Town roundabout after a runaway truck hit a pickup truck. The Police Department conducts regular truck inspections, including organizing stings, as part of a program designed to ensure the vehicles operating inside Park City are safe. One police officer in the agency is certified to conduct truck inspections and is assigned those duties regularly. culture’s ancient language. The people The Hope Alliance will serve are the descendants of one of the most resilient indigenous cultures still around today. Rural Mayans, the majority population in one of the poorest countries in the Americas, have weathered countless horrors since the Spanish Empire began its conquest of their ancestors’ civilization in the 16th century. During the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1960 to 1996, the U.S.-backed Guatemalan government carried out a genocide against the Maya that is estimated to have killed more than 200,000 people. And in 2005, as Americans continued to reel from the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Stan tore through Central America and killed thousands. Heavy rain caused deadly mudslides, one of which buried the lakeside village of Panabáj and hundreds of its residents. Still, Fuller said he has faith in the people of Guatemala to build a better future and sees plenty of potential in the country even as it’s faced with political corruption and violence that still plagues the region, noting the potential for agriculture and the persistence of its indigenous cultures. “I think it’s education; try to educate the kids, the smarter people grow up, the better opportunities there are for change down the road,” he said. “The people are wonderful.” |