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Show A-18 The Park Record Meetings and agendas Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, September 14-17, 2019 More dogs on Main TO PUBLISH YOUR PUBLIC NOTICES AND AGENDAS, PLEASE EMAIL CLASSIFIEDS@PARKRECORD.COM SNYDERVILLE BASIN WATER RECLAMATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES FIELD TRIP September 16, 2019 **Silver Creek Water Reclamation Facility** **Meet at the District Office ** ** Wear closed toe shoes and appropriate outdoor attire** 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING AGENDA September 16, 2019 ** District Office** 5:00 p.m. I. CALL TO ORDER II. CONSENT AGENDA – Approval of Board Meeting Minutes for August 19, 2019 III. PUBLIC INPUT IV. APPROVAL OF EXPENDITURES – Bills in the Amount of $2,174,308.46 Including SCWRF Project Pay Request #41 for $267,357.49 V. SERVICE AWARDS – Joshua Surratt – 5 years VI. SUBDIVISION PROJECTS – LV6A Work Force Housing – 307.67 REs Estimated LEA REs Year to Date: # Above Splitter 0; # ECWRF 22; # SCWRF 340.33; Total 362.33 Proposed this Meeting: # Above Splitter 0; # ECWRF 307.67; # SCWRF 0; Total 307.67 VII. DISTRICT MANAGER A. Action Items – Consider approval of Resolution #139 – Election Cancellation B. Information Item 1. Financial Statement 2. Impact Fee Report VIII. A. B. C. D. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS Projects Operations Finance Governmental Matters IV. ADJOURN If you are planning to attend this public meeting and, due to a disability, require reasonable accommodation in understanding, participating in or attending the meeting, please notify the District twenty-four or more hours in advance of the meeting, and we will try to provide whatever assistance may be required. Board members may appear telephonically. Tribes oppose drilling plan BLM sells land near Hovenweep monument MORGAN SMITH Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY – The U.S. government will allow oil and gas companies to make lease bids Monday on lands considered archaeologically sensitive near a national monument stretching across the Utah-Colorado border that houses sacred tribal sites. Included in the Bureau of Land Management’s September oil and gas lease sale is about 47 square miles of land north of Hovenweep National Monument, a group of prehistoric villages overlooking a canyon with connections to several indigenous tribes throughout the U.S. Southwest. The parcels for lease are about five to 20 miles north of the monument. The sale comes amid an ongoing debate over drilling in states like Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, where a coalition of tribes are calling for a halt on energy development near land that Native Americans consider sacred. The Trump administration has pushed to open vast expanses of public lands to oil and gas drilling, speed up the construction of petroleum pipelines and ease federal environmental regulations, dismissing calls from scientists in and out of government that immediate cuts in oil, gas and coal emissions are required to stave off the worst of climate change. The plan was met with criticism from environmentalists and tribal organizations, who argued drilling on the high desert would damage the prehistoric structures and pollute the air. “When this oil and gas leasing happens on or near sacred lands, it risks de-stabilizing the bedrock Continued from A-16 Mountain Town ing going back to the 1990s, when it adopted a half-cent sales tax to finance affordable housing. Each year, it has had at least one project go forward. “It’s fair to say that they have had for many years a multi-faceted, comprehensive approach to community housing. They have done a whole lot of different things, all in combination, to produce a very effective program,” says Melanie Rees, an affordable housing consultant with broad expertise in mountain resort towns of the West. Last year it was a boarding house with 18 single-occupancy units and 14 double-occupancy units. The single-occupancy units are about 200 square feet in (of the structures),” said Ahjani Yepa, a member of Utah Dine Bikeyah, a Navajo grass-roots organization. “Hovenweep is in all of our stories, and to threaten the integrity of these structures jeopardizes everything we’ve carried forward as resilient people.” Environmentalists and local business owners have also expressed concern over the impacts on water resources in rural communities and tourism from outdoor recreation that helps local economies. Hovenweep was designated as an International Dark Sky Park in 2014 by the International DarkSky Association, recognized for its striking night skies and star-gazing opportunities. Southeast Utah is known for its sweeping desert landscapes and expansive night skies. The state has 11 internationally recognized “Dark Sky Parks,” the most of any state. Business owners in Bluff said the dark skies drive tourism to Hovenweep, and feared industrial light pollution, as well as the sounds and smells of energy development, could drive visitors away. Kathleen Sgamma of the oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance countered that the plans are far from the boundaries of the monument. “They’re making sure companies are operating in a responsible way while meeting the call from Congress to expand oil and gas development,” she said. Kimberly Finch, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman, said every lease includes a cultural resource protection requirement that allows the agency to modify plans if impacts to cultural resources can’t be avoided or minimized. As of Monday afternoon, Finch said there were no results to share and the sale would continue until at least Tuesday. The agency says in planning documents that companies should take steps to protect the environmental and cultural landscape of the area, including limiting the use of artificial light at drilling sites and protecting useable groundwater aquifers from drilling. Companies must obtain permits and go through environmental reviews before they begin construction or drilling. Some leases go years before drilling or expire before any activity occurs. Still, environmentalists and Native Americans invested in the land said such documents fail to address a larger trend of leasing increasingly more land on or near sensitive tribal landscapes. Parcels near Hovenweep were offered, then deferred, in a March BLM lease sale, and new documents for an upcoming December lease sale show more land will be up for grabs. Juana Charlie, a member of the Pueblo of Acoma, said it’s been difficult to negotiate with the BLM on cultural protections. “At least we have our little foot in the door, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten,” she said. “They argue these lands are abandoned, but they’re not, we use them in our prayers, we visit them . you wouldn’t like it if I went into your home, your land, and started digging.” The Bureau of Land Management would benefit from more community outreach and longterm planning to lease parcels on sensitive landscapes, said Erika Pollard, an associate director with the National Parks Conservation Association. But the new “energy-dominated era” she said we’re in has made public input on these processes harder. “When you drive by Hovenweep, it feels like you’re travelling back in time, having that landscape dotted with oil rigs and factories changes everything,” she said. “We have to think, ‘what legacy do we want to leave in Utah?”’ size. The complex has two shared cooking spaces. Telluride has also invested in three tiny houses, similar to those put into place at Basalt by the Aspen Skiing Co. as a temporary fix to the problems it has in recruiting employees. Geiger says 70 to 80 individuals have been housed in new affordable housing projects in the last year. Two more projects are going forward now, with occupancy expected by November. Together the projects will provide 26 units with one- to four-bedroom configurations. surrounding breasts and their sexualization. “Men’s breasts can be just as sexy as women’s breasts, or they can be quite un-sexy, and they’re still allowed to be in public, right?” she said. “So for me, that’s the whole reason behind it ... just to stir a little bit the beliefs of people, and their old way of thinking, and to break the stigma that breasts are sexual. It’s a big stigma to break, and that’s what we’re hoping to accomplish, and build up women’s equality in all areas of our lives.” But a resident from the Whistler area saw the flaunted nakedness as flawed. “It only serves to encourage sexualizing women and disrespect/disregard for their bodies and not in any regard makes them gender-equal to men as they claim,” wrote Gail McKellar in a letter published by Pique Newsmagazine. “Young teens/preteens are very vulnerable, especially young males and their expectations from the girls at school. ‘Hey, it must be OK because it was allowed publicly in Whistler.’” Breasts bared in Whistler, but to good or bad effect? WHISTLER, B.C. – On a recent Sunday afternoon, women wearing nothing above their waists marched from the Olympic Rings in Whistler Village to the base of the ski mountain. Their point? Denise Belisle, who has previously been involved in such displays of semi-nudity in Vancouver, says the purpose was to make a statement of empowerment, but also break the stigma By Tom Clyde Quinns Junction Park and Ride (or something) The first dusting of high-elevation snow has us all anticipating the change in season. That can only mean one thing: Gridlock on S.R. 248 is only a couple of months away. The City is on it, in their ponderous way, trying to figure out the solution to too many cars trying to get into town at the same time every morning. The County is helping out by approving additional high density housing at Silver Creek Village and now with the proposed 1,300 residential units at the Tech Park. Nothing will solve the traffic problem like increasing traffic. Last year the city hired an engineering company to study possible locations for a park and ride lot at Quinns Junction. There were three sites studied: The existing lot at Richardson Flat, and two UDOT-owned parcels on either side of 248, just east of U.S. 40. After burning $418,000, the consultant’s “Technical Memo” dated Aug. 7, 2019, came to the obvious conclusion that the UDOT property to the north of 248 was the best location (Surely this can’t be the full scope of work at that price). The southern UDOT parcel didn’t work at all because UDOT is planning to widen the off ramp and needs the property, and the rest of that site is a storm water detention pond. Richardson Flat won’t work because it’s out on Richardson Flat. It’s already there and we know it doesn’t work. You can’t get there from anywhere. The access is terrible, circuitous, and hard to find. When you get there, the parking lot itself is surrounded by mine waste. The only question about the Richardson Flat lot is why they built it in the first place. There are other options that weren’t studied. They could use the existing traffic light at Round Valley Drive, and build the parking lot on either side of 248 at that point. The dog park could be moved, or the place where they dump the snow that gets trucked out of town could be relocated — there’s a use for Richardson Flat. But those sites weren’t considered. The dog park is holy ground around here. So the consultant recommended the patch of ground between Highway 40 and the Frontage Road to the east. I’m going to stick my neck out and bet that bikes aren’t the answer.” That site works pretty well. It has utilities available in the street in front of it. Access is good, though not perfect. There’s already a chaotic traffic scramble there as people position themselves to turn onto the frontage road, get to the right lane for turning onto northbound Highway 40, or figure out which of the two lanes on 248 has the fewest dump trucks in it. It would take some work to deal with an additional flow of cross-traffic on 248 as people coming from Heber try to access the parking lot. I smell another roundabout. The Technical Memo is long on the “park” part of “park and ride” and very short on the “ride” part of it. Nobody is saying exactly how we get from our remotely parked cars to our destinations in town. It’s not even clear who the intended users would be. Is this for commuters, day skiers, or special event people? The needs of each are a little different. There’s a lot of emphasis in the report on the linkage to the Rail Trail, and there is a bike share facility shown on the plan. The assumption seems to be that we will park there and, in the peak winter season, ride an electric bike into town, with our skis, boots, and whatever else dangling. That ought to make traffic flow on Deer Valley Drive interesting. The consultant frets about getting bikes safely across the Frontage Road to connect to the Rail Trail, and proposes a $250,000 bridge. Then the report completely ignores the existing, life threatening Rail Trail crossing of 248, which would be part of the route into town. I’m going to stick my neck out and bet that bikes aren’t the answer. There’s also a place for Uber/ Lyft pick up and drop off. You would park your car and get into somebody else’s car (which will be doing laps all morning) to shuttle into town. It may save a parking place in town, but it actually increases traffic. So would autonomous vehicles doing laps. The report suggests that people will meet up at the remote lot and carpool into town. That could happen, especially if it cost $20 to park at the ski areas. What the report doesn’t address is what level of bus service would be necessary to make this a viable option, what it would cost, and whether the City or the ski resorts should pay for that bus service. I’m the target user of this system. $418,000 later, I still have no clear depiction of how it would work. 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 By Teri Orr Faith in the fall... From one of the few Jimmy Webb songs that wasn’t completely cheesy and/or crazy (see “MacArthur Park”), I have been whispering to myself lyrics as I have tossed all week ... “the moon is a harsh mistress.” Make of this what you will ... sleep has evaded me — large parts/most nights. The full, super-bright moon starts on one side of my home early in the evening when I am in the kitchen. Somewhere in the middle of the night it is fully in my bedroom. Sure I have drapes but I almost never pull them. I want to feel the rhythms of the day ... and night ... most of the time. That moon startles me awake in my mid-September dream cycle and I am disoriented in the safety of my bed. Returning to sleep requires intervention most nights — gentle music, warm tea, scribbling on a big yellow legal pad where I rarely stay in/ on the lines. Rarely staying in the lines could be a personal T-shirt or a pillow I could cross stitch — there was a time I was far more adept with a needle than a pen. It was the same time I was looking for God in all the wrong places — like in churches with altars and men chanting and waving incense. Years later the smoke would come from sage — the light from candles — and the sound from the crackle of a fire. Park City was a wild town in the ’90s. We were desperately trying to find our center. The churches left the city limits and moved to the county — along what we affectionately named the Highway to Heaven. From the Catholic church to the Jewish temple to the Methodists to the Lutherans — the Episcopalians to the no name group — the churches all left The City. This was during a period when drug culture grew. In one year alone — there were three drug-related murders — though two of them were thought for decades to be “accidental drownings.” Looking back it was kinda wild — the crazier the town got — the more folks wanted to worship ... something. The Community/Methodist church had a maverick minister whose sermons had thin or nonexistent threads to direct bible teachings. I remember one such delivery talked about a hole we all try to fill at different times in our lives. Mark, our minister, was pretty direct in our large new church with the giant picture windows. We had affectionately dubbed it the Church of Ralph Lauren. He talked about all the things we tried to stuff into our hole of longing to make us complete. And he had a pretty accurate list for our community. He talked about trying to fill it with designer shoes, an affair, a new couch, cocaine — he knew his congregants well. But the point he was making — in both an accurate and exaggerated manner — was the shape that exactly matched the shape of the hole was a relationship with God. The hard work of seeing God is looking at those faces we are inclined to turn away from.” Connecting with the divine has been an illusive goal of all creatures since the beginning of beginnings. All religions have origin stories. We have used those stories to admit — as mortals — we owe our existence and grace to powers just beyond our human ability to name them and see them. Recently someone — agnostic by self-proclamation — told me he thought he was Jewish. “I mean my father was Jewish so I guess that makes me Jewish.” And I laughed because in theory — all Christians start out Jews. Jesus was hailed — King of the Jews. How we trace our religious lineage has always been a curiosity. And after a lifetime of trying on different religions — largely but not exclusively of the Christian faith — I landed on a belief system that works for me. And it looks something like this ... it doesn’t matter who or what you worship so long as you admit that there is grace and love and judgment and fairness and mercy we cannot name exactly except to admit it is beyond mortal explanation — it is divine. And that that divinity is both male and female and something that is a third iteration of sexuality or lack thereof. The old man with a white beard on the throne — stuff of bad cartoons and da Vinci paintings isn’t my image of God anymore. The face of God is a small child covered in dirt who is trying to make it across the river border. The bystander covered in blood who was standing right next to the person shot up on a Saturday night at a bar in Dayton. The face with the tired eyes and windswept hair on a raft trying to cross waters in the Middle East to just take the family to a safe shore. The face of the woman claiming her child lost to an opioid overdose. God looks like that. For me, God doesn’t live in a church or synagogue or a mosque who needs a weekly visit to lit candles — though gathering together does often call the presence into a room. The hard work of seeing God is looking at those faces we are inclined to turn away from. In the Christian tradition there are two times writ large — Christmas and Easter. The birth and the death/resurrection. In the weeks before there is time to prepare — advent and Holy Week. In the Jewish religion we are on approach right now to the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And while I don’t in any way pretend to understand the nuances of Judaism — here’s a piece I adopted/adapted for my own life — the clean new unwritten book. If I understand it right, God takes the time to do a kind of review of each life to decide if they should be given another year entered in The Book. There is time to atone, forgive and reflect. For more than half my life I have chosen to observe the fall as a time to try and reflect — and pray in my own ways I have another year to right my wrongs, try to live a life of service and find those meaningful ways to fill my personal god-shaped hole. I have learned I can do this work any day but I try making time most Sundays 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. |