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Show Viewpoints The A-15 Park Record. Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, October 12-15, 2019 editorial Launch of new student club is a proud moment for South Summit A guest editorial Traffic is our real problem, and here’s how we can fix it MATTHEW LINDON Silver Springs Back in the ’80s we used to think that water would be the limiting factor of unimpeded growth in Park City, but we did too good a job of getting plenty of water here. Water flows towards money. Now it turns out that traffic is the real problem, the barometer of our quality of life, but you can’t buy your way out of traffic. Traffic is relative, depending on your acceptable level of service, and we are spoiled. We don’t know what real traffic is. Traffic in Utah means taking it out of cruise control. Like everyone out there I too have some personal, professional and practical solutions on what we can do to mitigate our town’s traffic; Park City should become No Park City. Sorry for this inconvenient truth but paid parking at the resorts, events and Main Street will get everyone in the buses and satellite parking lots, no matter where they hide them, and get us out of our individual cars. Use the parking revenues to cover costs for more buses and parking lots. No day-user or employee cars past Kimball or Quinn’s Junction. Make it like Zion National Park with everyone on The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER ....................... Andy Bernhard Editor ................................... Bubba Brown Staff Writers ......................Jay Hamburger Scott Iwasaki Alexander Cramer Ryan Kostecka Contributing ............................. Tom Clyde Writers Jay Meehan Teri Orr Amy Roberts Tom Kelly Joe Lair Copy Editor ............................ James Hoyt Engagement Editor............. Jeff Dempsey 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 Director of Digital Marketing ..Tina Wismer Production Director ..................Ben Olson the bus or a bike. Encourage e-bikes for all. Run free or cheap buses to Salt Lake City, Kamas and Heber. Connect the Richardson Flat Parking to S.R. 248. Use the existing roads we have. Making roads bigger does not solve much, it encourages more traffic. Get UDOT up here every day to connect, time, actuate and make the traffic lights state-of-the art, operating according to the ever-changing, real-time traffic patterns. Use the wide shoulders at Kimball’s and Quinn’s Junction for through traffic and turning movements, buses and emergencies. Stripe two exit lanes on the offramp from East I-80 to South U.S. 40. It was all striped that way during the Olympics and should continue because that is the traffic load we have now. We can’t afford the luxury of huge blank shoulders and empty middle turning dividers anymore. Use them for buses and/or cars. Ride your bike on the bike paths — it’s safer. Get rid of the empty sidewalks and planter boxes in the middle of the highways. Use moveable directional dividers. It’s a road. If you want flowers, go to the park. If S.R. 248 is going to be four lanes, so be it. Make it four lanes the entire length, but not five or seven lanes. Pinching it down to two lanes for short distances does nothing but clog up the four lanes we already have. Be consistent. When UDOT offered us a flyover intersection at Kimball Junction years ago we said “we were not fly over people” and now are stuck with a bad two dimensional solution. Denying the need to streamline S.R. 248 is like sticking our head in the same sand. Be real. Make Main Street one-way uphill with diagonal parking and Swede Alley downhill. Keep traffic out of the residential areas. Listen more to the residents. We live here too. Only allow one event per week in town. Including Sundance. Consider the locals. Respect the civil, social contract we have with each other while driving in our cars. Have patience with the tourists, they don’t know the roads and the roundabouts. No yelling. Pay attention everyone; no phones, no booze, no pets. Focus. Green means go. Red means stop. Yellow means slow. Hang up and drive. Practice 10 seconds of kindness, road rage is about power, not time. Take your time. For the record group of students at South Summit High School has an awful lot to be proud of this fall. That’s because they, with help from a few supportive adults in the community, have successfully launched the school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance. Mere weeks into its existence, the club, which is open to all students regardless of sexual or gender identity, already has more than a dozen members and is making its presence known in the school. Being willing to take a bold step like starting a GSA would be an intimidating task for anyone, much less teenagers already dealing with the myriad day-to-day challenges of adolescence. We applaud the students for their courage, and we urge their peers at the high school, as well as community members throughout the Kamas Valley, to enthusiastically support the effort. The mission of the club is simple: to provide a safe place for LGBT students at what can often be a challenging time in their lives. The evidence is clear that having access to such a resource is significant — and potentially life saving. A 2016 study, for instance, found that LGBT teens whose schools have GSAs are drastically less likely to be bullied. Other research draws a line between GSAs and decreased suicide rates for both gay and straight students. It’s encouraging that those involved with South Summit’s GSA say reaction to the club has been positive so far. That’s likely a reflection of the fact the Kamas Valley, like nearly everywhere else in the nation, continues to become more supportive of LGBT rights. But, also like nearly everywhere else in the nation — even left-leaning Park City — there is always room for progress. Hopefully, the club will become an accelerant for it. In addition to serving as a haven where teens can be themselves, the GSA’s visible presence on campus may bridge the gap between LGBT students and their peers and, ultimately, help transform the Kamas Valley into a place of acceptance for young people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. In 2019, that is something every community should be striving for. Getting there would be something to be proud of, indeed. guest editorial DABC should bottle up Smith’s request to serve beer on tap at Kimball Junction store BEV HARRISON Redstone Oct. 29 — The Park Record reports that’s the likely meeting date when state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control commissioners will vote on our local Smith’s store’s application for a tavern license. Smith’s officials floated this (absurd) request to commissioners at a public meeting held Oct. 1. They are proposing having beer available to shoppers from 10 a.m., yes before noon, until 11 p.m., yes, when many of us are in bed and only a few stragglers are buying groceries. Unlike the pub in Whole Foods where customers can buy beer, wine and food, in a space that’s big enough to relax in, Smith’s would sell beer only, no food, in a tavern area in the front corner of the store. They believe customers will be happy to sit and have one of 16 (low-alcohol) Utah beers during their trip to the grocery store. (How can there be 16 Utah beers?) Steve Sorensen, the vice president of real estate for the Smith’s chain, argues, “It’s nice to have Utah craft beers on tap and (a place) where they can fill their growlers and things of that nature.” I say, that would be at a bar, a restaurant, an event or at home. And, where did he come up with the word “growler” and what in the world is it? I must not be a serious beer drinker, although I drink beer, wine, gin and tonics, “and things of that nature” in places other than a grocery store. Anyone who shops at Smith’s, located at very busy Kimball Junction, knows this is a store with a huge selection of food, wonderful produce, seafood and meat departments and great prices. It attracts a crowd seven day a week. It’s a store frequented by parents and their kids, all of whom are likely to run into friends with whom to chat. As for visiting shoppers, look up and down the aisles and it’s easy to spot them by the look of confusion and even frenzy on their faces. I’m sure instead of having to hunt for food in the aisles of an unfamiliar store, they’d prefer to get outside and enjoy their awesome Park City vacation. ASAP. I believe the last thing on all shoppers’ minds is to sit and have a beer in the store. I would freak out if I saw a customer who has snuck out of the tavern drinking a beer as they shopped, especially before noon. As it is now, I look at Smith’s shoppers going about their business of buying food and figure, like me, most want to get in and out of there. ASAP. Generally, we prefer Park City outdoors. This is Utah for God’s sake. Serving folks beer in a grocery store located at the gateway to a resort town will get visitors’ hopes up that Utah’s unique and unreasonably strict liquor laws they’ve heard about have been declared illegal. Sorry. Seeing is believing. And when they see a beer-only “tavern” adjacent to the deli department, semi-hidden behind a 4-foot wall built so kids can’t look inside (unless they’re over 4 feet tall?), they’ll figure Utah’s unique and unreasonably strict liquor laws are still something they’ll have to deal with. We have a few weeks to make noise. DABC commissioners are looking forward to staff recommendations. Their minds are not set. If you oppose them issuing Smith’s a tavern license, please let them know at https:// abc.utah.gov/about/contact.html. Also, call Smith’s corporate office in Salt Lake at 1-800-444-8081 and voice your opposition. letters to the editor From protector to subjugator Editor: One of the best jazz ensembles I ever heard was simply called “The Big Band.” Its home was Aleppo, Syria, and it rocked the region when I lived and worked there in the early 2000s. You can understand why I use the past tense; it hasn’t existed for several years, but in its time it was the only such jazz group in the Arab world, and it was world class. It worked with many international artists. Many of its artists were Kurdish and it was generally thought of as a Kurdish entity. Not surprising, because it was talented, smart, progressive and out in front culturally. But you might also call it a refugee band, for the Kurds were, and still are, stateless people. This means that in the four countries where they live — Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran — they are essentially invisible people. They have never been allowed citizenship, passports, basic rights, freedom of travel, and so on. There are other such subjugated groups in the world with the same problem, with which we are more familiar. I knew many Kurds and they were never invisible to me. They were intelligent, fun, loyal and hardworking people, who wore their political rejection with quiet defiance. To know them is to completely understand why they have been the Fertile Crescent’s most effective fighters for decency, humanity and normalcy — all while being stateless and eyeing a dream that waxes and wanes. You would like them. So the United States’ impulsive abandonment of them makes me especially sad. Overnight we have made the switch from protector to just another subjugator. We seem to be in that habit lately. I know we don’t need another thing to be sad about, but there it is. Tom Horton Prospector Photos by Jeff Dempsey Asked at Library Field What is on your to-do list before the snow hits? Jack Thomas Park City “I need to get a roof on my newly constructed house. And I’d like to plan another getaway to a warm climate for a few days.” Liz Koshgerian West Chester, Pennsylvania. “We’re in town visiting family, but we still have things to do before the snow hits back home. The most important thing is to get all the kids their snow clothes and hope everything fits.” Sam Koshgerian West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Before it snows I need to eat candy, play video games and get in a workout. Oh, and get a phone.” Mardy Lovell Park City “I have so much to do. Cover outdoor furniture, get snow tires. … There’s not a lot of fun things to do during mud season. If I could I’d go south for a bit. But I’m stuck.” See these photos and more by following The Park Record on Facebook.com/parkrecord and Instagram.com/parkrecord |