OCR Text |
Show A-12 The Park Record Meetings and agendas Wed/Thurs/Fri, October 30-November 1, 2019 Core saMples TO PUBLISH YOUR PUBLIC NOTICES AND AGENDAS, PLEASE EMAIL CLASSIFIEDS@PARKRECORD.COM By Jay Meehan Ruggers, duffers and wideouts AGENDA SUMMIT COUNTY COUNCIL Wednesday, October 30, 2019 NOTICE is hereby given that the Summit County Council will meet in session Wednesday, October 30, 2019, at the Summit County Courthouse, 60 North Main Street, Coalville, UT 84017 (All times listed are general in nature, and are subject to change by the Council Chair) 11:30 AM – Some Council Members to attend the employee engagement party at Public Works Complex, 1755 S. Hoytsville Road, Coalville, UT 84017 (50 min) 12:20 PM – Travel to courthouse (10 min) 12:30 PM Closed Session – Litigation (60 min); Property acquisition (60 min) 2:30 PM - Move to Council Chambers 2:40 PM Work Session 1) Pledge of Allegiance 2) Budget Presentations: a. 2:45 PM - General Health programs; Rich Bullough (20 min) b. 3:05 PM - Behavioral Health; Aaron Newman (30 min) c. 3:35 PM - Environmental Health; Phil Bondurant (15 min) d. 3:50 PM - Solid waste, landfill enterprise; Tim Loveday (30 min) e. 4:20 PM - Sheriff, including law enforcement, corrections, dispatch, search & rescue; Justin Martinez (45 min) 5:05 PM Convene as the Board of Equalization 1) Discussion and possible approval of 2019 stipulations; Stephanie Larsen (15 min) Dismiss as the Board of Equalization 5:20 PM Consideration of Approval 1) Discussion and possible approval of Ordinance No. 903, an Ordinance Approving an Electric Utility Franchise Agreement Between Summit County and Rocky Mountain Power; Dave Thomas 2) Appoint member to serve on the North Summit Fire Service District (as recommended by Town of Henefer) 3) Council Comments 4) Manager Comments 6:00 PM Public Input Public hearing and possible approval of Resolution 2019-27, Eastern Summit County Constructive Notice for the Existence of an Agriculture Protection Area on Parcels NS-21-A (25.44 acres), NS-21-A-4 (9.23 acres) and NS-7-D (4.87 acres); Alan Siddoway, Applicant; Ray Milliner, County Planner One or more members of the County Council may attend by electronic means, including telephonically or by Skype. Such members may fully participate in the proceedings as if physically present. The anchor location for purposes of the electronic meeting is the Council Chambers and Conference room, Summit County Courthouse, 60 N. Main, Coalville, Utah Individuals with questions, comments, or needing special accommodations pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding this meeting may contact Annette Singleton at (435) 336-3025 BASIN OPEN SPACE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (BOSAC) MEETING NOTICE Public notice is hereby given that the Snyderville Basin Open Space Advisory Committee will meet in a regularly scheduled meeting at the time and location specificed below: DATE: Thursday, October 31, 2019 TIME: 8:30 AM LOCATION: BASIN RECREATION ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE 5715 TRAILSIDE DRIVE, PARK CITY, UT 84098 Over this past weekend, my “mirror neurons” ran amok. They were “selling the dummy,” hitting high-draws into the wind, and completing circus-catches in the red-zone. When all was said and done, trauma teams and disaster clean-up crews were having their way with what was left of my right cranial hemisphere. Which is to say, I spent most of my time with a TV gizmo following the Rugby World Cup, PGA Tour golf, and college football. Baseball, since the Dodgers recent post-season debacle, is currently standing in the corner wearing a dunce hat. What it will take for it to return to my good graces is anybody’s guess. Binging on the Rugby World Cup may not be pegging my dopamine flow to the extent that finding myself midway through an involuntary Shaun White Double-McTwist 1260 once did, but it bloody sure ain’t bad. Slamming into a hip-high Schwinn parked perpendicular to the touchline at a Mucker match will do that. By the way, no beer cups were injured during the recollection of that event. Pride, however, suffered a dislocation. Mates who witnessed the thrill-seeker routine didn’t cut much slack. Communicating via group chat with Park City Rugby Football Club founders Corky Foster and “Alamo Dave” Mueller, not to mention a cadre of analytical “ringers” brought in from afar for the occasion, kept us World Cup junkies in the moment. Sensing my inaccurate jargon, slang and/or parlance might call for a “yellow card,” I pretty much kept my own counsel. As with Howard Cosell, I never played the game. Within the jungle of “poolplay” and “knock-out-rounds,” however, jaws have dropped. The invincible New Zealand “All Blacks,” generally the mostskilled and, in many ways, the Goliath of the sport, found themselves on the short end of their Travel industry hedges bets on China 8:30 AM Public comment 8:45 AM EXECUTIVE SESSION: Property acquisition 9:45 AM Approval of August 26, 2019 minutes 9:50 AM Chair’s comments BANI SAPRA 9:55 AM Basin Recreation report to BOSAC Associated Press 10:00 AM Adjourn Pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, individuals needing special accommodations during this meeting should notify Jessica Kirby (435) 649-1564 ext. 26 prior to the meeting. Ski areas across the U.S. search for labor incentives LISA RATHKE Associated Press WARREN, Vt. — It used to be that a free ski pass was enough to lure workers to seasonal jobs at mountain resorts. No longer. In the current tight labor market, ski areas across the country are having a tough time filling jobs, so they’re upping the ante by boosting wages, providing more housing and offering other perks to fill those jobs before the snow flies. New Hampshire’s Wildcat is offering a $1,000 bonus for new snowmakers to come on board, and Sunday River in Maine last year increased its hourly wage from $13 to $20 for that job. Utah’s Snowbird is expanding its pool van service to get employees to the mountain, and Sugarbush in Vermont, which has among the lowest unemployment rates in the country, is hiring more foreign college students. “It’s an enormous challenge for us,” Dave Byrd of the National Ski Areas Association said of the labor issue. Because ski resorts are by their nature in mountainous areas, they are often far from cities from which to draw workers. And with the national unemployment rate recently hitting the lowest level in 50 years, potential workers would rather have full-time jobs with benefits, said Byrd, director of risk and regulatory affairs for the Colorado-based association. “We don’t have a lot of ski areas that are in close proximity to major metropolitan areas. And even when we do, like the ski areas in Salt Lake ... they’re still struggling to find people,” he said. The country’s roughly 460 ski resorts hire about 100,000 seasonal workers each fall, he said. Many rely on foreign guest workers for 5% to 10% of their labor, he said. “We are not able to fill 100% of the jobs we have available,” he said, adding that the J-1 visa program is critical for the ski industry. The program is intended to give foreign workers who can be scholars, teachers, camp counselors and au pairs training and experience in those fields in the United States. The ski industry uses about 8,000 J-1 visas, Byrd said. This year, Vermont’s Sugarbush is bringing on more than 100 foreign college students through the program because of the difficulty in filling jobs. A few years ago, it had no one on Sensing my inaccurate jargon, slang and/or parlance might call for a “yellow card,” I pretty much kept my own counsel. As with Howard Cosell, I never played the game.” Following his showing-up at the White House and allowing Trump to drape the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck, Tiger, initially, woke up in my doghouse. I even reserved a dunce-hat corner for him, but somehow, I couldn’t stay away. Neurosis appears to be my default position. But you knew that. An interesting bonus sidebar came out of having both the RWC and PGA in Japan at the same time. Someone, maybe at the network, recorded and posted online some private banter between Tiger and Rory. McIlroy filled Woods in on the current status of the World Cup and, dutifully, even answered a few follow-up international rugby questions. Then there were my University of Southern California Trojans who, playing the University of Colorado at Boulder, found a way to first dig themselves into a deep hole before, by the skin of their teeth, emerging triumphant for their first road victory of the season. The fact that they remain in control of the Pac-12 South, however, is rather misleading. Although they found a way to defeat Utah in LA, the Utes are fielding a much superior squad this year and, to win the South, the Trojans would more than likely have to win their four remaining conference games. Having Oregon, also a much superior squad, on the schedule for this coming Saturday in LA, further illustrates Southern Cal’s problems. Miracles do happen, however, and the possibility of celebrating the Trojans as Pac-12 South champs is not totally outside the realm of possibility. Of course, before this weekend’s no-doubt neurotransmitter-rich competitions are in the books, escape mechanisms for emerging from deep holes yet to be dug must be ironed out. There are wrinkles in time that the resident single-malts will no doubt have to deal with before all is said and done – or even inferred, for that matter. If you promise not to mention it to my mate Donovan, I’ll let you in on a secret. My favorite rugby side is whoever happens to be playing the English Rugby Union National Team at any given moment. One would think I would appear more magnanimous in my commentary concerning such a gentlemanly sport. Nah! By the way, what World Series? Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and has been an observer, participant, and chronicler of the Park City and Wasatch County social and political scenes for more than 40 years. Trade war impacts tourism AGENDA Free passes are no longer enough to lure employees match with England. Bloody shocking, it was. They will line up against Wales, who dropped a somewhat-brutal but elegant semifinal match to South Africa, for third place at 3:00 a.m. MST Friday morning. Twenty-four hours later, it’s England taking on South Africa for all the marbles. Actually, as far as my golf viewing over the weekend, it was basically condensed to watching Tiger Woods’ final round as he chased down Slammin’ Sammy Snead’s record of 82 PGA Tour wins. He did it and I gave it the ol’ fist-pump. Go figure. J-1 visas, spokesman John Bleh said by email. Sugarbush has also been increasing its employee housing over the past several years, according to Bleh. Housing can be scarce, expensive or both in the remote mountainous areas or resort towns, and online vacation rental services have added pressure to the market by gobbling up a chunk of the available property, Byrd said. The housing crunch makes it difficult to be a ski bum nowadays. “If you wanted to be ski bum and you want to take a gap year after you graduate college before you go on to getting a real job, that notion of the ski bum in the 1980s and 1990s, those are hard to find, those people, because housing is so enormously challenging for us in the industry,” Bryd said. And the free mountain pass that comes with the job is no longer enough of an incentive in the era of competitive pass programs that allow skiers and snowboarders to get a bargain without working at the resort, he said. On top of that, potential workers can now be choosy and opt for a year-round job with benefits. “When Home Depot and Target are paying $13 an hour, and the ski area 20 minutes out of town — they’ve got to match that,” Byrd said. “They’ve got to compete for that labor pool.” WASHINGTON — Washington, D.C., has dangled hotel discounts tied to the Chinese Lunar New Year. Arizona has promoted its outdoor attractions to draw visitors during another popular Chinese holiday. San Francisco has expanded its social media presence on Chinese apps to market year-round travel to millennial tourists. Across the country, the U.S. tourism industry is trying to counter one of the casualties of the trade war with China that is still raging despite a temporary truce this month: A drop in the flow of affluent Chinese visitors to the U.S. As the conflict has dragged on for 15 months with no meaningful breakthrough, the travel industry is trying to minimize the damage. It has good reason. An enlarged Chinese middle class has become a lucrative market for the U.S. travel industry. Close to 3 million Chinese tourists visited the U.S. last year. And they spent liberally: An estimated average of $6,700 per person per trip — exceeding the average spending of international tourists by more than 50% — according to the U.S. Travel Association. Concerns among U.S. tourism agencies have grown as Beijing has warned that Chinese travelers to the United States may face harassment. Compounding the problem is increased difficulty in obtaining U.S. visas. The number of visitors from China dropped nearly 4% in the first half of this year after a nearly 6% drop in 2018. More broadly, the U.S. share of the global travel market has slipped in the past year, and travel and hospitality groups blame the trade conflicts and intensified competition from rival countries. To close the gap, they’ve urged the government to extend funding for the U.S. national tourism marketing agency and to work more closely with overseas trade fairs and tour groups. At the same time, tourism marketing agencies for states and cities are hedging their bets by intensifying their outreach to countries other than China. Utah and Los Angeles, among others, are trying to expand their presence in nations like India, whose large and youthful middle class is seen as a potentially rich source of tourist dollars. Yet there is no easy way to replace a drop in Chinese tourism. Some U.S. tourism agencies say they worry that Chinese travelers feel unwelcome in the country under the Trump administration. Warnings from Beijing about traveling to the U.S. have likely reinforced that view. “With the trade war, with some of the travel warnings, with some of our visa challenges that we’ve had, we’ve seen a little bit of a dip in Chinese visitors,” said Theresa Belpulsi, a senior official at Destination DC, the city’s tourism marketing office. Tourism is one of the few industries where the U.S. has enjoyed a substantial advantage over China. In 2018, Chinese tourists traveling to the U.S. spent $30 billion more than American tourists visiting China did. Yet that edge may be shrinking. “The U.S. is just losing market share,” said Adam Sacks, president of consulting company Tourism Economics. “Something’s made the U.S. uncompetitive, and I would target the trade war as one of the reasons.” Larry Yu, a professor of hospitality management at George Washington University, warns that once impressions of an unwelcome environment take hold, they’re hard to erase. “The trade war creates a kind of environment in China that makes people think twice,” Yu said. “Even though we know that Chinese demand is high, the current environment makes people substitute the U.S. for another place.” Beijing has issued two warnings to would-be visitors to the United States — one about gun violence, the other about harassment by U.S. law enforcement. Visa approvals for Chinese visitors have meanwhile become more difficult. The rejection rate for Chinese tourist visa applications to the U.S. reached 17% in the 2018 fiscal year from a low of 8.5% in 2013. Some tourism companies are feeling squeezed. DFS Hawaii, which operates duty-free stores in Hawaiian airports, plans to shed a quarter of its workforce and has pointed to a drop-off in tourists from China and elsewhere in Asia as a reason. As of August, Chinese tourist visits to Hawaii are down 27% this year. “There is no foreseeable indication this will be reversed in the near term,” said Tim DeLessio of the DFS Group, parent company of DFS Hawaii. Even New York City, which enjoyed a surge in tourism this year thanks in part to the new Hudson Yards development and World Pride Day, has grown concerned about attracting Chinese visitors. “We can’t control the market conditions,” said Christopher Heywood of NYC & Company, the city’s official tourism marketing agency. “The geopolitics comes into play.” In the meantime, some U.S. competitors may gain an edge. The European Travel Commission, which says Europe welcomed 14 million Chinese last year, has joined with its Chinese counterparts at travel shows and partnered with Chinese celebrities to share videos and social media posts involving Europe. American tourism agencies say they’re seeking other potential sources of visitors in India and elsewhere. But Indian tourists are still less accustomed to traveling in the United States. “There’s a great deal of interest,” said Jamie Foley of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board. “But that comes with the understanding that India is very different from China.” Left with little choice, the U.S. travel industry is redoubling its efforts to engage with Chinese tourists while waiting out the trade war. “The trade war’s an important subject, but it’s seen as a temporary setback,” said Sage Brennan, co-founder of the consulting firm China Luxury Advisors. “Over the next 20 to 30 years, China is going to continue to impact and shape the tourism market.” Mindful of that likelihood, David O’Donnell of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that city has built a pipeline of projects to try to drive tourism from China. |