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Show REGION, A-14 C-1 B-1 RESTAURANT DISHES UP ECLECTIC OFFERINGS WHAT’S NEXT FOR A WORLD CUP WINNER? SHARE YOUR EVENT To add a listing to our events calendar, visit parkrecord.com/ event-submission-form COLUMNS, A-16 COLORADO EYES AVALANCHE SAFETY INNOVATION FOR TERI ORR, THE SEASON IS A TIME FOR KINDNESS Park Record. The PA R K C I T Y, U TA H W W W. PA R K R E C O R D . C O M Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, December 14-17, 2019 Serving Summit County since 1880 Basin Rec tax increase approved | Vol. 139 | No. 90 50¢ Fourth-generation farmer eyes futuristic changes amid industry upheaval $2.4 million will pay to maintain amenities, build new projects ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record After taking a week to further deliberate the proposal, the Summit County Council unanimously approved the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District’s property tax increase Wednesday, giving Basin Rec what it says are necessary funds to maintain its operations. The council also approved a $61.4 million 2020 county budget. That’s about $5.7 million more than last year and includes a handful of new or reorganized positions equaling five new full-time employees. The bulk of that increase — $2.9 million — comes from federal and state grants to the Summit County Health Department in the mental wellness and substance abuse divisions, finance officer Matt Leavitt has said. The county’s budget does not include any new taxes, though subsidiary groups like Mountain Regional Water and Basin Rec have increased their impact on taxpayers. Leavitt said the county is considering next raising taxes in 2021. Citizens at last week’s public hearing about the Basin Rec proposal decried yet another increase to their tax bills, though many supported the work done by the recreation district. Many suggested turning to user fees to raise revenue rather than a tax hike. District and elected officials, however, said it would be unlikely Basin Rec would be able to make significant amounts of money from new fees because of the cost of enforcing them. The increase will equal about $14.50 per $100,000 of taxable value on a primary home. It will add about $2.4 million to the district’s coffers annually and amounts to a 29% bump in the Basin Rec portion of a primary resident’s tax bill. Councilor Chris Robinson was absent but indicated after the vote he would have supported the measure. The council, convened as the governing board of the district, approved a measure that increases the allowable tax rate for one portion of Basin Rec’s tax impact. The vote essentially set a ceiling to how much revenue the district could raise, but didn’t set a specific rate. That won’t be finalized until June, and Councilor Kim Carson urged the district to find a way to lessen the increase. The council approved Basin Rec’s 2020 budget at the same meeting as they approved the maximum tax rate, and Carson pointed to $770,000 earmarked for future capital projects as a place the district could cut. That money would fund new projects like trailheads and trails and is distinct from a $630,000 allocation to replace current facilities, which Carson said she supports. Please see Tax hike, A-6 3 sections • 36 pages Classifieds .............................. C-7 Columns ............................... A-16 Crossword .............................. C-4 Editorial................................ A-17 Events Calendar ..................... C-6 Legals ..................................... C-9 Letters to the Editor ............. A-17 Restaurant Guide.................. A-15 Scene ...................................... C-1 Scoreboard ............................. B-5 Sports ..................................... B-1 Weather .................................. B-2 AT A The Browns’ farming timeline ALEXANDER CRAMER The Browns come to Utah in the 1870s. Over the next decades, they sell and fix farm equipment and machine parts under the name Brown Implement. CROSSROADS The Park Record TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD Mike Brown with his favorite cow Lisa. Brown is a fourth-generation East Side farmer who says he’s faced with the prospect of innovating or leaving to start over elsewhere. He envisions creating a learning center at his farm with an automated dairy-milking operation that would draw agritourists but says he needs some help to make the significant investment economically viable. M ike Brown sees a future for his East Side farm where families come to share an ice cream cone while looking at the cow that provided the milk to make it, robots clean up the manure and the cows milk themselves. And the fourth-generation farmer thinks he sees a way to get there. The Brown family owns about 300 acres of land between Coalville and Hoystville and has made a living off it for generations, but he says the farm is at a crossroads. “The current business plan that has worked for us for 50-plus years no longer works going forward,” he said. “It’s not sustainable.” Dairy farming has been central to the Browns’ livelihood since the mid-1950s, when they seized on an idea to revolutionize the industry by selling refrigerated tanks that changed how milk made its way from cow to grocery store. Soon after, they ramped up their dairy production, milking around 300 cows from their spot on Brown’s Lane and selling milk under the label Brown’s Summit Valley Dairy. For many years, the Browns had a small store on their property that sold farm-fresh milk and other drinks; they were famous for having the best skim and chocolate milk and cream that could be whipped faster than anyone else’s, Brown said. In the late 2000s, they sold the label to another farm, stopped processing on-site and closed the store. They continue to milk Early days Mid-1950s The Browns start manufacturing refrigerated dairy tanks, selling them across the West and ramping up their dairy production. Early 1960s The family constructs its present-day dairy operation, milking 300 cows and bottling on-site. 2000s TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD The Browns milk about 280 cows on their farm near Hoytsville. The family was once an industry leader in manufacturing refrigerated milk storage tanks, and Mike Brown is looking to innovate once again and change the way his dairy farm operates to focus on agritourism. around 280 cows and ship the product to a cheesemaker. With the dairy industry in decline and a 60-year-old farm, Brown is looking to innovate once again to create a different future for his four kids. The farm is on the market and Brown says he’ll sell to the highest bidder. He says he has three options: Get out of farming entirely, move elsewhere and start another agricultural operation or find a way to stay and reinvest in a different kind of dairy farm. That’s where the robots come in. The family sells its Brown’s Summit Valley label to another operation and stops processing on-site. The farm remains as one of the last large-scale dairy operations in Summit County, milking around 280 cows. Present day Mike Brown is at a crossroads. Faced with an aging farm and an unsustainable business model, he’s looking to agritourism and a pared-down, roboticized milking operation as a way of the future. Please see Farm, A-2 ‘Aspirational’ plan shows transit possibilities County officials laud proposal’s ideas but doubt their viability ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record One of the most intriguing aspects of the ambitious Olympic View development proposal for Kimball Junction is how it would affect transportation in the already-congested S.R. 224 corridor. The application included renderings that showed gondolas soaring over tree-lined shopping plazas, a pedestrian bridge over S.R. 224 and an underground transit center and bus rapid transit depot. The Snyderville Basin Planning Commission heard some details about the transportation plan at its meeting Tuesday, and developers portrayed their proposal as playing an integral role in transformative changes to come in the S.R. 224 corridor. But the extent to which those changes could happen remains unclear, as they would rely on a massive coordination effort and funding from other state, regional and possibly federal partners. Jim Charlier, a traffic planner hired by the developers, Dakota Pacific, told the commissioners the developers long ago settled on the strategy of sharing an “aspirational plan” to show what could be done, rather than strictly what they could provide. “We’re swinging for the fences,” he said. “A lot of other players are going to have to come to the table here.” He added that the development’s proposed location, near the Skullcandy Please see Plan, A-2 COURTESY OF DAKOTA PACIFIC REAL ESTATE A developer envisions land west of S.R. 224 in Kimball Junction, near the Park City Tech Center and Skullcandy, as a mixed-use neighborhood that could house up to 2,500 people. VISITOR GUIDE Head to the library for an evening of extremes The Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association will present a free screening of “Aspen Extreme” at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at the Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium, 1255 Park Ave. For information, visit parkcitylibrary.org. |