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Show Viewpoints The A-19 Park Record. Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, January 18-21, 2020 editorial In a divided America, legacy of MLK continues to light the way T guest editorial We could pay a living wage. Or replace our workers with robots. JEAN MARIE HACKETT Park City It is melancholy to be driving into Park City (because you never take the bus) in a snow-tire-clad Porsche SUV mired in traffic caused by employees commuting to work for you — at our ski mountains, hotels and restaurants — because they simply cannot afford to live in this town they keep running. Then after struggling for parking (woe indeed!) and skiing all day only to come home to news of the troubles of these traffic makers — the lack of affordable housing, social inclusion and resultant worker shortages... I shall now therefore humbly propose my own solution, which I hope will not meet objection: robots. Human jobs in the service sector are being replaced by robots and apps. So I wondered: Why aren’t we solving all of Park City’s workforce woes (lack of affordable housing, multiple jobs to make do (ish), people stuffed into one room for living, employee shortages, etc.) the same way? Clearly, a ski pass, three jobs and the STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE are not enough to make the people who keep this town running happy. No! They want a home and to be able to eat and sleep and live! These problems are the direct cause of the people who make our lives possible but can’t afford to live here. What guy wouldn’t dig skiing with the likes of R2-D2 and C-3PO? What could be safer than riding a chairlift high in the The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER ....................... Andy Bernhard Editor ................................... Bubba Brown Staff Writers ......................Jay Hamburger Scott Iwasaki Alexander Cramer Ryan Kostecka Contributing ............................. Tom Clyde Writers Teri Orr Amy Roberts Tom Kelly Joe Lair Copy Editor ............................ James Hoyt Engagement Editor............. Jeff Dempsey Photographer .........................Tanzi Propst Circulation Manager ............. Lacy Brundy Distribution........................... Henry Knight Accounting Manager ......... Jennifer Snow ADVERTISING Advertising Director ........... Valerie Spung Advertising Sales ................... Jodi Hecker Lindsay Lane Sharon Bush Emma Fedorowich Director of Digital Marketing .. Tina Wismer Production Director ..................Ben Olson Production ......................... Louise Mohorn air over cliffs and snow-making lakes in high winds knowing a mere inanimate battery-run robot is in charge? So what if they short circuit in the snow. Robots are great with kids! They’d love a robot ski instructor. Sure, I saw a robot liftie try to assist a dummy child and, in so doing, impale the dummy child with his metal robot arm. It’s a coding fix (I hope?). We can work these kinks out more easily than, say, paying the people who work for us more, like an adequate wage, and getting them affordable housing in this town. Right? For your apres ski, look to a robot! So the bot strictly keeps to that dismal Utah pour — it’s a trade off in order to enjoy less traffic and yammering about people working multiple jobs just to barely scrape by and being unable to afford a home and working this shift right into another and other concerns of human beings who literally make your amazing life possible. We could treat them as valuable members of the community (because they are) and PAY them FOR IT: “If the federal minimum wage in 1968 had kept up with inflation and productivity, it would now be $22 an hour. Instead it’s $7.25,” according to a piece in the New York Times’ opinion section. So the biggest employers of this town (ski resorts, local governments, school districts, hotel and tourism) maybe don’t pay people enough. Don’t be silly. Robots don’t need a home! Stack them in an abandoned mine after their shifts to charge or whatever robots do. Health insurance? Some kids coding for extra credit should do the trick. Food? Electricity: If we can light up Woodward for alien life to see, surely we can charge some robots to keep the snow machines, lifts, ski school, restaurants, bars, hotels, coffee shops, ski rental stores and tourist venues running, right? All these problems being suffered by this town — at the hands of smiling human beings who work for us but can’t afford to live among us. Replace the 99 people problems with robots. What else to do? Work on more affordable housing and pay people more, like a living wage, because they deserve it? Don’t be idiotic. I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have no personal interest in endeavoring to replace the humans I love who make this town great with robots, having no other motive than the good of this town by giving some relief to those who can afford to live here (or at least a second home that they rent out for gazillions during Sundance or whatever). Robots. Think about it (along with a monorail and/or teleportation). P.S.: I don’t know anything about robots. Can they ski? For the record he Selma marches. The Montgomery bus boycott. The Birmingham protests. They are seminal moments that shaped America but ones that, to the younger generations, can sometimes seem as distant as the Civil War era. For people under a certain age, the stories live only in the pages of history books. Likewise, it can be easy for people who didn’t experience the civil rights movement to think of Martin Luther King Jr. as a momentous figure from long ago whose triumphs and struggles had little in common with the realities of American life entering the third decade of the 21st century. But it was only 56 years ago that he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke of the dream he held for his fractured nation’s future. And as we mark his life this weekend, we owe it to him and the other civil rights heroes of his time to ensure his legacy does not merely fade into history. In the time since King’s death, America has dramatically changed. In some ways, we have even fulfilled many of the hopes he laid out in his famous speech. We must recognize, though, how much further we have to go and understand that the struggles of King’s era continue today. More than 150 years since Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and a half-century after Brown v. Board of Education desegregated public schools, our nation remains divided by race. Minorities are still victimized by police brutality. Av- erage incomes for people of color are still significantly lower than that of their white neighbors. In many parts of the country, communities are still partitioned by de facto segregation. We have even regressed in the last few years. In 2019, a Pew Research Center poll found that 58% of U.S. adults — including 71% of black people — classified race relations in America as “generally bad.” In the same poll, 65% of adults said it has become more common since 2016 for people to express racist or racially insensitive views. It is clear now that the optimism many of us held when our first black president took office, the hope that we were entering a post-racial America, was premature, if not altogether naive. While Barack Obama’s presidency marked a milestone in American history, overcoming centuries of history was never that simple. Confronting that reality does not mean there is no hope, however. It simply means the fight — the same one King led a half-century ago — is not over. And it means we need heroes to step up, like they always have in American history, and breathe life into the ideals King championed. His example is a towering one, of leadership and conviction and an unyielding commitment to the promise of progress. Let us do our best to follow it, even when, as it did in his era, the dream of a nation where all are truly equal seems distant. letters to the editor Bright thinkers are needed We’re at a climate crossroads It took me 1 1/2 hours to go from the post office on Park Avenue to the theaters on Kearns Boulevard. I sat through seven lights at the turn lane from Park Avenue to Kearns to make a left. Time for the brains who run the Utah Department of Transportation and Park City to make a change. It was 40 minutes from U.S. 40 to Park Avenue today. This was a mining town with very smart builders and engineers. They could build a 3-mile tunnel from the Ontario to Keetley (for newbies that’s under the Jordanelle Reservoir now) so straight and true you could see the light from the tunnel opening 3 miles away. They did it with picks, shovels and a bit of blasting. Why can’t a tunnel be put through the mountain coming into Park City on S.R. 248 to make the more lanes? No one wants to touch the wetlands so there is the solution. Or try this (and they do this in other places in the country): have two lanes going out in the evening and two coming in during the morning rush. There is the yellow lane that could be turned into a traffic lane each way. Takes a guy with a cone to block things off twice a day. Maybe a police car. We have those stashed an certain intersections now. We pride ourselves on being careful with the environment. All those cars sitting forever trying to get home certainly is not benefiting anyone or any thing. Some of us need our cars at work, so the bus is not an option. Come on guys! This is a mess! Get to work. Leave those out who had the flower pots in the middle of S.R. 248 coming in and Bonanza going south a while ago. We need better thinkers than that. As the season of giving and receiving has wound down and a new year has begun, my thoughts return again and again to the gifts of the earth. Air to breathe, water to drink, land to cultivate and dwell on — all the elements we owe our existence to made possible by and thanks to the diverse, complex planet that we are privileged to call home. The gifts of the earth, which are fundamental to our existence, are so intrinsic to our human experience that they are easy to overlook, ignore and take for granted. But as our planet experiences rapid changes caused by global warming and climate change we can no longer take these gifts for granted and assume they will be forthcoming. We are at a crossroads and must usher in a new era of stewardship towards the land that gives us life. It is time for us to reciprocate and gift to our earth actions to ensure its well-being. To do less is to imperil all our futures. Let’s make this new decade one of climate action and give the planet its due — which will benefit all of us. Thank you. Peggy Marty Woodland Liz Haigh Millcreek Utah law prohibits perpetrators of domestic violence and convicted felons from possessing a gun, but there is a loophole in current law that allows people to purchase a gun from an unregistered dealer at a gun show or on line without a background check that would block the sale. Common sense tells us to slam the door on that loophole and H.B. 109 introduced by Rep. King does just that. (H.B. 109 wisely exempts transactions among family members because they will know if a family member is responsible enough to own a gun.) In addition to Rep. King, Summit County is represented by Rep. Tim Quinn and Rep. Logan Wilde. Rep. Quinn has publicly stated that he supports universal background checks, subject to the bill’s language, but Rep. Wilde has not yet taken a position. It’s time for Summit County residents to act! Please write Rep. Wilde and urge him to support H.B. 109 — universal background checks. And please write Rep. King and Rep. Quinn to thank them for helping to protect Utahns against gun violence. Ed Rutan Park City Letters Policy Background check bill needs support March for Our Lives’ recent report card giving many Utah legislators failing or low grades on protecting Utahns against gun violence highlights yet another example of Utah legislators not listening to the people who elected them. The vast majority of Utahn — including responsible gun owners — support universal background checks, but the Utah Legislature didn’t even let the bill get to the floor for a vote last year. The Park Record welcomes letters to the editor on any subject. We ask that the letters adhere to the following guidelines. They must include the home (street) address and telephone number of the author. No letter will be published under an assumed name. Letters must not contain libelous material. Letters should be no longer than about 300 words (about 600 words for guest editorials) and should, if possible, be typed. We reserve the right to edit letters if they are too long or if they contain statements that are unnecessarily offensive or obscene. Writers are limited to one letter every seven days. Letters thanking event sponsors can list no more than 6 individuals and/or businesses. Send your letter to: editor@parkrecord.com Photos by Jeff Dempsey Asked on Main Street Do you plan to follow the Trump impeachment trial? Dr. Art Vercillo Palm Beach, Florida “I plan to follow it very closely. As for the outcome, I don’t know. I just hope it’s fair.” Kate Slack-Smith Sydney, Australia “I would follow the impeachment if I thought anything would come of it. If I thought there was a real chance of Trump’s removal. I think we’re all waiting to see what happens.” Melissa Vercillo Palm Beach, Florida “It’s been shameful so far. Just so partisan, from the beginning. I can only hope the outcome, whatever it is, is bipartisan.” Todd Gabler Zion National Park “I’ll be watching what I can and listening on the radio, too. Our very democracy is at stake. Our future as a republic. It’s probably the most important decision I will see in my lifetime.” See these photos and more by following The Park Record on Facebook.com/parkrecord and Instagram.com/parkrecord |