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Show C-1 B-1 BLUEGRASS ICON WILL PICK IT AT THE EGYPTIAN PCMR’S 7 PEAKS CAN’T SLOW YOUNG BOARDER WAY WE WERE, A-7 ELECTION RESULTS ONLINE COLUMNS, A-8 CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ IN PARK CITY’S MINES Looking for local results from the presidential primary elections? Head to parkrecord.com for coverage of Super Tuesday in Summit County. AMY ROBERTS ASKS IF WE’RE IN 1920 OR 2020 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 Wed/Thurs/Fri, March 4-6, 2020 Serving Summit County since 1880 Vol. 140 | No. 09 $1.00 A do-over? No such thing for primary voters Some sought another ballot after their candidates dropped out of the Democratic race, clerk says JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record C alvin Davis smiles as Art-Kids Executive Director “Cowboy Ted” Hallisey hands him a colorful strand of yarn at PC Tots Monday morning. Davis,who just turned 5, along with nine of his classmates, will use the yarn and a cut-up paper plate to make a dreamcatcher, one of the creative projects that Arts-Kids uses to help children build self-esteem and connect with each other. Davis’ smile tells Hallisey that the child is engaged and having a positive experience, which is a big component of the nonprofit’s mission. “Our biggest thing at Arts-Kids is that we want the kids to have fun, because when they are having fun, they have less chance of becoming desperate, overwhelmed and suicidal,” Hallisey said. “We’re trying to build resilience at this age so they don’t develop harmful patterns. We are helping them find their happy place through the arts.” While suicide prevention may sound a little drastic for preschool-aged children, the second-leading cause of death for individuals ages 10 to 24 is suicide, according to the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide. “Studies have shown that it’s too late to start taking preventive measures by 8, because kids by then have already established patterns of despair,” he said. “So we decided to start younger help these kids feel connected and engaged, because suicidal kids don’t feel connected or that they are making a difference in people’s lives.” Arts-Kids was founded in 1999 by child psychiatrist Pat Drewry Sanger. It started as an after-school art therapy program that ran for eight weeks, said Hallisey, who was named executive director in 2018. The nonprofit currently serves 700 children in Summit County, 700 kids in Salt Lake County and 500 kids in Utah County through its programs, according to Hallisey. In the Park City area alone, Arts-Kids hosts sessions at South Summit School District, PC Tots, Holy Cross Ministries and Weilenmann School of Discovery, as well as Jeremy Ranch, Parley’s Park, Trailside and McPolin elementary schools. Volunteers help Hallisey meet the demand, and there are 10 who help with the Please see A happy place, A-2 TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD PC Tots’ Mia Smith, left, helps Max Dombro as he reaches up to stack a cup during an Arts-Kids session. The cup stacking helps preschool-aged children develop motor skills and dexterity. Arts-Kids Executive Director “Cowboy Ted” Hallisey, left, helps Max Thompson, 5, string a dreamcatcher together during a crafting exercise on Feb. 24 at PC Tots. Arts-Kids is a nonprofit that empowers children through art and recreation. Pete Buttigieg ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sunday. Amy Klobuchar followed him out of the contest on Monday. Tom Steyer also ended his bid for the nomination in recent days. But by the time the field narrowed for the Super Tuesday voting, numerous Democrats and those who requested a party ballot to vote in the presidential primary had already cast their votes. The Summit County Clerk’s Office sent the ballots in the vote-by-mail election long before the recent departures from the Democratic field. The ballots went out Feb. 11 and voters started receiving them in the mail several days later. That means the candidates who have dropped out still could receive significant support from voters in Park City and surrounding Summit County. And Kent Jones, the Summit County clerk, said in an interview on Monday some voters contacted him that morning asking for another ballot after they already cast the one that was sent to them. It was not clear whether the people who contacted him wanted a Democratic or Republican ballot, but it seems likely they wanted a Democratic one in the hours after the field was reduced. There were several inquiries on Monday morning, he said. Jones told them they could not receive another ballot. “Once you cast your ballot, it’s done. Period. You can’t vote again,” Jones said. He said there is no difference between someone who mailed their ballot wanting to vote again and a voter who dropped a ballot in a ballot box wanting to retrieve it to revote. “If somebody drops out. They drop out. There’s nothing we can do about that,” he said about the Democratic departures. Jones said once the office receives a ballot, a bar code is scanned. The scan gives the voter credit for casting a ballot in that election. The county clerk said the office sent approximately 16,000 ballots to Democrats, Republicans or unaffiliated voters who requested one for the primary. The slight majority of the ballots were Democratic ballots, Jones recently said. Jones said just less than 6,800 ballots had been returned by midday Monday. The partisan makeup of the ballots that had been returned was not known. The Democratic primary received far more attention than the Republican one, which President Trump was expected to win overwhelmingly. Democrats appeared to be especially excited about the primary as voters in Utah cast ballots on Super Tuesday, one of the most important dates on the political calendar Please see Voters, A-2 County: It’s a matter of when, not if, for coronavirus Officials say there are robust plans in place for possible outbreak ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record It’s a matter of when, not if, the novel coronavirus comes to Utah, Summit County Health Department officials said at a meeting Monday evening as they stressed the importance of good hygiene, reliance on trusted sources of information and what they called robust public health emergency plans they say are capable of guiding the county through a potential outbreak. The situation is rapidly evolving, said Health Department Director Rich Bullough at a Board of Health meeting Monday night to a group of about a dozen members of the public who attended the briefing. “It will almost certainly happen in Utah,” Bullough said. “We’re going 3 sections • 28 pages Classifieds .............................. C-7 Events Calendar ..................... C-6 Restaurant Guide.................... B-6 Scoreboard ............................. B-5 to have cases here, almost certainly going to have community spread here.” Summit County Emergency Manager Chris Crowley said that the county maintains five emergency plans that will help guide the response to an outbreak. The strategic national stockpile plan, for example, enables the county to tap into emergency resources like vaccine supplies or money, he explained, while other plans reach a level of specificity that includes which locations, like high school gymnasiums, could function as points of distribution in the case of a mass vaccination. Summit County finance director Matt Leavitt said the county maintains an emergency fund that is earmarked for disasters, though it is not limited to Health Department expenditures. County Manager Tom Fisher would have the authority to access those funds as he sees fit, Leavitt wrote in an email. There is no vaccine for the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, which as of Tuesday had claimed more than 3,000 lives and reached nearly 90,000 confirmed cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. More than 100 cases and six deaths had been confirmed in the United States. While there have been no confirmed cases in the state as of Tuesday, one patient is being treated at the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray after contracting the disease and being quarantined on a cruise ship in Asia. As of Tuesday morning, the Utah Board of Health began testing at its lab, according to Charla Haley, a spokesperson for the board. Previously, samples collected in Utah had to be shipped to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading to a two- to four-day turnaround time. Now, the test can be returned within 24 hours, though it only signals a presumptive positive. A positive test sample would be sent to the CDC, and the patient would be requested to limit exposure to others and, in effect, self-quarantine, Haley said. COVID-19 presents with coldand flu-like symptoms, which are common this type of year, Board of Health members pointed out. That leads to fears that everyone with a cough will want to be tested, possibly overwhelming health officials. But not everybody who wants a test can get one. Haley said only people who meet the CDC’s guidelines for testing are receiving the test. The guidelines include a conjunction of symptoms and exposure to a confirmed case; symptoms that require hospitalization after recent travel to a country where the coronavirus is present; and severe symptoms with no alternative explanation readily available, like testing positive for influenza, according to the CDC’s website. Summit County nursing director Carolyn Rose said that the Health Department is tracking a few people in the area who have symptoms that resemble COVID-19 but did not meet the threshold to be tested. She said the department calls them to check in on their symptoms and VISITOR GUIDE Parkites and visitors can get into the Grüv at PCMR requests that they limit contact with others for a 14-day period. Bullough said the mortality rate of the disease is currently thought to be 1.4%, but the disease can more easily spread than other deadly pathogens. Coronaviruses can remain infectious on surfaces for up to nine days at room temperature, according to Bullough’s presentation to the Board of Health, and it is unclear how well, or if, existing anti-viral medication works on the virus. “This isn’t being overblown. This is real,” Bullough said. “We need to prepare, we don’t need to panic.” As the local health officer, Bullough said he is empowered to impose a quarantine and close schools, though he cautioned that the situation is nowhere near that level. He added that any decision to close schools would almost certainly involve the county’s school boards. The three area school superintendents were set to meet with Health Please see Virus, A-2 Park City Mountain Resort will host its annual Spring Grüv celebration from March 6 through April 5. The monthlong event will feature live music, family-friendly activities and pond skimming. For information, visit parkcitymountain.com. |