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Show A-2 The Park Record Call-in caucus a success, county Dems say The Park Record. Serving Summit County since 1880 The Park Record, Park City’s No. 1 source for local news, opinion and advertising, is available for home delivery in Summit, Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Single copies are also available at 116 locations throughout Park City, Heber City, Summit County and Salt Lake City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Summit County (home delivery): $56 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) Outside Summit County (home delivery available in Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties; all other addresses will be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service): $80 per year To subscribe please call 435–649– 9014 or visit www.parkrecord.com and click the Subscribe link in the Reader Tools section of the toolbar at the bottom of the page. To report a missing paper, please call 801–204–6100. Same-day redelivery is possible if you call during the following hours: * Weekdays: 6:30–8 a.m. * Saturday: 7–8 a.m. * Sunday: 7–10:30 a.m. To request a vacation hold or change of address, please call 435–649–9014 or email: circulation@parkrecord.com Turnout ‘tremendous’ even as virus disrupts the typical process ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record Voters heading to the polls in November will see three Democratic options for three Summit County Council seats, almost certainly assuring the body will remain unanimously Democratic. The real race for the candidates in the two contested races, then, is getting their name on the November ballot, something that will be decided in a June primary or, if candidates get enough delegate support, at the Democratic county convention next week. That raised the stakes for the Summit County Democratic Party caucus, which on Tuesday decided the roughly 100 people who will vote at the county convention and was held remotely for the first time due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Meredith Reed is the chair of the Summit County Democratic Party and she reported some ups and downs with the unprecedented call-in caucus, but that overall it was a success and the party might want to use some aspects of the system in the future. “Turnout was tremendous,” Reed said. “We were blown away. … We had lots of people saying thank you.” More than 400 people registered to participate in the caucus, more than 200 indicated interest in serving as a delegate for their respective precincts and 340 called in Tuesday to vote for a delegate to represent their neighborhood at the county convention. There are 45 voting precincts in Summit County and two people are selected from each to serve as voting delegates at the county convention, scheduled to take place on Thursday. The precincts are geographically bound and roughly correspond to neighborhoods. For each area that had more than two people interested in becoming a delegate, voters were asked to list their preferences in a ranked-choice voting process. That led to a long night of vote tabulating, Reed said. Once the dust settled, 104 people had been selected as delegates — 82 precinct delegates and 22 publicly elected officials and party officeholders. Since no Republicans are running for county elected office, there will only be Democratic names on the ballot, barring a write-in candidacy. Summit County Republicans canceled their caucus and county convention, chair Jennifer McDonald said. There are five people running for three County Council seats: Council Chair Doug Clyde is running unopposed; Snyderville Basin Planning Commissioners Malena Stevens and Canice Harte are vying for the seat currently held by Kim Carson, who is retiring; and two-term County Councilor Roger Armstrong is running against newcomer Jill Fellow. Clyde is virtually assured of his party’s nomination. The other two races would go to a June 30 primary unless one of the candidates gets 60% of the vote at the county convention. That would mean a threshold of 63 of the 104 delegates, but Reed said there will likely be fewer than 100 delegates who vote. The threshold is 60% of voters, not of total delegates. The four candidates received a list at noon on Monday of the 410 people who had registered to participate in the caucus. In the end, those people selected 82 delegates from the more than 200 who had indicated interest in serving. In years past, the candidates would travel to three county caucus sites — one each in Park City, North Summit and South Summit — and deliver short speeches to each precinct. This year, that couldn’t happen, and the candidates had limited time to make their pitches. Reed noted a truncated calendar was not set by the county party, with the deadline to file for office being Thursday, March 19, and the caucus the following Tuesday. Stevens said the constraints on the caucus made it more challenging to interact with individual members of each precinct. “Emails and phone calls became even more critical components of the campaign with the virtual caucus and will continue to be as we move forward to the Democratic Convention,” Stevens wrote in an email. Harte said that, while he was making as many phone calls as he could, the abbreviated schedule increased his reliance on friends and family to help communicate his message to potential delegates. Armstrong said he had some late nights trying to communicate with his fellow Democrats, estimating he wrote 350 or 400 emails over four days. Fellow took a more hands-off approach, saying the change motivated her to spread a message of community engagement and that the unusual circumstances might bring more voices to the table. “At some point, telling people which neighbor to vote for just seemed like interfering with community engagement,” Fellow wrote in an email. “I was hoping neighbors would call each other and talk about the issues.” It appears the convention will go ahead as scheduled on April 2, Reed said, though exactly how that will happen has yet to be determined. She said she’d like to run the convention in a similar way as the caucus, with people calling in, but that presents logistical challenges like how to keep votes anonymous. She also noted the county party has less control over how to run the convention, taking cues from the state party. She said it appears likely convention voting will be done by mail. Though the caucus was grueling for executive committee members, Reed said there were some benefits to the change. For one, it increased access for those who couldn’t spend multiple hours in a school gymnasium on a weeknight. Another benefit was that people announced their intention to run as delegates before the day of the caucus, potentially allowing others in their neighborhood to weigh their choices more carefully. “We’ve really tried hard to make it as accessible as possible,” Reed said. Ski resorts focus on employee assistance THE NEWSROOM To contact the newsroom, please call 435–649–9014 or email editor@parkrecord.com For display advertising, please call a sales representative at 435–649– 9014 or email val@parkrecord.com Nathan Rafferty, chief of Ski Utah, addresses industry shutdown To place a classified ad, please call 435–649–9014 or email classads@parkrecord.com JAY HAMBURGER For questions about your bill, please call 435–649–9014 or email accounts@parkrecord.com A key figure in the Utah ski industry on Friday made brief comments about the closures of the mountain resorts in an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, indicating the resorts have been attempting to address the needs of the workers since the shutdowns. Nathan Rafferty, who is the president and CEO of Ski Utah, an organization that markets the state’s mountain resorts, appeared alongside Park City officials in a City Hall-hosted Virtual Coffee with Council. Rafferty did not make extensive re- The Park Record online is available at www.parkrecord.com and contains all of the news and feature stories in the latest edition plus breaking news updates. The Record’s website also hosts interactive entertainment, restaurant and lodging listings and multimedia features. Contents of The Park Record are Copyrighted 2015, Wasatch Mountain News Media Co. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Wasatch Mountain News Media Co., 1670 Bonanza Drive, Park City, UT 84060. Periodicals postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah, 84199-9655 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT84060. Entered as second-class matter, May 25, 1977, at the Post Office in Park City, Utah, 84060 under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are: $56 within Summit county, $80 outside of Summit County, Utah. Subscriptions are transferable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone: 435–649–9014 Fax: 435–649–4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, March 28-31, 2020 The Park Record Continued from A-1 Stay home order spread of the virus in Summit County has outpaced that of even neighboring areas with significantly larger populations. As of Friday, there were 110 coronavirus patients in Summit County. Salt Lake County, the largest county in Utah with a population topping 1 million, had 221 known cases. Officials are slated to review the order in 14 days. Bullough said they will consider modifications based on factors such as the number of cases and the community’s level of compliance. The county also expects better data about COVID-19’s local spread to be marks, but they were some of the first made publicly to a broad Park City audience since the resorts closed. He said there were an “enormous” number of employees at the resorts at the time they closed. The closures occurred in March, a typically busy month for the industry and a month when the resorts usually are heavily staffed. But the shutdowns halted revenues, he said. “Their main focus right now has been the employees,” Rafferty said about the resorts. He said the resorts are offering assistance such as food distribution. The resorts will later start preparing for the next ski season, he said. Rafferty, though, said the resorts “hit pause” regarding capital projects as they consider their next moves. He did not provide details about the capital projects. Rafferty described the ski industry shuttering over a period of approximately six days. “It was an unbelievably difficult de- cision for all of them,” he said about the shutdowns, adding, “It all just happened so quickly.” In a later interview, Rafferty said the ski industry, nationwide, is projected to take a $2 billion economic hit. Rafferty also mentioned discussions are underway regarding so-called uphill access, or the practice of hiking, snowshoeing or otherwise accessing the slopes when a resort is closed. He did not provide details. Rafferty’s appearance during the Virtual Coffee with Council came as widespread concerns continue regarding the economic impact on Park City of the novel coronavirus spread. The closures of Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort were an early blow to a tourism industry that drives the Park City economy. Numerous businesses in Park City also closed at about the same time as visitor numbers dropped sharply. Mayor Andy Beerman during the event, meanwhile, addressed a question from the public regarding whether pressure could be put on the resorts to keep the workforce intact. The mayor provided a broad answer that highlighted the federal government efforts to boost unemployment benefits. Another Park City official who participated on Friday, Jonathan Weidenhamer, who is the manager of City Hall’s economic development programs, said officials are “heavily considering” rent abatements for tenants leasing space from the municipal government. Details were not available. City Councilor Max Doilney, another participant, said private-sector landlords could be influenced to follow should City Hall offer rent abatements. Events like the Virtual Coffee with Council are expected to continue in coming weeks and likely longer as the community moves toward an economic recovery and plans for summer tourism and then the next ski season. available by then, which would help officials make decisions about the most effective ways to counter the virus. “Our hope is that we have more stable testing about a week out from now and that we can then begin to gather more accurate, more indicative data that will suggest really what our rates are and what our growth rate of our spread is,” he said. Violations of the order are class B misdemeanors, though Bullough said law enforcement agencies will be judicious about enforcing it. “We use discretion in doing that,” he said. “Prosecutors use discretion in doing that. This is not random. We felt, though, that it was important to leave the ability for prosecution in the case of egregious and aggressive acts that are not in compliance or don’t meet the intent of this order.” People who have questions about the order can call the Summit County Community Concerns Line at 435-333-0050. Continued from A-1 will swab,” she said. She said in the last few days, as more testing has become available, the amount of people screened and then tested at the site has risen from around 20% to roughly half. Finite testing remains a limiting factor, however, and more data and more tests would enable health care professionals to more accurately assess where outbreaks are happening and work to contain them, she said. Weston repeatedly mentioned the strength and resilience of the hospital’s staff, saying morale among caregivers is high and that people are asking for ways to help. She said she wants the community to know that the hospital is here to help, and that it is taking measures to keep the hospital safe for all, including instituting separate entrances for those who have respiratory symptoms. “With the measures we’re putting in place, we’re doing the best we can with what we know,” Weston said. “We’re prepared as a hospital and as a community we’re doing everything we can. We do need the community’s help. I think people need to realize that this really is serious.” Correction Published every Wednesday and Saturday In the March 25-27 edition, a story entitled “Amid shutdown, teachers adapt to new normal” misstated the school where Sue Shuppy works. She is a South Summit High School art teacher. Hospital is ready able online at intermountainhealthcare. org. In the press release, officials say the screening system is working well to separate those who need to be tested from the “worried well.” Weston said there have been more and more cars coming through the ice arena site but that the system has been functioning as intended. “We are not overrun by any means there,” Weston said. “It’s pretty consistent flow down there. We’ve got two lanes that people can come talk to a professional and be seen.” She said there are surges at some points in the day and that calling first enables people to be, in effect, first in line. And since Summit County is a hot spot, Weston said, some testing restrictions have been loosened. “If you are showing symptoms, we 190 S 50 E Coalville Convenient Banking Stop by or use our online banking or mobile app. Bank the way that’s best for you. 3 B D | 2 B A | 2 ,120 S Q . 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