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Show Viewpoints The A-17 Park Record. Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, September 5-8, 2020 editorial Pandemic elevates appreciation for Park City’s working class I letters to the editor Incompetence or favoritism? I was of the impression that building above the ridgelines is strictly prohibited by the Park City building code. Unfortunately there is a house under construction on Finnegan’s Bluff that substantially violates the ridgeline code. We live at on American Saddler Drive and, from our deck, we can clearly see two stories of a large, partially completed house. The structure substantially spoils the view of the ridgeline. How could this have occurred? Who did the owners know to get permission from the city? The situation is either a case of incompetence on the part of the city or explicit favoritism. Unless it’s corrected, it will be a permanent blot in our and others’ view of the mountain. Douglas M. Hayes Park City A growing problem Another year of disappointing “flower baskets” on Silver King that lead into the resort. No flowers at all. Instead the baskets are dreadful hanging “weed baskets.” Whoever has the contract for these needs to be fired. Instead look to the baskets in the Prospector area, or even downtown Heber. Please don’t bother to spend money on these eyesores again next year. Julie Breslin Thaynes Canyon Where’s the logic? During my 27-plus years living in Park City, I have voted “yes” on every open space bond ... and there have been many. Please explain the logic in the city spending $3 million to preserve as open space the secluded and isolated Armstrong Snow Ranch Pasture that nobody except five adjacent homeowners can see, and yet we don’t preserve Finnegan’s Bluff (the hill between Park Meadows and Snow Creek Shopping Center) as open space that thousands of people see daily driving in and out of Park City, which now is permanently scarred with a home breaking the ridgeline and being built in violation of the city building codes. This is unacceptable. Stanton D. Jones Park Meadows Welcome, newcomers While moving around town recently, I’ve noticed a significant number of new folks who evidently moved to Park City in the wake of the pandemic. That’s great, and we’re happy to have you. Here are some local customs and mores that may ease the transition to your new home and endear you to our The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER ....................... Andy Bernhard Editor ................................... Bubba Brown Staff Writers ......................Jay Hamburger Scott Iwasaki Alexander Cramer Contributing ............................. Tom Clyde Writers Teri Orr Amy Roberts Tom Kelly Joe Lair Engagement Editor............. Jeff Dempsey Photographer .........................Tanzi Propst Circulation Manager ............. Lacy Brundy Distribution........................... Henry Knight ADVERTISING Advertising Director ........... Valerie Spung Advertising Sales ................... Jodi Hecker Lindsay Lane Director of Digital Marketing .. Tina Wismer Digital Sales Executive ............... Erik Jones Production Director ..................Ben Olson Production ......................... Louise Mohorn beloved community. • If you see a good wine on sale at the liquor store, don’t buy out the entire supply. Just take one bottle, maybe two, so that we can all share the bounty. • Don’t assume you need to drive places. Bike or walk was much as possible and please don’t let your car idle while waiting. Because it fouls the clean mountain air, idling is nearly as irritating to locals as leaving your dog’s crap on the trails, and it violates the city’s anti-idling ordinance (P.C. Mun. Code § 9-10-1). • Practice proper trail etiquette, and big “superhighway” trails like Midmountain or Armstrong are crowded, so assume there’s people around every blind turn. In fact, that is a good assumption on any trail. • Kids’ sports programs here may not be as intense or competitive as those in the cities you came from. Calmness and deference to the coaches should prevail. • In general, set your life to a slower rhythm and renounce all “me-first-gottaget-mine” attitudes. There’s plenty for everyone around here, so just relax and receive life as it comes to you. Adam Strachan Prospector Fix the mistake There is no disagreement that a gross mistake was made allowing the unfinished house to sit on top of the ridge line on Finnegan’s Bluff at 955 Saddle View Way. Fortunately the city can and should correct its mistake by requiring the structure to be properly sized below the ridgeline. The house will still have killer views of PCMR and be worth millions but the ridgeline will be preserved and a dangerous precedent avoided. City officials, please don’t make the monumental error of compromising our ridgeline for time eternal. Bill and Terre Thomas Park Meadows Deceptive methods The Park Record recently published a right-wing propaganda piece, (mislabeled “Guest Editorial”) in which the author used a deceptive method of lying about other parties without directly doing so. The method involves claiming that “WE” don’t do (insert list of bad things), but writing it in such a way that the reader infers that “THEY” do (insert same list of bad things). Unfortunately, it’s a very effective way to implant lies in the readers’ brains and is widely used by people for whom reality and truth are inconsistent with their views. In this propaganda piece, the writer attempted to lead her readers to infer that Democrats attack children, drag people from their cars and beat them, threaten suburban homeowners, loot small businesses, attack police and burn down government buildings. Let’s see what happens if Democrats use the same propaganda method, but with a heavier dose of reality and truth. Democrats don’t kidnap children from their parents and put them in cages; use government property for personal gain; solicit bribes from foreign leaders and welcome their help in elections; ration health care only to those who can afford it; ignore the earth’s warnings that the whole planet is in an existential crisis; trample on human rights; use their power to shoot or choke people because they don’t like their looks; enact tax laws that transfer wealth from labor to capital (i.e., the working poor to the idle rich); praise right-wing murderous vigilantes or stand in front of their houses pointing guns at passersby; excuse criminals based on the color of their skin, the color of their uniform, or the color of their politics; or print obvious propaganda pieces in a newspaper that will elevate their propaganda to the level of guest editorial. Holly A. Carlin Prospector t will be the Miners Day that wasn’t. On Monday, Parkites won’t flock to Old Town for the annual Main Street parade. The mucking and drilling competition — that beloved spectacle that keeps us tethered to the past and offers a glimpse of a time when mining, not skiing, drove Park City’s economy — will not take place, nor will the other festivities typically held at City Park throughout the day. Another tradition the coronavirus pandemic has stripped from the summer. And yet: Perhaps at no time in the recent past has the spirit of Miners Day, in which we celebrate the laborers who built the town, been so apparent. This Miners Day, we are looking at the Parkites who have carried on the legacy of the miners — the restaurant waitstaff, the grocery store clerks, the lifties and countless others — through the lens of the pandemic. When the crisis hit in March, the lives of everyone in Park City changed in one way or another. But it was people in the working class, by and large, who have suffered the most. They’ve seen their wages slashed or their jobs disappear. They’ve spent sleepless nights wondering how they are going to keep their children fed and clothed. They’re living, many of them, with the looming threat of eviction as unpaid mortage or rent payments pile up month after month. That’s to say nothing of the fact that many have been thrust onto the front lines of the pandemic, working jobs that were deemed “essential” or that require frequent contact with other people. Unfortunately, Park City’s workers will continue to face challenges as we enter the fall and winter. Even when the health risks of the coronavirus diminish — perhaps if a vaccine becomes widely available in the next several months — the economic effects of the pandemic are likely to linger, possibly for years. Like the miners of old, our workers are the backbone of Park City. The community must rally around them and help them weather these difficult times. This Miners Day, we’ll go without most of the traditions that make the holiday beloved in Park City. It’s disappointing, no doubt, and hopefully next September we will gather again to wave as parade floats saunter down Main Street and to cheer on the participants of the mucking and drilling contest. But the absence of the celebrations on Monday won’t stop us of from observing the true meaning of the holiday: expressing gratitude for the workers whose sweat and sacrifice make Park City what it is. guest editorial Park City’s success as a resort town wasn’t inevitable. And our future isn’t guaranteed. MYLES C. RADEMAN Park City Let’s explode a few persistent myths and face some inconvenient truths: It is not true that growth is inevitable and must be accommodated. Aging, decay and death are certainly inevitable — maybe taxes and “the iron law of economics” are too, but not necessarily growth. As a matter of fact, many who have worked for more than 40 years to help Park City grow into the world-class resort community it is today realize how hard it is to attract the kind of growth that leads to prosperity and success. This growth was not inevitable, it didn’t just happen. It was a hard, long, frustrating effort to pivot from an almost “ghost mining town” into the amenity-rich community we love today. Since then thousands of units have been built in Park City and the Snyderville Basin and 4 to 6 million square feet of additional growth have been approved but not yet built. Our population in 1980 was about 4,500 and now 40 years latter it is probably closer to 30,000. This is hardly a “no growth” agenda as some claim. It is true that the urge to grow and take advantage of the hard-earned success of others is strong. Success attracts growth. But not all growth is the same. It is not all good, wanted or appropriate. Remember, cancers are a form of growth and yet we fight cancer with every means available. Growth does not have to occur just because developers want to build. Nor do our leaders need to spur additional development with legislative growth hormones, stimulants and accelerants which only serve to fuel this current growth mania. I think it’s time to absorb what has already been permitted and see how well we accommodate it. So just because someone tells you growth is inevitable, what they’re really telling you is to stop thinking about the implications of more growth and just get out of the way. Plans, actions and political resolve should flow from agreed upon visions. “Keeping Park City, Park City” has been one such guiding vision and mantra for many years. Even as the area has dramatically grown and changed we have continually strived to maintain a certain sense of community and ambiance that Keeps Park City “Park City.” This vision is based on clearly stated core values of protecting and enhancing our Sense of Community, Natural Setting and Small Town & Historic Character. These are the attributes that make the greater Park City area successful and a wonderful place to live and visit. They provide the underpinnings of our economic success. Our planning, actions and developmental approvals should reflect and enhance this vision. While Park City strives to be a “complete community” it cannot and never could be “everything for everybody.” It is simply too small and too constrained. To stay successful we have focused on our strengths and avoided what we chose not to become. County Council Chair Doug Clyde, a well-respected mountain resort consultant, wrote a letter to The Park Record in 2013 in which he stated this obvious truth in clear and ringing tones: “Park City, he wrote, is successful because of our small-town character and the forces of urbanization that we are confronting can, and will, destroy our success as a destination resort. Manhattan in the Mountains is a term of art used in my business to reflect an urban ‘village’ without a soul and for us this is just around the corner. While New Urbanism has a role in responsible land development, it is not fungible with character and charm… The fact is that the most successful resorts in the world similar to ours are very small towns that maintain their ambiance while inviting millions of visitors each year. We are on the edge of becoming a homogeneous blur with the Snyderville (Basin) and/or just another bedroom community of Salt Lake”. This highlights the imperative to sometimes “just say no.” Critics call this NIMBYism. And it’s true, there are many things we don’t want in our backyard. And probably there are many things you don’t want in your backyard either. By way of historical perspective our community has said “No, not in my backyard” many times over the years: What is now the McPolin Farm and Barn was proposed to be a Smith’s 30 years ago. The town said, “Not in my backyard” and paid to purchase and preserve it. The Carl Winters School, now the Park City Library & Education Center and Field, was proposed to be a hotel complex and restaurant. The town said “Not in my backyard” and converted it into the outstanding community amenity and open space it is today. The list goes on: Round Valley was proposed as an exclusive golf course and high-end housing development before the citizens said “Not in my backyard” and purchased it to create over 2,000 acres of open space and trails; the Tech Park was proposed for 800 housing units until the county and city ponied up $25 million and purchased open space and created the Tech Park development agreement; Treasure Mountain was proposed as a huge hotel and conference center dwarfing historic Old Town until it was purchased with taxpayer bond money as open space; and Bonanza Flat up on Guardsman Pass and the Osguthorpe Farm on Old Ranch Road were proposed for housing developments until the citizens once again said “Not in my backyard” and saved them as open space for future generations. So don’t be fooled. Not every development is appropriate, wanted or inevitable. The pressure to grow and alter the Snyderville Basin is great because developers know there is an almost insatiable market for what we’ve saved, created and paid for together: the open spaces, trails, schools and other amenities. These amenities and public goods are already straining with increased use and there are limits to what can be added in the future. So while the pressure to grow is strong, such pressure is not the same as inevitability. The difference between pressure and inevitability comes from maintaining a clear vision of who we are, what we value and, most importantly, citizens willing to stand up and take the time and effort to say “No, not in my backyard” when the need arises. This in no way negates the desire of a younger generation to be a permanent part of the greater Park City community. The unaffordability of achieving this desire is easy to see. We need this generation and must do whatever realistically can be done to assist them. But one of the inconvenient truths that cannot be avoided is that nobody yet has been able to suspend the “iron law of economics” which essentially states that beautiful, precious and rare places are valuable, and wealthy people can afford to move to such places while others cannot. We see this daily in our rising home prices. To make even a dent in this economic imbalance requires concerted governmental, nonprofit and private sector action. To date local governments have assisted in the creation of hundreds of affordable housing units and more are currently being built and/or are on the drawing board. But again let’s not be fooled by affordable housing “window dressing” often proposed in current development proposals to secure greater density. Thinking we can foist past affordable housing responsibilities on the private sector is a fool’s game not adequately addressing the core issue. For instance the owners of the Tech Park (Dakota Pacific Real Estate) are proposing 1,100 housing units along with hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial space and a luxury hotel. Less than 25% of their proposed housing is in a price range that is affordable for people working in our local resort service economy. And even these units are contingent on tenuous federal funding programs. Consequently, 75% or more of these units will probably be occupied by people who will probably be commuting to the Salt Lake Valley. If our community is serious about helping our younger generation gain a foothold, we must do what the private sector cannot do, which is put our money where our mouth is and purchase and donate land to help build affordable housing for those who want to both work and live here. The Tech Park might be a good place to do exactly this. Once again we find Park City and the Snyderville Basin at a crossroads, or some would say an inflection point. The long-held visions that have guided our success as a small mountain resort town are under assault. If we as a community no longer concur with these visions, we should at the very least have an open discussion and modify or alter them, but we should never allow the very foundations of our success to erode through inadvertence or inaction. The worst indictment I can imagine is for residents 10 years from now to incredulously ask, “Who let that happen?” |