OCR Text |
Show Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, September 19-22, 2020 The Park Record B-1 A-1 JOIN THE LOCAL CONVERSATION The Park Record is always looking for letters to the editor about important topics of the day. Email your opinions to editor@parkrecord.com PARK CITY SKI AND SNOWBOARD HAS A HILL TO CLIMB TO RAISE FUNDING COLUMNS, A-12 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, A-13 LET’S SAVE LIVES IN SEPTEMBER HIDEOUT TRIES, TRIES AGAIN, TOM CLYDE WRITES 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, September 19-22, 2020 Serving Summit County since 1880 A one-way road sought in Old Town | Sprint to the finish Vol. 140 | No. 66 $1.00 Vandalism case declared cold as leads vanish Police Department will no longer put resources into finding out who defaced murals on Main Street JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record PARK RECORD FILE PHOTO Park City recently put new asphalt on lower Park Avenue, a busy stretch of road. Leaders during a broad Thursday discussion about Park Avenue declined to consider turning a section of the road into a one-way route, a concept raised by someone who lives on the road. City Council declines to turn Park Avenue into outbound only TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD JAY HAMBURGER Park City’s Shelly Palabrica sprints after the ball, followed closely by Wasatch’s Mary Santiago during a soccer game at Dozier Field on Tuesday evening. The Miners fell to the Wasps 3-2. See page A-7 for more. The Park Record There are some who want traffic to depart Old Town on Park Avenue outbound. But not return on the same road. Mayor Andy Beerman and the Park City Council on Thursday evening received input from someone describing what would be a dramatic change to the traffic flow in tightly packed Old Town. Peter Tomai, who lives on Park Avenue, addressed the elected officials remotely as they held a discussion about concepts to temporarily redesign the stretch of road between the Deer Valley Drive-Empire Avenue intersection and the intersection with 9th Street, a heavily traveled section of Park Avenue. Tomai spoke about the prospects of that section of road being made into a one-way route in the outbound direction. There are numerous residences on Park Avenue between the two intersections as well as the Park City Library and one of the entrances to City Park. Under the concept outlined by Tomai, traffic headed into the Main Street core would be shifted to Deer Valley Drive, a road with more capacity than Park Avenue. In an interview afterward, Tomai said he wants the one-way route to be considered as a long-term solution. Two-way traffic on Park Avenue, he said, “leads to abuse of the residential zone” with commercial traffic and ridesharing vehicles on the road. “It’s too tempting to just go straight up Park Avenue for through traffic,” Tomai said. A similar concept was instituted during the Sundance Film Festival in January and was among the most aggressive measures City Hall has taken to combat traffic during Sundance. Drivers needed an access pass for twoway traffic on that section of Park Avenue. Traffic is especially bad during Sundance and officials over the years have made moves to discourage drivers like increasing parking prices in the Main Street core and heavily restricting other parking, deciding on the one-way route for the event earlier this year. Making such an alteration to the functioning of Park Avenue on a broader basis would require an extensive discussion that would be expected to involve the neighborhood, businesses along Park Avenue and in the Main Street core and City Hall transportation planners as well as the Park City Police Department. Some of the people who live along that section of Park Avenue or on nearby streets would be anticipated to support a one-way route, which would be Please see One-way, A-11 2 sections • 20 pages Classifieds .............................. B-8 Editorial.................................. A-9 Restaurant Guide.................. B-10 Weather .................................. B-2 Board adds ability to bond without support of voters Officials say it will allow them to pursue smaller projects but still seek 2021 ballot measure ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record The Park City Board of Education granted itself new power Tuesday that allows it to issue bonds without voter consent, enabling the board to potentially undertake the large-scale building projects it has sought for years without asking voters to approve the debt. But Board President Andrew Caplan flatly denied that was the board’s intent. “It’s not the right thing to do,” Caplan said of pursuing projects like building new schools without community support. Instead, the new authority may be used to move quickly to pursue smaller projects or those with time-sensitive funding elements and is less cumbersome than heading to the ballot, Caplan said. Voters will still be asked to approve the most expensive projects, like expanding the high school to accommodate ninth grade, he said. And community input will be key in determining which projects the board seeks. “The plan is still to do the bond referendum,” Caplan said. “... That’s the way it’s typically done. Talking about a massive amount of money — we’ll have to get buy-in regardless.” He added that a bond measure would likely be on the ballot in 2021. The Board of Education voted unanimously to create a building authority that is empowered to issue debt in the form of lease revenue bonds. The Park City School District would then pay back that debt using tax revenues. Business Administrator Todd Hauber said the main benefit of establishing a building authority is flexibility: It enables the board to secure funding in less time than the ballot measure process, which typically takes the better part of a year, and it would allow the district to repay the money using two of its taxing sources, giving future Please see Board, A-11 The Park City Police Department will no longer put resources toward the investigation of an act of vandalism last summer that targeted a large Black Lives Matter mural on Main Street and another mural with a social justice theme, acknowledging the agency was unable to generate further leads to follow in the case. The Police Department recently shifted the status of the investigation to inactive, meaning the agency considers the vandalism a cold case. The police will not spend time on an inactive case unless new leads are generated. In the case of the vandalism, there were limited leads from the outset, and it seems unlikely two months later significant new ones could be generated. “We are not actively pursuing anything further. We have no additional leads to follow up on,” said Darwin Little, a police lieutenant who was heavily involved in the investigation, adding that the police have “come up dry” in the probe. The vandalism occurred just days after artists created the murals on Main Street over the Fourth of July weekend. The giant Black Lives Matter mural, measuring 300 feet in length and with 14-foot-tall letters, especially drew attention as it was created. The murals were designed to advance City Hall’s social equity efforts. The vandal or vandals in the overnight hours several days later covered the word “Black” with gray paint and covered a clenched fist symbol that stood for the letter “I” in the word “Lives.” One of the other murals, reading “Peace, Unity, Love” was also targetPlease see Vandalism, A-2 PARK RECORD FILE PHOTO A vandal or vandals in July targeted a giant Black Lives Matter mural on Main Street, shortly after it was created. The Park City Police Department indicated this week it will no longer put resources toward the investigation, meaning the agency considers the vandalism a cold case. Newcomer challenges King for Statehouse It is the first time since 2012 that he has faced a Republican opponent BUBBA BROWN The Park Record For the first time since 2012, voters will choose who represents them in the state Legislature’s House District 28. Political newcomer Carol Hunter, a Republican from Salt Lake City, is mounting a campaign against incumbent Rep. Brian King, the House minority leader and one of the most prominent Democrats in the Statehouse. King, who is vying for his seventh term, did not face a general election opponent in the previous three election cycles. That, Hunter said, is precisely why she decided to run, declaring her candidacy on the final day of the filing window in the spring when no other Republicans had entered the race. “That just is wrong,” she said of King going unchallenged in recent elections. “You have to be reminded that you work for people. And if you don’t have a competitor, it’s hard to get that reminder.” For his part, King said he is running again to push a progressive agenda in the largely Republican Legislature. He added that representing the slice of Summit County that is in District 28 — Summit Park and a part of Pinebrook — is important to him as the lone Democrat among left-leaning Summit County’s Statehouse delegation. “I don’t represent a huge part of (the county), but I think it’s very important for Summit to have the voice of the Legislature that is not just coming through the Republicans but is coming through a Democrat,” he said. Hunter, a consulting engineer and former vice president at Rocky Mountain Power, identified environmental responsibility as a key plank of her platform. She said she oversaw energy-efficiency programs during more than three Please see Newcomer, A-2 COURTESY OF CAROL HUNTER COURTESY OF BRIAN KING Republican Carol Hunter is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Brian King in House District 28. It is the first time King, the House minority leader, has faced a general election opponent since 2012. Hunter says she will focus on environmental issues, while King wants to push a progressive agenda on Capitol Hill. CORONAVIRUS TRACKER Summit County Utah Known cases: 930 Hospitalizations: 54; Deaths: 1 Known cases: 61,775 Hospitalizations: 3,444; Deaths: 437 DATA AS OF SEPT. 18 SOURCE: UTAH DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH |