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Show B-1 INSIDE THIS PAPER! Please take this copy home! Mile Post PARK CITY 2020 The 2020 edition of Mile Post examines where the community stands during a year Parkites won’t forget anytime soon. PANDEMIC HAS USHERED IN CHALLENGING TIMES FOR PARK CITY CHILD CARE CENTER A report on key indicators in our changing community Economy Real estate GUEST EDITORIAL, A-19 COLUMNS, A-18 HAVE WE FORGOTTEN THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD? ANARCHY IN AN ENVELOPE Demographics Growth Transportation Park Record. The PA R K C I T Y, U TA H Serving Summit County since 1880 Main Street zones could make return | Nonprofits Education A community changed irus pandemic Park City grapples with the coronav PRESENTED BY The Park Record & The Park City Board of Realtors ® W W W. PA R K R E C O R D . C O M Vol. 140 | No. 74 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, October 17-20, 2020 Creatures featured $1.00 Ruling clears way for vote on annexation Judge allows Hideout to proceed with land move, but county says legal fight is ‘far, far from over’ ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record PARK RECORD FILE PHOTO nexation. That vote was moved to Friday evening, after The Park Record’s press deadline, and three days before this type of cross-county annexation will once again be prohibited by state law. Mayor Phil Rubin said Tuesday that people he believes are opposed to the annexation have camped out outside his home multiple times and filmed he and his family, while a developer’s representative said in the same meeting that opponents seeking to derail public meetings by flooding Zoom with profane images should be shot. The town’s annexation attempt has rankled many nearby residents, some of whom have called it a land grab while others decry what they say were shady dealings involving the state Legislature. That opposition has included several attempts to disrupt online meetings. But the full extent of the alleged harassment wasn’t visible publicly and was only recently revealed by officials. “My family has been harassed. There were people outside my house again last night, making Hideout cleared the last legal hurdle that could have prevented it from voting to annex hundreds of acres on Richardson Flat Thursday evening when Judge Jennifer Brown ruled against Summit County in 4th District Court. While the legal challenges to the annexation attempt may last for years, the ruling paved the way for Hideout to vote on its plan to annex 350 acres on Richardson Flat for developer Nate Brockbank to build a new town center there. A vote was scheduled Friday evening, after The Park Record’s deadline. Previously scheduled votes were postponed to give more time for negotiation, because of court order and due to technical difficulties. The annexation process is subject to multiple lawsuits from Summit County, one of which Park City has joined, but the town now appears poised to vote on the proposal. The county had some initial courtroom victories, including a preliminary injunction Brown issued against the town based on a previous annexation attempt. But the county suffered two defeats in a matter of days recently that ended its bid to prevent the town from voting. In each case, a judge noted the ruling was preliminary and not a judgment on the overall merits of the cases. Summit County officials have said that there are legal avenues for challenging the validity of an annexation if one occurs, but the county’s legal team had also endeavored to prevent Hideout from voting on the annexation in the first place. Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson indicated the county’s fight would continue. “This is far, far from over,” she said. In the 4th District Court case, the county alleged that the town’s current annexation attempt is materially the same as the previous annexation attempt that Brown had barred the town from pursuing. The county alleged the town was in contempt of court for violating that injunction. Brown disagreed, saying the new annexation attempt is distinct from the previous one. In her ruling, Brown clarified that her original injunction was based more on violations of open meetings laws than on preventing the alleged harm that would be done to Summit County if the town went ahead with its plans. Brown indicated that she was not in a position to rule on the potential harm caused by an annexation attempt done in accordance with a state law that is set to be repealed Oct. 19. Please see Harassment, A-2 Please see Ruling, A-8 A vehicle is hauled away on Main Street last winter after it was left in a drop-and-load zone without the proper permit. The drop-and-load program was suspended in March, as the novel coronavirus spread, but City Hall is considering reinstating the zones. City mulls reinstating drop-and-load spots after mixed reception JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record City Hall is considering reinstating a controversial program along Main Street involving permit-only drop-and-load zones, something that debuted early last winter to a mixed reception before it was suspended in March amid the spread of the novel coronavirus. The drop-and-load program is designed to reduce congestion in the Main Street core and improve safety there. Officials created a series of drop-and-load zones along Main Street as a pilot program. The zones were available in the evening hours to vehicles with the proper permit. The permits cost $200 each at that time, but a figure for a reinstated program is not known. Taxis, shuttles and ridesharing firms were the primary users of the zones. The permits allowed holders to briefly stop in one of the zones to drop people off or pick them up. The supporters saw the zones as being more convenient and safer than dropping people off or picking them up if space was available on the curb or in the street if there was not space on the curb. There were numerous violations, though, as vehicles without the proper permit were left in the dropand-load zones. The enforcement was highly visible on the shopping, dining and entertainment strip, and in some cases cars were towed from drop-and-load zones in full view of the Main Street crowds. The Park City Police Department logged a string of cases last winter involving issues in the drop-and-load zones. At one point early in the year, a driver with Uber who held one of the permits to use a drop-and-load zone compared the scene on Main Street to what transpires in a “Die Hard” movie. There was concern that the drop-and-load zones coupled with the highly visible enforcement impacted the Main Street experience. City Hall eventually tweaked the program by consolidating the zones into two large ones shortly before the suspension. In a communication to Mayor Andy Beerman and the Park City Council early in the week, City Hall staffers said they have “coordinated with stakeholders about reinstating the (drop-and-load) program to help Old Town handle a predicted increase in winter traffic.” The communication said stakeholder input had been supportive of a return of the program. Jenny Diersen, the economic dePlease see Zones, A-2 2 sections • 30 pages Classifieds .............................. B-6 Editorial................................ A-19 Restaurant Guide.................... B-8 Weather .................................. B-2 TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD Maceo Poncelet, left, points out an insect in his “creature catcher” to Brianna Cencak, Swaner Preserve and EcoCenter’s youth programs coordinator, during the nonprofit’s Spooky Science after-school program Wednesday afternoon. For more photos from the event, see Scene & Heard on B-10. As deadline nears, Hideout levels claims of harassment Town denounces attempts to derail annexation process with intimidation, ‘Zoom-bombing’ ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record Tensions were rising in the Hideout annexation saga as the clock ticked toward the Oct. 19 deadline for action, with harassment reaching beyond the digital realm into the personal and comments in public meetings that officials have claimed incite violence. Recent revelations have included accusations of harassment, in-person intimidation, “porn-bombing” and obscene and dehumanizing language and images directed from and toward annexation opponents. And now Hideout officials say they are looking into whether a meeting Thursday was deliberately sabotaged to prevent a scheduled vote on the an- Parkite tells of harrowing escape from wildfire Oregon cabin owned since ’60s destroyed in blaze, a shock ‘like losing a family member’ JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record The Sletten family since the 1960s has had a cabin in Oregon, a place where the generations could gather in the rural Pacific Northwest. The parents of Park City resident Mark Sletten purchased the cabin, between Bend and Eugene and on the McKenzie River, 54 years ago. The Sletten family spent extensive time over the years at the cabin and surrounding lands. Sletten was there for Labor Day weekend. The family went to bed on Monday. They were sound asleep, Sletten recalled in an interview on Thursday. The people who live there on a full-time basis received text messages of imminent danger, but the Slettens did not as they slept. At about 1:30 a.m., a friend of the Slettens who lives there called with a warning. A large wildfire was approaching, and the blaze was nearing the cabin. The Sletten family had to rush out. They quickly got into a vehicle and started to drive away from the approaching fire. They were surrounded by smoke and could see little through the windows. It was as if they were in San Francisco on an especially foggy day, he said. “It was scary. I’ve never been there before. You see it on TV,” said Sletten, who is a longtime Parkite who lives in Park Meadows, a member of the Park City Planning Commission and a real estate agent. Sletten’s wife was in the vehicle with him, watching for the flames as they drove. They did not see any, but there was a long line of cars, moving at perhaps 25 mph, also attempting to leave the fire zone, Sletten said. The Holiday Farm fire eventually charred more than 173,000 acres. Nearly all the perimeter had been contained by the middle of the week. Emergency officials in the middle of the week estimated a containment date of Oct. 29. The fire destroyed the Sletten family cabin. When he was able to return, Sletten found the cabin had been burned to the ground. Only the chimney was left standing, he said. The chimney, though, was badly damaged and will need to be demolished. “It’s like losing a family member.” Sletten said, describing the cabin as being a part of his life as well as the lives of his children and saying there were numerous mementos displayed inside. “So many memories. Every inch of it was covered on the walls.” Sletten said the family plans to rebuild at the same location. Nothing from the cabin that was there is salvageable, he said. Between 12 and 18 trees, some Please see Cabin, A-8 COURTESY OF MARK SLETTEN A large wildfire in September destroyed a Sletten family cabin in Oregon. The Park City family was staying there at the time and had to rush out as the blaze approached. CORONAVIRUS TRACKER Summit County Utah Known cases: 1,204 Hospitalizations: 61; Deaths: 1 Known cases: 91,957 Hospitalizations: 4,559; Deaths: 537 DATA AS OF OCT. 16, SOURCE: UTAH DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH |