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Show A-2 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, October 17-20, 2020 The Park Record 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. School board candidates meet in online forum District communication a point of disagreement in only contested race JEFF DEMPSEY The Park Record Candidates for three seats on the Park City Board of Education met in a virtual forum hosted by the Park City Rotary Club Tuesday, touching on issues ranging from communication with the public to the district’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The forum was moderated by KPCW’s Carolyn Murray and was mostly subdued, no surprise given that two of the incumbent candidates — Anne Peters in District 1 and Wendy Crossland in District 3 — are unchallenged. The only contested race, in District 2, sees board President Andrew Caplan facing off against a write-in candidate, Thomas Cooke. To request a vacation hold or change of address, please call 435–649–9014 or email: circulation@parkrecord.com District 2 Caplan was running unopposed for reelection until late September, when Cooke, a member of the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission, announced he would launch a write-in campaign for the position. Cooke started his campaign on the promise of greater transparency and making more information available to the public. He said the board can do a better job of explaining its thought processes to the community, and THE NEWSROOM Continued from A-1 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 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 To place a classified ad, please call 435–649–9014 or email classads@parkrecord.com For questions about your bill, please call 435–649–9014 or email accounts@parkrecord.com 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 Harassment claimed noise,” Rubin said Tuesday. “... So I’m sorry I had to say that, because I’m really upset about — particularly about people coming to my home. I think it’s wrong. Flat-out wrong.” At issue is 350 acres of undeveloped land at Quinn’s Junction that Park City and Summit County have long planned as a bucolic buffer against development encroaching from Wasatch County. Hideout, meanwhile, sees the land as a potential site for the civic and commercial services it would like in a new town center to be built by developer Nate Brockbank. The land, and the process, are subject to multiple lawsuits from Summit County, one of which Park City has joined. The opposition has included multiple petitions, signs on nearby roadways saying “Shame on Hideout” and attempts to take over virtual meetings by so-called Zoom-bombers. In a public hearing Monday, some Hideout residents said they were embarrassed to tell others they lived in the town. Area residents have a history of organizing against developments they Continued from A-1 Zones may return Fax: 435–649–4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Published every Wednesday and Saturday velopment program manager at City Hall and one of the staffers involved in the drop-and-load zone talks, said in an interview this week officials consid- that starts with encouraging all of its members to speak to the media. “My personal feeling is to build trust and transparency we should spread that around a bit,” Cooke said. “It shouldn’t always be one voice. I know that it’s common for the board president to speak on behalf of the board but I think our community would benefit from hearing more voices.” On the subject of transparency and communication with the public, Caplan said there is “always something that can be improved upon.” “We recognize that in a world where so much information is so readily available it can be hard to get through the noise,” he said. Speaking to the district’s master planning process, Caplan said the board will continue to defer to the will of the public. “If we look back at the last failed bond referendum in 2015, what we learned is that the community needs their voices to be heard,” he said. Caplan said the board has no intention of moving forward with any major capital improvement projects without support of the public at the ballot box through a bond measure. Cooke said he doesn’t think the community knows enough about the master planning process and that the board should do more to educate residents. “As far as how the community feels about bonds, this might be an example of where the board thinks they’re doing a great job of communicating with the public but they are not,” he said. Cooke also said he thinks the current master plan is “very facility-centric” and not enough about a vision for the future of education, as is the stated goal. With respect to the COVID-19 pandemic, Caplan said the community should be proud of how it’s handled the adjustments that have been required to keep students and faculty safe. “The amount of cases we’ve had at our schools has been minimal, and the vast majority of them have been kids getting sick at outside activities, not at school,” he said. “It speaks to the work our staff and teachers have done to keep our schools safe.” Cooke said he wants to be sure the district is doing everything it can to prepare for any spikes in the community or outbreaks on campuses. “I think when it comes to our low case count (in Summit County), I think we’ve been good but we’ve also been pretty lucky,” he said. “Park City is a tourist economy, and so there are things beyond our control when it comes to exposure to the virus. I wonder what happens when our luck runs out.” District 1 Anne Peters has served on the board for nearly four years and called it “the greatest thing (she’s) ever done.” She said she’s running for reelection because the board “has started some incredible work” and she’s looking District 3 Wendy Crossland was appointed to her position on the board representing District 3 about a year and a half ago. This is her first election campaign, and she is running unopposed. Crossland, a former attorney and now a social studies teacher at Park City Day School, said she sees her service on the board as an “incredible opportunity” to give back to the community. “I feel really passionate about having a chance to commit to some of these important initiatives that will impact all the students in our district,” she said. Crossland said she is not so concerned with the board’s strategy of having a unified voice. “Andrew speaks for the board, but I speak for myself as an individual,” she said. “Any constituent can reach out to me and I will talk to them. I don’t ask Andrew to talk to them for me.” oppose, particularly in Park City, and many were clear opponents in a public hearing Monday. Rubin indicated that opposition had crossed a line. He clarified in an interview that on three occasions, people sat outside of his house recording video on their cellphones, including watching his family pack up a trailer for a camping trip. He said he assumed they were looking for a confrontation, which he said he has tried to avoid. He said he hadn’t reported the incidents to law enforcement. The town has had difficulty holding virtual meetings and has switched platforms multiple times in an attempt to thwart efforts to take over the screen that is broadcast publicly. The small town doesn’t have technology staffers, and Rubin appeared to be the IT person in charge during one notable public hearing in August that was ultimately scrapped due to technological difficulties, almost derailing the entire annexation process. Recently, the mayor has publicly admonished those who attempted to gain control of the meeting and ejected disrupters. He said the town has hired cyber-security experts to find those responsible and at Monday’s public hearing, he could be seen consulting with people off-screen. The publicly visible “Zoom-bombing” has included profane comments, people speaking over officials and participants who have used anti-Semitic and homophobic names in the online video platform. Rubin revealed Tuesday that the town had been subject to something he called porn-bombing, as well. The mayor said that several participants had displayed hardcore pornography or images of burning human bodies as their personal photos on the platform, visible to the Town Council and mayor. But on Tuesday, the most incendiary comments visible to the public belonged not to a member of the public or Zoom-bomber, but to developer Nate Brockbank’s attorney Bruce Baird. “I sent the mayor a link that said porn bombing/Zoom bombing is not just a joke, it’s a crime,” Baird said. “All those sons of bitches should have been taken out and shot.” After a brief silence, the mayor pivoted from Baird’s comments and said that distracting from the public process, as Zoom-bombers have done, is unacceptable. In an interview Thursday, Baird said it was important to note the context of his comments, as participants in online meetings had harassed and threatened Hideout elected officials in addition to displaying profane images. “I will apologize to the Hideout Town Council for the intemperate nature of my comments,” Baird said. Brockbank said he did not condone Baird’s comments, but he, too, expressed frustration with the behavior of those seeking to disrupt the process. “Bruce’s comment was in response to people disrupting the online public meeting by posting pornography and images of burning bodies,” Brockbank wrote in a message sent by a representative. “Bruce should have responded in a more diplomatic manner. I also want to underscore that we are open to and welcome a diversity of opinions, feedback and input on the project.” Park City Mayor Andy Beerman and the Park City and Summit County councils called on Rubin and the Town of Hideout to cut ties with Baird in a letter sent the next day, claiming his comments threatened violence against annexation opponents. Baird has a long history of litigating against Summit County. Rubin disputed the notion that Baird’s comments incited violence, writing in a statement that the town cannot choose who a developer picks as a representative. “The Town, however, will not in any manner condone any unprofessional or incendiary comments or actions,” Rubin wrote. At Monday’s public hearing, the most robust opportunity to date for the public to comment on the proposal, most of the feedback was negative but participants remained cordial. Hideout officials have indicated that the public clamor against the proposal has taken a toll. “It’s been brutal actually,” Rubin said. “Hideout has been trying hard not to get into the boxing ring here. We haven’t spouted back all the vitriol that’s been spouted to us. We haven’t been throwing stones in the fray because we don’t believe that’s the way to do business.” ered the program a success, asserting the zones reduced traffic and eased circulation in the Main Street core. She described the drop-and-load program as one aspect of City Hall’s broader efforts to address traffic, transit and parking. The program also offered drop-and-load zones available to anyone regardless of whether they held a permit. Those zones were located on Swede Alley, in the Brew Pub parking lot and the trolley turnaround at the northern end of Main Street. Diersen said City Hall is considering reinstating the drop-and-load zones in the middle of November, toward the traditional start of the ski season at Park City Mountain Resort. She said it is anticipated the permits from last winter would need to be renewed and new permits would be available to those that did not hold one then. The talks are part of the municipal government’s broader preparations for the ski season. The Historic Park City Alliance, a group that represents the interests of businesses in the Main Street core, plans to discuss the program with City Hall shortly, the leader of the group said. Alison Kuhlow, who is the executive director of the Historic Park City Alliance, said successes of the program included a better flow of traffic on Main Street and easier access to restaurants for diners who were driven there. She said Main Street wants City Hall to consider allowing curbside restaurant pickup in the drop-and-load zones. Any upcoming discussions about drop-and-load zones would be held amid uncertainty about the ski season, which will be the first full season influenced by the spread of the coronavirus. Many are expecting a sharp drop in business in the winter as worries continue about the economy and travel. forward to continuing it. On the subject of communication with the public, Peters was asked about the district’s lack of a communications director and whether that might be problematic. Peters said she doesn’t believe it is. “I think we do a phenomenal job of communicating,” she said. “I have heard people say we’re not transparent enough, which I kind of scratch my head about. I can’t imagine what more we could possibly say, but I welcome feedback from the community if there are areas we could (do better).” Grant Opportunity - RAP Recreation The Summit County Recreation, Arts and Parks (RAP) Grant will be available online beginning October 1, 2020. The deadline for all applications is Friday, October 30th at 12:00 PM (noon) no exceptions. The recreation grant applies to any publicly owned or operated facility that is used for recreational purposes. Please visit the Summit County website for instructions regarding grant eligibility and to complete the application. The address for the website is www.summitcounty.org/ grants. For additional information, contact Nancy Hooton, at (435) 336-3042. Views overlooking the Rees Jones Golf Course Direct Importer of the World’s Finest Rugs A t t h e H i s t o r i c Vi l l a T h e a t r e The Summit County Recreation, Arts and Park Tax (RAP) granting program distributes revenues generated from a 1/10th of 1 percent sales tax in Summit County. The distribution of the tax is 50% for recreation facilities and 50% for cultural programs. 6689 E Moonlight Drive / Victory Ranch 4 bd / 5 ba / 3,337 sqft / Offered at $2,665,000 Matthew Sidford REALTOR® matthew@sidfordrealestate.com 435.962.4544 sidfordrealestate.com Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed accurate. Buyer to verify all information. 3092 So. Highland Dr., Salt Lake City (801)484-6364 888.445.RUGS (7847) Mon.-Sat. 10 am to 6 pm |