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Show B-1 STAY UP TO DATE ON TWITTER Follow us on Twitter @parkrecord for all the latest and breaking news happening in Park City and Summit County MAIN STREET SHOP HAS DESIGNS ON SHOWCASING THE PARK CITY LIFESTYLE COLUMNS, A-8 WAY WE WERE, A-7 A SILVER MINE INVESTMENT PAID OFF A MOOSE IN THE MOUNTAINS IS NO EMERGENCY 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 Wed/Thurs/Fri, October 21-23, 2020 Serving Summit County since 1880 Silly or not, Main Street was packed Vol. 140 | No. 75 $1.00 Hideout votes to annex, but saga isn’t over Fall is a ball Pedestrian days could influence talks about annual Sunday market Town’s residents could trigger a referendum, while county plows forward with ongoing legal fight JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record The Park Silly Sunday Market in the spring canceled the 2020 season, as worries persisted about the danger of the novel coronavirus spreading through the weekly arts, crafts and food gathering on Main Street. The Silly Market would typically run from June through the early fall and draw upward of 13,000 people each week. This summer and fall, without the Silly Market anchoring Sundays, City Hall and Main Street businesses reached an agreement to turn the shopping, dining and entertainment strip into a pedestrian-only zone on Sundays. The pedestrian days were meant to attract people to Main Street during what was expected to be an uncertain summer for business. The pedestrian zone offered the opportunity to stroll outside with the ability to practice social distancing more easily than if the crowds were kept on the sidewalks. As the various parties involved in Main Street decisions prepare to begin discussions about next summer, the pedestrian days are expected to be heavily debated with the return of the Silly Market also likely to be an important point in the talks. The Main Street pedestrian zone was jammed on many of the Sundays this year, and some businesses were pleased with their sales numbers on Sundays. The apparent success of the Sunday pedestrian days could be influential in talks about the Silly Market. The leadership of the Historic Park City Alliance, the group that represents the interests of businesses in the Main Street core, was anticipated to touch on the Silly Market at a meeting that was scheduled on Tuesday. It was not clear what sort of progress was expected on Tuesday, and the topic is slated to be discussed again at a Historic Park City Alliance meeting in November. The agenda for the Tuesday meeting indicated “Many merchants have inquired as to the status of the Park Silly Sunday Market contract, especially after viewing Sunday business in 2020 on carfree Sundays.” Main Street businesses have long held differing opinions about the Silly Market, which is centered on lower Main Street with some offerings on the upper stretch of the street. There have been questions about whether the Silly Market benefits sales along the entire street or whether the benefits are concentrated toward lower Main Street. The crowds at the pedestrian days in 2020 appeared to more consistently move up and down the street. In an interview prior to the scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Alison Kuhlow, the executive director of the Historic Park City Alliance, said some of the businesses on Main Street are wondering whether sales on Sundays were stronger on pedestrian days this year than they were on Silly Market days in previous years. She said businesses across sectors and in a variety of locations are raising the question. Some have reported an increase in Please see Main Street, A-2 2 sections • 20 pages Classifieds .............................. B-6 Editorial.................................. A-9 Restaurant Guide.................... B-9 Weather .................................. B-2 ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record the wake of the Great Recession. Taken together, education officials say, those concessions are a win for education funding and outweigh the greater demand on the education funding source that will come if Amendment G passes and money that had been earmarked for schools can be spent in other ways. Opponents, however, are concerned about another draw on the source for state education funding, which they say is already too low. The whole issue centers around how the state funds education. The Utah Constitution has for half a century mandated that income tax revenue be spent on education and nothing else. In 1996, voters amended the Constitution to broaden that mandate to include higher education funding in addition to K-12 schools. A certain percentage of every Utahns’ paycheck, then, is funneled into the income tax revenue fund, and then dispersed by the Legislature to local school districts. Now, the Legislature is asking voters to allow income tax revenue to be spent to support children and people with disabilities in addition to funding education and higher education. Opponents of Amendment G say the move would put more demand on a pool of money that already inadequately supports education. “(You’d have) three needy groups funded out of something that used to fund two,” said Utah Board of Education member Carol Lear, who represents Salt Lake City and Park City. “... I think it’s a very serious threat to public school funding. Now, I say that be- Nate Brockbank hadn’t spoken in the first three hours of Hideout’s Town Council meeting Friday, the pivotal session when town officials were expected to decide whether to move ahead with the annexation that has the potential to remake Quinn’s Junction and has dominated local politics even during the summer of the pandemic. Throughout the approval process, the developer generally let his attorney speak for him. But he took the floor when the stakes were highest, just after four of the five Hideout town councilors had finished saying they didn’t support the annexation proposal and as it looked as though his bid to develop hundreds of acres in Summit County was slipping away. An hour later, the Hideout Town Council voted 3-2 to annex roughly 350 acres of Richardson Flat into its boundaries, gaining land-use authority over the undeveloped land in Summit County and paving the way for the mixed-use development and new town center Brockbank plans to build there. Two councilors who voted for the annexation after indicating they would not support it said that they were influenced by a proposal that Brockbank vigorously supported to allow Hideout residents to vote on the annexation. A group of Hideout citizens could challenge the annexation resolution by filing for a referendum, and the town’s agreement with Brockbank includes a provision that it not take effect until the results of a potential referendum are certified. A vote, if a referendum were filed, would be months away. Hideout Attorney Polly McLean told the council that if the referendum were to succeed, the annexation would be undone. The annexation has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and condemnation from Hideout’s neighbors and neighboring elected officials. Contrary to decades of precedent, Hideout was not required to receive the consent of the county that contains the land thanks to a state law that has since been repealed. The vote came three days before the Oct. 19 deadline when cross-county annexations like this one would once again be outlawed by state code. Late on Friday, following two hours of tweaking the legal agreement that would govern the project, councilors went around the virtual table to offer their opinions on the development. With the exception of Chris Baier, the four other councilors indicated they would vote against the proposal. They said, variously, that the process was rushed, that transparency was lacking, that they disliked the process that brought about the state law or that they would trust Park City and Summit County to make good on their promises of regional collaboration. Then Brockbank started speaking. Please see Amendment, A-2 Please see Annexation approved, A-2 TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD Marion resident Stephanie Scanlon tosses a tennis ball for Whiskey, a 4-year-old German shepherd-border collie mix, Monday afternoon at the Library Field. Amendment G: step forward for education or a swindle? Supporters laud more funding for schools, but opponents are wary of Legislature’s promises ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record At first reading, Amendment G on the November ballot seems like a no-brainer: Support children and people with disabilities? That doesn’t seem controversial. But looking closer at what the amendment would mean for state education funding reveals unexpected proponents, several layers of nuance and a “grand compromise” between education groups and the Legislature that includes legislation passed in March that would only be enacted if the amendment passes. The debate dates back to a constitutional amendment from the mid-1990s and attempts to fix issues laid bare by the Great Recession a decade ago. Many of those who support Amendment G are more enthusiastic about items that don’t appear on the ballot, the two accompanying pieces of legislation that would only go into effect if the amendment is approved. Those bills commit the Legislature to three points that education groups have sought for years: automatic adjustments to year-over-year funding for both inflation and increased student enrollment, and creating a rainy-day fund to pay for education even during economic downturns. The latter attempts to prevent the funding cuts the Legislature imposed in City Hall sketches vision for arts district Application for project submitted, formalizing long-awaited concept JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record Park City recently submitted an application to develop an arts and culture district along Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive, triggering what is expected to be a closely watched process as leaders pursue a project that reimagines a key location in the community. City Hall had essentially outlined the proposal publicly in recent months, but the submittal to the Park City Planning Department formalizes the concept. The application is anticipated to be put to the Park City Planning Commission shortly, but a timeline was not available early in the week. The municipal government acquired a little more than 5 acres stretching outward from the intersection of Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive with the intention of building the district. The $19.5 million acquisition brought land that had been owned by the Bonanza Park partnership into municipal ownership. City Hall, the Kimball Art Center and the Sundance Institute are teaming on the project, which is designed to house a permanent location for the Kimball Art Center and the Utah offices of Sundance. The two are seen as the anchors of the district. David Everitt, a deputy Park City manager and the staffer leading the Please see Arts district, A-2 COURTESY OF LAKE FLATO ARCHITECTS Park City plans to develop an arts and culture district along Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive. Officials recently submitted an application for the project involving buildings that would house the Kimball Art Center and the Utah offices of the Sundance Institute as well as residences and a transit node. CORONAVIRUS TRACKER Summit County Utah Known cases: 1,238 Hospitalizations: 62 Deaths: 1 Known cases: 96,643 Hospitalizations: 4,753 Deaths: 551 DATA AS OF OCT. 20 SOURCE: UTAH DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH |