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Show Viewpoints The A-15 Park Record. Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, December 5-8, 2020 editorial Sundance makes right call, but script change still disappointing S guest editorial Our community is changing, but who is getting left behind? BARI NAN ROTHCHILD Jeremy Ranch There are no more undercurrents anymore. Everything about life in our small town feels like a tidal wave. Or a giant electrical current buzzing overhead. Come to think of it, it’s both — creating the real-time worry that the supercharged version of dropping the hair dryer into the bathtub is happening around us, every minute. The confluence of pandemic and politics, the impacts, large and small, on our daily routines. And that vibration we feel is the energy of the newly arrived. Those of us who have been here a year, a decade, a lifetime, know the charms of this stunningly vibrant place are plentiful. Most of our new community members will stay for the long haul. And we’ll need to help them acclimate not only to the opportunities, but the challenges we’re facing. On a recent morning, my social media feed offered a photo from a friend’s kitchen window — documenting the sudden change to her 35-year morning-coffee-view of a rural paradise. Now, her view included the bones of the first floor of a new home, on the other side of her fence — the second story of which will eradicate the chunk of sky she uses to center herself, to begin her day. The post begat a chorus of her peers — women and men I admire and respect. We share a dogged passion for truth and justice — and pie breakfasts. (Honestly, I don’t know how they feel about pie breakfasts, but I do know they believe in the pieces of life that connect us to each other.) They spoke unvarnished truth: Our lovely town’s walls are closing in and closing out many of the people whose life and work shape our community. There isn’t enough smart, affordable housing. Not for senior citizens to age in place. Not for people earning what is — in other places — a living wage. Affordability, in general, is marginalized, even as we talk about it. Regardless of our age and income, we all imagine our ideas will retain value in the place we call home. Our small-town friendships are significant because we weave together a way of life. In ordinary times we’d be introducing each other to various new arrivals, matching folks with their interests and their new friends. Importantly, giving the new people a line into what community initiatives are under way. Introducing them to roommates, or a seasonal job. Involving them in the PTOs, or Rotary. Some of it happens now on the chat boards, but as with everything on the internet, the nuances are lost. And it’s the nuances — the random cups of coffee, the gathering after a worship service or a school play — where we find a square of solid ground to talk about hard topics. In this tumultuous phase of life, the days tend to roll over us. Like my friend, I look out the window to create space for what is to come. This time of year, the dawn lights the sky on fire, and often makes the snowfall glisten and glimmer. It’s the doing two things at once that gets me: Everything I treasure about the life I have built here — lies in the way we welcome change and preserve our core. As we head into a winter on shifting ground, I throw out a challenge: Let us, collectively, allow the weight of our concerns to shift into the shared desire to double down on our investment in the community. To continue to hold space for those voices of influence in our town, the women and men who built so much of the life we enjoy now. To make spaces for the artists and teachers and lift operators and retirees whose lives make our town a community. And to welcome our new neighbors into that conversation. letters to the editor Choose rollbacks wisely In last Saturday’s paper, a “Perspective” piece by Mr. Thompson advocated rolling back the rollbacks from the last four years. Might I suggest that he not let his intense dislike of the outgoing president overwhelm careful selection of what to roll back? • Keep the pressure on Iran; do NOT send them another $100 billion (yep, that’s a B) bribe to allow Iran to covertly continue their nuclear weapons program and support of terrorism in the Middle East. • Keep wholeheartedly supporting efforts establishing economic and diplomatic relations between Israel and the 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 Assistant ...... Jessica Burlacu Advertising Sales ................... Jodi Hecker Joe Siemon Director of Digital Marketing .. Tina Wismer Digital Sales Executive ............... Erik Jones Production Director ..................Ben Olson Production ......................... Louise Mohorn Arab countries, bypassing the Palestinians who have shown absolutely no interest in regional peace for the past half century. And no financial support to the Palestinian government whose politicians line their pockets while their people suffer. • Keep the pressure on our NATO allies to live up to the financial commitments that they have made for their collective security (think “fair share”). • Keep the emphasis on protecting our intellectual property from China’s theft. • Keep up the emphasis on cybersecurity, especially with respect to Russia, China and North Korea. • Keep up the policy of not publicly degrading and insulting the leaders of hostile countries so they will at least talk (think North Korea). • Keep the taxes on those “evil corporations” low so that they can compete internationally and hire domestically rather than move their manufacturing operations and headquarters offshore to take advantage of cheap labor and low tax rates. • Keep the streamlined bureaucracies, regulations and processes in place that allowed “Operation Warp Speed” to develop and distribute multiple COVID vaccines in under a year. • Keep the de-regulations in place that resulted in the lowest unemployment rates for women and all minorities in half a century and rising incomes for those same groups, and sharply lowered welfare roles. • Keep our military strong; weakness will not encourage better relations with China or Russia. Only a “sore winner” would completely erase everything done by his predecessor: choose wisely. Ken Miller Jeremy Ranch ince late spring, it’s been clear the 2021 Sundance Film Festival would be different. How drastic the changes required to keep everyone safe from COVID-19 would be, though, remained an open question. We now know that hope of the festival at all resembling the typical event in Park City has been left on the cutting room floor. The Sundance Institute made it official Wednesday when it announced that this edition of the festival will be held primarily online. Only one in-person venue will operate in Park City, at a reduced capacity — with even that contingent upon the health situation as the event grows nearer. Amid the onslaught of depressing news this year, this comes as a particularly difficult blow, even if it is not a surprising one given the realities of the pandemic and the ongoing surge here and around the country. Cinema lovers will still be able to watch the slate of films virtually and partake in other elements of the festival program. For all intents and purposes, however, there will be no Sundance in Park City this winter. Nixing nearly all of the in-person elements of the festival in Park City is unquestionably the right decision. Sundance deserves credit for making it, as difficult as it must be to take the festival in a drastically different direction for one year and forego part of what makes the 11 days so special every January: the human connections. But just because it was the prudent move doesn’t make it any less disappointing for filmgoers and those who benefit from the festival, most notably the countless businesses and workers that capture a slice of the tens of millions of dollars Sundance generates in the Park City area each year. For a minority of residents, the absence of the festival for a year may be welcome. Some have grown weary of the myriad impacts that come with the Sundance spotlight, from traffic jams to the difficulty of finding a restaurant reservation during the festival’s packed opening weekend. Those concerns are legitimate — and officials have taken steps to heed them — but are outweighed by the economic boon of playing a starring role in one of the world’s premier film festivals. And that’s not taking into account the prestige of hosting Sundance or the special experiences available to Parkites who embrace the mayhem. Fortunately, Sundance organizers are adamant that this is a temporary change. The festival that has become such a significant part of Park City’s DNA will be back in 2022, assuming the pandemic is behind us. We can’t wait. Right now, though, that seems a long ways off as we confront the prospect of a winter that won’t be lit up by the Sundance stars. guest editorial As bipartisan support builds for addressing climate change, parties must work together JOSH EPPERLY AND MARK REYNOLDS Citizens’ Climate Lobby In the home stretch of the 2020 campaign, presidential candidate Joe Biden leaned hard into the issue of climate change, giving a televised climate speech and running climate-focused ads in swing states. His campaign bet that this issue, once considered politically risky, would now be a winner. That bet paid off. The votes have been tallied, and candidate Biden is now President-elect Biden. But, as is often the case, his party doesn’t have unified control across the whole federal government. President Biden will govern alongside a Democratic House, a conservative Supreme Court, and a Senate that could either have a slim Republican or Democratic majority. That makes “working together” the order of the day. Encouragingly, Biden understands that people of any party can and do care about climate change. In a speech this fall, he said, “Hurricanes don’t swerve to avoid red states or blue states. Wildfires don’t skip towns that voted a certain way. The impacts of climate change don’t pick and choose. It’s not a partisan phenomenon, and our response should be the same.” Some Republicans in the Senate are expressing similar opinions. In October 2020, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) participated in a climate policy webinar with her climate-hawk colleague, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island). She noted that bipartisanship gives a policy longevity. Our leaders here in Utah are signaling their readiness to work on climate change, too. In 2019, Sen. Mitt Romney joined the bipartisan Senate Climate Change Caucus, which is focused on addressing climate change issues through private sector investments and technological innovation. And just last August, Rep. John Curtis called for bipartisanship on climate change issues. These notable voices are responding to an incredible swell of public demand for climate action. According to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, the number of Americans who are “alarmed” about climate change has more than doubled in recent years, What are you proud of? So, Republican Party county chair, I read your letter to the editor that you are so proud of President Trump. So are you proud of the fact he kept the early information on the coronavirus from us the people and called it a hoax? Are you proud how he didn’t tell us how contagious it was, just telling us it will go away? Are you proud of him making fun of mask wearing and making it into a partisan political issue instead of pulling the nation together to do the simple thing of wearing a mask, which is well documented to slow the spread of the virus? And what of our election? Are you proud of his lying and false claims of fraud in our election despite no proof? Are you proud of his efforts to endanger American democracy and dupe millions of his supporters into questioning our election process, which is the foundation of our democracy? Are you proud of his firings of the many dedicated civil service people for simply telling the truth and doing their job such as Chris Krebs, our former U.S. director of cybersecurity who told the truth about the election as being fair and just and one of the best run elections we have had? You should express yourself as being proud of such Republicans as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp from 11% of Americans in 2015 to 26% in 2020. All told, 54% of Americans are either “alarmed” or “concerned” about climate change. Here in Salt Lake County, 75% of adults understand that global warming is happening and support regulating CO2 as a pollutant. Frankly, those numbers make sense. This year has made it starkly obvious that climate change is here and already hurting Americans. More than five million acres have burned across Western states this year, displacing thousands of people. The Southeast has been battered by a record-breaking hurricane season. We need to move as quickly as we can to address the root cause of these extreme events: excess greenhouse gas emissions. One fast-acting, effective climate policy we should enact is a carbon fee. Congress could charge a fee or price on all oil, gas and coal we use in the United States based on the greenhouse gas emissions they produce. Putting that price on pollution will steer our country toward cleaner options, slashing our harmful emissions across many areas of our economy at once. The revenue from this type of policy can even be given to Americans on a regular basis — a “carbon cashback,” if you will, that would put money in people’s pockets while we transition to a clean-energy economy. Carbon fee legislation like this exists in Congress now, known as the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763). It has support from people and organizations across the political spectrum. In the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, H.R. 763 has been endorsed by Solitude Mountain Resort, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, and Holladay Mayor Rob Dahle, among many others. Our community is ready for Sen. Mitt Romney and our House representatives to push forward to make this legislation the law of the land. With the incoming president clearly committed to addressing climate change, and millions of Americans eager for solutions, now is the time to act. Congress should seize the opportunity. Josh Epperly is an ecologist and Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteer. Mark Reynolds is the executive director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for preserving our democracy. Are your proud that they and their families are now receiving death threats and require security details to protect them as Trump continues his false claims of a stolen election? You should be proud of the many Republican-appointed judges and other state elected officials who have stood up to the Trump attempts to subvert our democratic process but not proud of Trump. I see you say you sleep well with your love of President Trump. I sleep peacefully now knowing that our democracy has been preserved with thanks to your fellow Republicans who did not buckle under the pressure from Trump to overrule the vote of the people. John Schloderer Park City Answers needed We, the people of Park City, are still waiting for the mayor’s answers to the numerous questions that have been raised over the past several months regarding the handling of the Black Lives Matter mural on Main Street. This is not going away! People are NOT going to forget. My advice to the mayor is to face the music. You were elected — you are not some sovereign power who can do whatever, whenever with no consequences. I think the power of being “mayor” corrupted your thinking. Your legacy, if you refuse to answer basic questions, will be the mural and the cover-up that followed. Susan Alleva Glenwild Letters Policy The Park Record welcomes letters to the editor on any subject. We ask that the letters adhere to the following guidelines. They must include the home (street) address and telephone number of the author. No letter will be published under an assumed name. Letters must not contain libelous material. Letters should be no longer than about 300 words (about 600 words for guest editorials) and should, if possible, be typed. We reserve the right to edit letters if they are too long or if they contain statements that are unnecessarily offensive or obscene. Writers are limited to one letter every seven days. Letters thanking event sponsors can list no more than 6 individuals and/or businesses. 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