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Show VIEWPOINTS The Park Record. A-13 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2020 EDITORIAL Shot in the arm for teachers ov. Gary Herbert on Thursday put teachers in their place. That place, appropriately, is near the front of the line to receive a coronavirus vaccine. Teachers, the governor announced, will be included in the state’s first wave of vaccinations, taking their spot behind some hospital workers and alongside first responders and residents in long-term care facilities. Some educators could even get their first dose of the vaccine developed by Pfizer as early as later this month. Deciding which groups to prioritize — and, just as important, which groups will have to wait — as the vaccination campaign begins in Utah and the rest of the United States is an unenviable task. In an ideal world, there would immediately be enough doses to inoculate everybody, save tens of thousands of lives and end the coronavirus pandemic by the end of the year. Widespread vaccination, however, is not expected to be possible until well into 2021. It’s hard to argue that health care workers in Utah’s hospitals treating the most severe COVID-19 cases do not deserve their place as the first to receive the vaccine. And it’s unsurprising that first responders and residents and workers in long-term care facilities will also G GUEST EDITORIAL Keep yourself — and your loved ones — safe this holiday season We are living in such unprecedented times. We have endured lockdowns, time away from our friends and loved ones, mask mandates, trip cancellations, wedding cancellations and changes to our daily lives that we never would have predicted only a short time ago. We have watched COVID-19 travel through the world like a wildfire on a windy day. Sparking fires from the largest cities in the world to the smallest rural communities. I know for many of us the holiday season is usually a blur of activities ranging from fun-filled nights with friends, to less-than-exciting office parties, but this year will be different than most. We need to understand that having a different kind of holiday this year is OK. Many of will do our best to stop the spread of COVID-19 by quietly and gracefully bowing out of family functions, dinner with friends and fun get-togethers. While others will blatantly disregard the pleas of the CDC to celebrate with only members of your own household. (The CDC defines any person living outside of your home as being in a separate household.) I want people to know that those of us making the brave decision to isolate and skip holiday festivities are heroes. We have made the tough decision and braved the sometimes-harsh backlash from family members, so that we can help stop the spread of COVID-19 and keep the people we love safe and healthy. Every person that makes the sacrifice to skip the traditional mixed household celebrations this year is doing so out of love and compassion, not only for their family but for the entire community. Please understand that it’s not personal ... it’s COVID-19. It’s a worldwide pandemic. Our state has grappled with this horrible virus for so long. We have seen our intensive care unit occupancy rates soar across the state. We have witnessed friends, family and loved ones fall ill or, even worse, die from COVID-19. All because we still have people who are not willing to isolate, wear masks and social distance. There are people who are out shopping at malls, getting their hair done and enjoying meals indoors with people outside of their household. I beg and plead with you to stop and show respect not only for yourself but for everyone else who has sacrificed to help stop the spread of COVID-19. I hope that this holiday season you and your family choose to be a hero. Celebrate your love and gratitude via a FaceTime call. Catch up and sing carols with old friends via Zoom. Remember if you truly love the people around you, show them you care by helping stop the spread of COVID-19. I think it is more important than ever this holiday season to show gratitude for not only the blessings in your life but the generosity and the unwavering commitment from all of our essential workers who have worked tirelessly during the past 10 months to keep us safe. To all of the doctors, nurses, grocery store workers, delivery drivers, postal workers and every other person who has risked their life to serve the public through this onerous time, we thank you! Your selflessness is an act of love. Show respect for yourself and your community by celebrating the holidays with only members of your household. If we stand together against COVID-19 we have the power to stop the spread and save lives. Pick up a cold one A matter of principle Winter’s here. Take a deep breath, ahhhh! You can’t smell it. You know it’s there, it’s everywhere! It’s frozen. It’s dog poop! Now’s the perfect time to pick up a cold one. It doesn’t stink, and the bags are free. You don’t have to take it to the dump — there are trash cans all over. So, give a crap, do your doody, pick up a cold one — better yet, take home a six-pack. I am responding to Mr. Rubinfeld’s letter (“Lessons learned,” Dec. 9-11) regarding my letter (“Answers needed,” Dec. 5-8) asking Mayor Beerman to respond to the numerous questions raised by the mural painted on Main Street last summer. He totally missed my point. My letter had nothing to do with the mural itself or it’s message — that is a whole different topic — rather it addressed the way in which the painting of the mural was accomplished. There are rules and procedures in place for such events — if any individual or group wanted to have a mural painted it would have to go through numerous applications, committee meetings, forms to be completed etc., and yet the mayor (who is supposed to be the face of Park City — per the website describing the mayor’s responsibilities) seems to have circumvented all of that. I want to know why he felt he was entitled to do that when everyone else is expected to follow the rules. I would feel the same way regardless of the mural’s content. It TIFFANY MARSHALL Park City LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Manette L. Manz Pinebrook 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 Lindsay Lane Joseph Siemon Director of Digital MarketingTina Wismer Digital Sales Executive ......... Erik Jones Production Director ............... Ben Olson Production ........................Louise Mohorn 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. Send your letter to: editor@parkrecord.com PERSPECTIVE be included in the initial phase. Teachers are a more surprising inclusion. Undoubtedly, though, the move is justified. And in Summit County, where teachers in our three school districts have been nothing short of heroic this year, it should be celebrated. Throughout the pandemic, teachers have worked longer hours than ever before, made sacrifice after sacrifice and, in many cases, risked their own safety to keep our students engaged and educated. Making sure they are among the first people in the state to get vaccinated is a just outcome. And it’s one that will hopefully have another benefit: helping schools keep their doors open through graduation day rather than needing to revert back to online-only education, which was an adequate solution in the spring but lacks so many of the vital benefits of in-person learning. We can be confident that, whatever the rest of the school year holds, teachers will be ready, working tirelessly on the behalf of our children. Most of the rest of us still have some waiting to do before getting a vaccine. In the meantime, seeing educators and others who have been on the front lines of the pandemic being inoculated — a development that will represent the first step toward an eventual return to normal life — will be a figurative shot in the arm. Drought in West may usher in significant changes to how states manage water supply drought could bring about a crisis: “Water rates would spike in cities, just as farm income and output would plunge region-wide.” Without demand management, Lockhead predicted, there would be “an economic black hole.” To test demand management, four municipal water districts, including Denver Water, funded a pilot program in 2015-2019. It stored 175,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead by paying irrigators in Arizona, California and Nevada to fallow fields and forgo cultivation. Applications rose annually, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which funded 53 percent of the study. The rest, 47 percent, came from the four water districts and the Walton Family Foundation. Eklund wants the same players to back Colorado’s program, the first of the Upper Basin states to attempt demand management. “BuRec built all the dams possible (and) they should steer into conservation,” Eklund said. But to gain participation in the pilot program, water prices were set at levels that boosted farm incomes above what agriculture alone would produce. That raise in income also increased the value of their land. Mueller doesn’t like what that could lead to: “That will squeeze out future mom-and-pop operators. Ninety-five percent of Western Slope irrigators are owner-operators and we don’t want that declining.” Although the Colorado Water Conservation Board hasn’t ironed out how to “shepherd” the water downstream or who will round up willing sellers, investors from outside of Western Colorado are already buying up land with senior water rights. “We are seeing large, well-financed purchasers — ostensibly agricultural organizations -- coming into the Gunnison basin,” said Steve Anderson, who manages the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, a canal company in Montrose County. In Delta County, the Conscience Bay Company, operating out of Boulder, bought the 3,000-acre Harts Basin Ranch, with senior water rights on the Grand Mesa. Yet, the new owners are hardly quick-buck artists. They have expanded the cattle herds, improved irrigation and hired locals. For the new water owners, it’s a waiting game until demand management exists and water comes with a price. As drought worsens, the owners of these senior water rights — whether they are from New York City or Texas — could well be sitting on a fortune. DAVE MARSTON Writers on the Range There’s a concept called “demand management” in the news in Colorado, and here’s a simple definition: Landowners get paid to temporarily stop irrigating, and that water gets sent downstream to hang out in Lake Powell. It’s an idea long talked about because of increasing drought and the very real danger of both Lake Mead and Lake Powell dropping into “dead pool” where no hydropower can be generated. But fears keep arising about what water markets mean. To some rural people, the idea of separating water from the land sounds like heresy. Here’s how Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District sees it: “Just talking about demand management has already attracted deep-pocketed investors, whose motives are money and not for maintaining a healthy river.” But James Eklund, former head of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and who shares credit for creating Colorado’s version of demand management, thinks setting up demand management in Colorado is crucial. “We need to act now,” he said. “Last winter and spring, where 107 percent snowpack turned into 52 percent runoff, was proof we’ve entered a deadly phase where millions of acre-feet of water need to be stored in Lake Powell.” These days, Eklund is a lawyer for the New York investment company, Water Asset Management (WAM), whose land purchases in Mesa County have sounded alarms about outsiders speculating on water. State Sen. Kerry Donovan, Democrat from Vail, has co-sponsored what could be called an anti-WAM bill, aimed at beefing up the state’s water anti-speculation laws. “If we don’t do demand management correctly,” Donovan warned, “we are going to create a commodity-based situation where water goes to the highest bidder.” Eklund’s rejoinder: “Like it or not, we live in a capitalist system.” Gary Wockner of the non-profit Save the Colorado has a different approach. He supports following the West’s existing water laws that took root in scarcity and drought. “If Lake Powell requires more water to keep functioning, why not curtail junior users across the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico rather than employing expensive water purchases?” Critics of Wockner’s plan say that by then it’ll be too late, that after multiple dry years Upper Basin reservoirs will be Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, empty. Jim Lockhead, president of Denver Water, argued that writersontherange.org, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring liveby not putting demand management into place, increasing ly conversation about the West. is a matter of principle. As I said, the mayor is not a sovereign being. If we don’t hold our elected officials responsible for their actions (and all actions have consequences) then who will? Susan Alleva Glenwild Mindset of mush The mindset of many Americans has turned to mush. Far too many believe the end justifies the means, or that might makes right, or that only a single ruler can make them safe. When a demagogue emerges in one party, fellow politicians fear the wrath of the popular one, and learn to lust after power and drama in a like manner. They learn to hate empowerment of ordinary groups of people, and want government instead by a small group, perhaps including just the president, congressional party leadership, a favorite media outlet and the judiciary. Their view is that moral goodness is for the common people ... necessary to obtain their compliance and their devotion. They themselves believe that money and benefits can buy the people’s affection, but reason and ethics are not necessary. In this worldview, canceling disfavored groups and ignoring the health, safety and education of the people is no big deal. Kim Shinkoskey Woods Cross Your future Mountain Home is calling Check out the Park Record’s Real Estate Monthly for listings in Park City and the surrounding areas Looking to sell a home, condo, property, or townhome? Call 435-649-9014 to get your listing seen by over 10,000 people. |