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Show LETTERS Mary Lelimer Tries to Clarify Matters Dear Editor: Dear Jan Wilking: Your letter to me tried to rebut the accusations I made as to why incumbent city candidates should not be elected. You warned voters to think again before casting ballots based on my "false" accusations. Your facts were as poor as your memory. You said that my worst accusation of all was that Jack Green appeared at the Jan. 1974 public hearing prerequisite to adopting the present revised Master Plan to protest that his property on Park Ave. be changed from its existing zone to commercial. You then state, "As chairman of the Master Plan Committee which was conducting the public hearing, hear-ing, I can state that this is not true." Jan, you're all wet. The original Master Plan was revised during 1973 by Architect Planners Alliance (APA) under a $20,000 federal grant. The revision was completed in Dec. 1973. Publication of the 15 days advance notice of the public hearing prerequisite to the council adopting the Revised Master Plan was given before you attended your first council meeting after being sworn into office Jan. 7, 1974. The city council held the public hearing on Jan. 31, 1974. That is where Mr. Green stood , up to propose that his zoning on the proposed map be changed to commercial. AFTER the public hearing. the city council adopted the Revised Master Plan on Feb. 7, 1974. AFTER the council adopted the Revised Master Plan, an informal meeting was held Feb. 11, 1974 to discuss rezoning of Park City to effectuate the new Plan. The next council meeting was held Feb. 21, 19743. A decision was made to revise the zoning and the Zoning Ordinance of 1968 to implement imple-ment the Revised Master Plan. The Planning Commission Commis-sion and city council, designated design-ated as the Master Plan Committee, was delegated this responsibility, and Mayor May-or Price appointed you Chairman of this new committee. com-mittee. Explain to me how you performed your feat of magic of conducting the public hearing of Jan. 1974 as chairman of the Master Plan Committee which was formed form-ed a month later. You continue by saying that during the rezoning process I was doing what I accused Jack of. In support of your accusation, you made this statement: The Master Plan Committee recommended that the entrance area to Deer Valley, where Mary has substantial land holdings, be zoned HR-1. Throughout the process to rewrite the zoning ordinance, she argued that the land there should be zoned R-M." In answer to this misstatement, misstate-ment, I say to you. Jan, that your memory is again either conveniently bad or else you are deliberately lying. The Master Plan Committee Commit-tee never recommended that the entrance area of Deer Valley be zoned HR-1. You and Gene Carr of APA prepared your conception of how Park City should be rezoned and presented it to the Committee on a large sheet of white paper with the zones outlined in blue felt marker pen lines. My area, which was already zoned R-M, was indeed labelled and proposed to be rezoned HR-1. As an attorney knowledgeable know-ledgeable of the law, I pointed out that the law did not permit any governing body to impose an historic district unless there was something there of historic significance to be preserved. Since there was nothing there except 17-18 squatters' shacks like mine and the metal gas co. shed enclosed by a chain link fence, the Master Plan Committee scrubbed your personal desire de-sire for an illegal, indefensible indefensi-ble historic district in the spring of 1973 at the inception of the rewriting process. Simultaneously, I observed that it was logical to retain the existing R-M zoning in the area (which zone permits tourist lodging and multi- , dwellings) because it was walking distance to Main Street and its tourist amenities ameni-ties and buses to the ski resort. The Master Plan Committee agreed that the existing R-M zoning was proper and should be continued contin-ued as such in the rezoning process. This decision was made at the inception of the rewriting process in the spring of 1973, and throughout through-out the entire rewriting process under your chairmanship chair-manship which culminated on Oct. 16, 1976, no one ever Please turn to page 11 A MORE LETTERS Continued from Page 2A proposed that it be changed from its R-M status. I attended my last Master Plan Committee meeting in Sept. 1975, and my tenure as councilman ended Dec. 31, 1975. In fact, your own city council recodified this area as R-M in the revised Zoning Ordinance you adopted Oct. lb, 1976, 10l2 months after I left office. So much for your misrepresented misrepre-sented statement that throughout the rewriting process of over 3'A years I argued to have the area zoned R-M to "greatly .increase the value of her property." , As for your finding my comments on my adjoining "miserable 8-plex" ironic because the 8-plex was only allowed because I successfully successful-ly increased the density of the area. On the contrary, if you are at all interested in the truth, you could profit by researching research-ing the city council minutes of 1972. You will find that shortly after I took office in Jan. 1972, I spearheaded a movement to downzone many ma-ny areas, including my own, from R-M to R-l to limit densities which were then beginning to degenerate our town. Regrettably, three of my colleagues, with the usual lack of foresight common to our city councils, outvoted me, and those R-M districts, including mine, zoned into place in 1971 have remained in place ever since, albeit when the incumbent city council was to rework the zoning ordinance to lessen densities, the only area in the whole city they reduced densities in was my small R-M zone. They actually tried to attempt greater restrictions on us than those in-R-l! But I will have to admit they are impartial --they --they are as liberal with their anti-favoritism as they are with their favoritism! Back to the 8-plex. I didn't find it "miserable" because it was an 8-plex. Any 8-plex was legal here since 1971. It was "miserable" because it violated the provisions of the Land Management Code and the building plan approved by the Planning Commission. Commis-sion. It was particularly offensive in its excessive violation of the height code. After Bill Ligety, Councilman Council-man Wells and Planning Commission Chairman Burn-is Burn-is Watts inspected it. and reported it to the city council as being in violation, the former city council put a stop work order on it in Oct. 1979 over the protests of Mayor Green and his puppet building build-ing inspector, who fought us and our neighbors all summer sum-mer and stoutly defended it as being totally legal. As for your statement that in all the time you served on the council with Green you do not believe that he once cast a vote from which he "reaped substantial benefits," bene-fits," where have you been? You know that you and I and the rest of the Master Plan Committee, except Jack, for almost three years of the rewriting process that elapsed elap-sed until I left office Dec. 31. 1975, steadfastly refused Jack's plea to zone his property on Park Ave. commercial instead of R-l. Jack took office as councilman council-man Jan. 1976. Yet you and he were on the council who voted on oct. 16, 1976 to zone his property R-M instead ol R-l. (T guess giving him Commercial was too blatant.) You made much in your letter of my alleged efforts to zone my property R-M to "greatly increase its value" but you don't think his voting his own property R-M instead of R-l reaped him any substantial benefit. What kind of goobley-gook are you trying to peddle? I almost forgot your question as to how Bill Coleman's success relates to his position as Planning Commissioner. I cite one typical example: Coleman received the greatest portion (some $86,000) of the various realtors' commissions involved in-volved in the multi-million dollar sale of the Hanley property, part of which commission was paid on closing, balance if buyer completed sale and did not "walk away" if his plans did not reach fruition for which success buyer sought annexation annex-ation into city and rezoning. Thereafter, Planning Comm. minutes of Aug. 12, 1981 reveal prsentation of Buyer's proposal to zone Hanley parcel RDM and Estate pending Annexation Petition pending for City Council hearing on Aug. 27. Coleman voted in favor of motion to grant proposed zoning. Sept. 23, 1981 minutes of Planning Comm. reveal Coleman voted vot-ed "aye" on Motion to recommend that City grant peding Annexation petition. Nowhere do these minutes reflect that Coleman disclosed disclos-ed that he had any interest, financial or otherwise, in the rezoning and annexatior -motions he voted on favorably favor-ably for this project. You say my charge that Bob Wells made "no disclosure of any connection with Royai Street and its Deer Valley development" is ridiculous "since it was a well-known fact that Bob was working for Royal Street." It may have been well-known to you and your cohorts who drink, eat and literally sleep in the same bed with Wells, but it was not known to the public. I for one had no knowledge of it until Roval St. announced his discharge in the papers last spring. It was so little known that the Citizens' Council received an anonymous anony-mous letter informing us that Wells was a stockholder in Royal St. and why wasn't he required to make his fact public and refrain from voting on Deer Valley matters. mat-ters. It was so little known that two of the most important businessmen in Park City who were reliable and in the know told me that Wells was a stockholder and asked how he could be forced co make this information public and be required to , refrain from voting on Deer Valley projects where he had an ovious conflict of interest. When Bob first ran for public office four years ago, at a public "Meet the Candidates" forum sponsored sponsor-ed by Eleanor Bennet of the Atheneum Society, Wells deplored his public impage of a developer. He loudly disclaimed any involvment as a developer. He insisted that -his only possible involvement in-volvement with any development develop-ment in Park City was to turn an ugly building (which he forgot to mention was built in the first place by his employer Greater Park City Co.) into the beautiful Mt. Air Mall. Wells maintained throughout through-out his recent campaign that he always disclosed his conflicts of interest and that state law permitted him to vote on issues after he made such disclosures. Apparently he was not all that assiduous in making disclosures of conflicts of interest during his past four years in office. In browsing through old official city minutes which encompassed the first couple of years he was in office, I noticed the many times he had voted on Deer Valley matters but nowhere in those minutes did I find any mention that he disclosed that he had an interest in the company whose interests were being voted on. A long way down the line I found a very interesting item. At a council meeting (I regret I did not make a note of the date), when the minutes of the previous council meeting came up for approval, Mr. Wells asked that previous minutes be amended to retroactively cancel a vote he had cast at the previous meeting because, he now wished to announce, he had an interest in the matter on which he voted. Next time you want to write letters about my "false accusations", Jan, get your facts and the truth straightened straight-ened out before you go mouthing off, as you always do the last issue before election. Mary Lehmer |
