Long-time readers will know that I am a cynic with Park City School district spending. The previous PC Schools spending initiatives have been tainted by poor processes and statements from would-be architects that “you’ll never get funding for expansion unless you include sports.” That, may be true in Draper but are we trying to find the right solutions or are we doing what is popular? It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I don’t trust it.

So, that is my bias.

Everyone has a bias.

In your election ballot you received from Summit County, you’ll be asked whether you want to allow the Park City School District to issue a $79 million bond. It becomes more complicated because the school district wants to spend $50 million more dollars on other projects, through a different tax mechanisam, and want to finance that separately. It’s frankly a little weird.

The problem that the Park City School District continually creates is weirdness. If the district wants to spend $129 million, then they should bond for it. Instead, they make a bond for $79 million, indicate they need $50 million more dollars, talk about $2 million coming from a secret donor, and then declare bake sales can be used for the other $50 million.

Holy crap.

But let’s take a step back. Let’s discuss the fundamental issues being addressed by the bond and the bake sale $50 million in tax increases. Here is what the $129 million Bond + is promising:

• 9th grade moves into the high school.
• Ecker becomes an 6/7/8 school.
• Preschool is available in all elementary schools.

That will cost a home owner who’s home is valued at $950K about $100 a year. Your house is probably valued more than that by Summit County, so let’s call it $200 a year. Over 21 years of the bond, you are committing to paying $4,000. Oh, and that’s the $79 million portion. The $50 million will cost even more.

That said let’s take a farther step back. Back during the 2015 Park City School District bond process, I attended almost every meeting by the bond committee. That was a shit show. The school district was being driven by outside forces that didn’t have our best interests in mind. On a positive note, I don’t feel that here. I think that all-things-Park-City-Education are pushing the bond but it’s not for financial gain.

Yet, we are also in a different place. Personally, my property taxes have doubled in the last 10 years. If they double again, for me, it will almost be unsustainable. I believe that fact is lost on Summit County and the school district.

I had a reader email the Park Rag and ask if it was possible to recall Summit County Council members who vote for “giving the Tech Park to Dakota Pacific.” The question refers to an upcoming vote that the County Council will have on allowing a local real-estate developer to build on the land beneath UOP. Currently, people believe the County Council will vote 4-1 in favor of allowing Dakota Pacific to build a medical center, hotel, office space, and 1,100 units of housing on the land.

While I didn’t ask where the reader came up with the idea, I assume it is based on recent events in California.

Unfortunately, Utah is one of 11 states that don’t allow elected representatives to face a recall election to decide if they should keep their position. So, the answer to the reader is “no, that is not an option.”

The real answer is that elections matter and they have consequences. The only thing that can be done is to challenge those who voted against this in the next election. That could be in the primary. That could be in the general election.

For instance, many people who are against Dakota Pacific had a choice in the 2020 election between Malena Stevens and Canice Harte in the Democrat primary for County Council. If you are against Dakota and you voted for Ms. Stevens, you probably chose poorly.

Canice Harte is stridently against this development. With him, on the Council, It would have been 3-2 in favor of the development. One of those people that appears to be in favor is Chris Robinson, who initially recused himself from discussions because he took gifts from Dakota Pacific (that’s laudable that he did that). Since then, he seems back in the fray (not so laudable). It is likely, if it was 2-2 without him, that he would have stayed out of the final vote. Thus, if you voted for Mr. Harte, there would be no Dakota Pacific.

Now, there probably will be.

All of that is the past and includes some conjecture. However, there is the future. If you hate this development, and the County Council enables it, you have to carefully examine your choices. My hope is that over the next four years, everyone voting for this horrible development will face opposition in the Democratic primary. Then I hope that Republicans can muster people to challenge those who make it through.

The Dakota Pacific development is a life-changing development. It’s on the scale of the Treasure Hill development in Park City.

My kids go to Jeremy Ranch. I think the principal there, Shawn Kuennen, has done a good job of communicating about covid. Earlier this week he sent out a preemptive email warning parents that a mask mandate is coming. That got me looking into the numbers.

In Tuesday’s Park City Scholl Board meeting, the district showed the enrollment for each school. So, I looked at Jeremy. We have 492 kids (as of October 1). The chart below shows enrollment for each school.

Then I went to the JRES home page to see our Covid Numbers, to see whether a mask mandate is needed. Here is what that shows:

Great, that number is down from Thursday where we sat at 12 cases if I recall.

But I started doing a little math. So, if there are 9 cases and that represents 1.44% of students, staff, and faculty, there would have to be 625 students, staff, and faculty at Jeremy Ranch. Mathletes, please check my work on that calculation.

So there are 492 students. That must mean there are 133 faculty and teachers at JRES. Let’s say there are four teachers for each grade from pre-school to fifth grade. That would be 28 teachers. Let’s say each of those classrooms had an aide (they don’t but we will pretend). That would double it to 56 people helping educate our children. There are of course music, PE, STEM, and art teachers helping. There are the folks working after-school programs. There are the administrative staff, maintenance folks, and those doing lunch. There are others that I have forgotten.

However, I find it hard to believe there are 133 people that are the faculty and staff at Jeremy Ranch. That’s the number to get to 625. Maybe there are. I don’t have the willpower to GRAMA request it. I’ll let the district first work out their issues at Parley’s Park. I don’t want to distract them from that. However, it just strains credibility.

Most importantly, I wouldn’t be asking these questions if I trusted the school district more. Again, like with the PPES issue, I am not making a mask argument (I have friends for masks and against masks, and I understand both sides). In this case, I am making a process argument.

If anyone has any insight into this, I’d love to learn more. Please, if I am wrong, tell me. That’s fair. I might just not understand how much faculty and staff it takes to run an elementary school.

Still, as Mark Twain said, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” We’re having a large debate over the handling of mask mandates at PPES but are we sure our baseline numbers are valid? If no teacher here can educate me on why I am wrong, I’ll go to the school district eventually once PPES is cooled down.

I just generally want to know how they get to these numbers.

I grew up in a small midwestern town. Walmart took over circa 1980. It wasn’t great for the town. No, perhaps better said, it destroyed our main street.

So, with some sad amusement, I received by Covid booster at Walmart today. I tried to get my booster last Friday at the Summit County Health Department in Coalville but the Health Department said that although the FDA and the Governor had said anyone under 65 could get their boosters, the Health Department wasn’t prepared, and so I couldn’t do it then. “It would be malpractice.”

I had waited an hour and ten minutes before the nurse told me I couldn’t get my booster. At Coalville, each person before me seemed to take about five to ten minutes to get the shot. It was ludicrous.

At Walmart, it was about one minute between shots.

I was fourth in line to get my shot, and I was seen within about 5 minutes of completing check-in. Nina, the nice German woman who delivered my shot, was fabulous. The injection felt far better than either of my previous two Covid injections.

Last night’s County Council meeting was a show of force regarding Dakota Pacific. Over 800 people took time out of their lives to show up in person and on Zoom. Most of the people who spoke were against it. I was one of those.

Yet, I can’t help but think that the show of force was merely a moral victory. Many of those in attendance would think, “How could the County Council vote for Dakota Pacific when almost 4,000 people have signed a petition against it?” Then they would then think, “800 people showed up online and in person against this effort. How could they vote for it?”

I’ve seen it. All it takes is three yeahs. Then it passes way in to the ether and the County Council moves on to the next thing. The project gets built. No one remembers. Everyone votes Democrat whether they like the local politics of the council member or not. The same people are re-elected. Rinse and repeat.

There is no fear in the heart of the County Council that they are going against popular opinion. That’s because they believe they know more than you do. And they probably do. Except for a select few individuals in our community, they have spent way more time on this project than most of us have.

However, it doesn’t make their opinion right.

That said, their opinion will become law.

Our job, for people against Dakota Pacific, is to understand the concerns they have. We need to find the areas where maybe they aren’t so sure and use research, data, and information to change their opinion beyond a reasonable doubt.

What I learned from last night is that the public’s conjecture about water, transit, affordable housing, and traffic means very little to the Council writ large. The County Council has heard all of that for a year and they are still rocketing towards approval. I think we need to pay attention to what they have said and listen to them for once.

At the end of last night’s meeting, Doug Clyde said that he needed to personally validate the traffic studies done. He feels he has enough experience to look at the data and determine whether there will be more or less traffic with Dakota Pacific’s plan. Likewise, he wanted to delve into the details of developer agreement. If you are against Dakota Pacific, you need to convince Mr Clyde that traffic will be worse under Dakota Pacific and point out other holes in the proposal. He has a developer background. You may assume that would work against the Stop Dakota efforts; however, I believe if the right arguments are presented, that are concrete and factual, he could conclude that this development agreement is not what we want at this point and that the traffic studies were not valid.

County Councilor Malena Stevens did not provide any insight last night into her thought process. However, previously she cited affordable housing as a key element. Likewise, Ms. Stevens represents a different demographic on the County Council. I believe she too listens to the facts. If substantial information is brought to light that proves that this will not provide substantial affordable housing benefits, she could be convinced to vote against the project.

Council Chair Glen Wright has focused on sustainability during his tenure. While he did not speak last night,

This week the public won versus Dakota Pacific. Dakota wanted to build something that most people felt was bad for our communty. Most County Councilors were ready to vote for the project until 900 people showed up to vote opposition. The public stopped it.

Yet, now we are moving into the nest phase. We have heard that Friends of Summit County for Sustainable Development (Friends), the major opposition force to Dakota, is talking about working with Dakota Pacific to find solutions “that that people want.”

What The Friends need to understand are two fold. First, it is far easier in Summit County to oppose something than to finda plan that is better than. So, as they supposedly represent what Snyderviulle Basin residents want, they may find they know what we are against but they don’t know what we are for. So, I would encourage the group to find a way to understand what the community wants… not just what they don’t want.

More importantly, Friends, please don’t fall into the Hubris Trap. The standard play from development organizations, that fail like Dakota, is to bring you into the discussion and make you feel honored to be in the discussion. They make you feel like you have a voice. They then give you a little bit. For instance, they give you an extra 100 affordable locations but all the problems still exist. Yet, because you’ve met with them 5 times, and they gave you something, it is hard to say no. Now, it is your solution and how do you rally against it?

We need to slow down Dakota Pacific. We, as a community, need to change the Snyderville Basin General Plan to meet our current community. We likely need to change our neighborhood plans to fit our current demographic. That is years of work.

Sometimes I feel like I am living in the movie Zoolander. I am sitting in disbelief, looking around, and shouting, “Am I taking crazy pills?”

Test to Stay at schools is canceled because we don’t have enough tests and we should assume everyone has been exposed to Covid. I imagine Yogi Berra saying, “We have so many people with Covid that we don’t need to test anymore.”

The Governor says most people should give up on testing.

The State epidemiologist Dr. Leisha Nolen says if you feel sick assume you have Covid because so many people do.

For two weeks, when someone in a classroom comes down with Covid, the Park City School District has been sending out letters to everyone in a class telling them to assume they were exposed. There is no more close contact.

Everyone had Covid.

The problem with this is consistency. It appears the state of Utah has moved past trying to do the right thing anddoing everything they can to stop covid,

Wednesday the Park City School Board met in a morning meeting to discuss staffing needs at Park City Schools. The bottom line is that there are not enough teachers and there are not enough substitutes. Human Resources Director Shad Sorenson offered potential solutions that included limiting meetings and free food. As he spoke, I couldn’t help but think that he was describing Google in 2010.

It’s no longer 2010 and Park City isn’t the Google campus. Having worked in that sort of environment, I can’t claim that Mr. Sorenson is completely wrong, but I do know that the benefits of that environment last about 3 weeks.

Here are the facts.

There is no short-term solution. Creating a culture that makes talent want to work for you takes years. Whatever we do today won’t be felt for 3 to 5 years or more.

The issue, at the beginning of the year, where out-of-district teachers’ kids were no longer granted the ability to go to our schools was horrible at the time. Now, that decision is severely harming our schools. It’s not a good culture.

Likewise, they say we don’t have enough substitutes. Yet, within the last two years, we outsourced our substitutes to EDUStaff in Michigan. Previously, a teacher might have reached out to a trusted substitute who would come in and take their place. It didn’t always work perfectly but it generally worked. Now, we are looking at our temp agency. It’s not working. Better stated, it’s working worse. Again, it’s not a good culture.

During the meeting school board member Andrew Caplan said, “we need to change the model… we need to look at this differently.” He cited subtitute teachers who are being paid $17 who could make more at Smiths stocking shelves. He’s right.

I don’t believe keeping good teachers is about free food or installing video games in the teachers’ lounge. It’s much simpler and also much harder than that.

It’s about a good culture. It’s about trust.