in Vail
Are Park City and Vail Equals?
Have you seen the 1980’s movie Arthur starring Dudley Moore? It’s about a semi-lovable, rich drunk who is heir to a fortune. However, his father and grandmother decide that unless he marries a woman named Susan, who he doesn’t like, he will lose it all. While it’s not the greatest movie ever told, we’ve begun wondering if it’s perhaps a metaphor for Park City and Vail.
We were listening this morning to a Park City Planner on KPCW talking about Vail’s connection between PCMR and Canyons that’s coming. Leslie Thatcher bombarded the gentlemen with questions about the impacts of allowing the connection and every answer sounded like it had come straight out of Broomfield Colorado (the home of Vail). Ms Thatcher asked if this plan would bring more skiers to Park City. The response what that Vail said it would not. Ms Thatcher asked whether this would mean more parking is needed. The answer was no. To the casual listener, it was hard to keep one’s mouth from gaping in that “did he really say that” sort of way.
The interview started us to think about the relationship between Park City, Summit County, and Vail. Are the parties equals…. does one hold the upper hand? If you were to ask someone from our local government, we’d guess they would say we were all equals. Yet, we seem to remember that Vail gave over $500,000 to Park City non profits last year. We also have been told a $50 million investment will be made into the “New” PCMR. To us, that indicates who actually holds the upper hand.
Does that leave Park City a little bit like Arthur … someone who is tied to decisions made by the people with the purse strings? Like Arthur, could we stand up to our rich Grandmother and say NO? If we did, would she cut us off? Or would it end in a fairytale, like Arthur, who marries the woman he loves AND keeps the money. Doubtful.
We think it’s a good question to ask before we get too dependent on others.
This morning we heard that Park City Municipal wasn’t too concerned about the connection going over sensitive lands or that it exceeds height restrictions. Perhaps, like that lovable drunk, we are already dependent on our grandmother to take care of us. Let’s just hope in the future she doesn’t make us do something we really don’t want to do.
Mountain Accord’s agenda is to get taxpayers to fund tourism industry
This weekend’s Salt Lake Tribune had an interesting Op-ed from Patrick Shea who is a Salt Lake City attorney and a former director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Mr Shea’s points are:
- We’ve inherited a great treasure, in the form of the Central Wasatch.
- Our ancestors and the people here before us “were not motivated solely by financial gain. Instead, particularly for the pioneers, they understood there was an inherent moral obligation for ‘justice between generations.'”
- The plan being proposed “on an unsuspecting public” is for “certain financial interest, both public and private, to create a transportation system which will facilitate our tourism business.”
- We the citizens would be obligated to pay $3-$5 billion in our taxes for this.
- We run the risk that this plan actually destroys 60% of our water system.
- The promoters of Mountain Accord believe that Orrin Hatch will find a way for the Federal Government to fund the entire proposal, “tunnel and all”
- The centerpiece of Mountain Accord — planning for the future makes sense. “But we as citizens need to make sure that the short-term financial interest of a few don’t destroy the future for many.”
It’s an interesting argument. We hadn’t heard or thought of the Orrin Hatch play. We’re not sure it’s possible but you never know. We would suggest you read the op-ed in its entirety and see what you think.
h/t to the Friend of the Park Rag who told us we needed to read the op-ed
in Environment
FEMA to Deny Funds to States Whose Governors Deny Climate Change
We hope Utah isn’t counting on any disaster preparedness aid from FEMA. It appears the government agency is going to begin denying preparedness funds to states that have governors who deny the existence of global warming. According to Think Progress, Utah’s Governor Herbert fits into that category squarely.
Funds like these typically trickle down into local agencies for use in all sorts of ways. In the last 5 years, FEMA has given $1 billion to states to help get them ready for a natural disaster. We have to think Utah has received substantial funds for potential flooding, fires, and earthquakes over the past few years. It will be interesting to see whether the governor is willing to back down from his position, especially if this summer brings a high number of forest fires.
in Schools
Another Reason to Start Schools Later… Safety
We were out driving this morning at about 6:30, when we came upon a group of cars waiting to drop their kids off on the bus. As the bus approached from down the hill, all the kids started getting out of the cars and running across the road. This was before the bus had arrived and put out its stop sign.
The issue is that at 6:30 it’s still very dark and it would be very easy for a car to not see a kid. We don’t know that there has ever been an accident, but it’s not hard to envision a child being run over. If that were to happen, there would be a lot of questions about kids hopping on buses at the crack of dawn’s ass in the dark.
There has been a recent push by Dr John Hanrahan to start our school’s later due to better learning. This may be an additional reason supporting a later start that should factor into the discussion.
Has Running With ED’s Website Been Hacked?
This morning we heard a radio promo for Running with ED, so we typed “running with ed” into Google. It brings up the normal google listing but when you click on it, it takes you to a Viagra site (kind of funny when you think about it…except the hacking part of course).
Here is what it all looks like…
If you click on the first link… it takes you to:
Oops… Not good. It appears if you type the site www.runningwithed.com directly into the browser it works, though. That’s pretty strange.
Update: First, we don’t know exactly what has happened here. We have done some research into “Pharma Hacks” as they are called and our best guess on this is that someone was able to compromise Running With Ed’s WordPress based website. It appears if security is not handled properly it may be possible to upload something to the website causing the site to send people to other locations — like a Viagra website. The risk here is that if one piece of code was uploaded to their site to do this, other parts of their site may have been compromised, too. It appears they use a third party for registration and collecting money. So, at least that’s a good thing. We would just advise using caution on their site until they either confirm that everything is OK, or if this was a hack that this has been taken care of and they’ve had a security specialist look at all of their “code” to make sure there isn’t something else nasty in there.
in Development, Economy
We Couldn’t Agree More With This Weekend’s Park Record Edtorial
In Saturday’s Park Record, the Park Record Editorial Staff advocate forcing the Boyer Tech Park to keep it’s original mission: Bringing high paying tech jobs to Park City. It seems the development company behind the 1 million + square feet of allotted space in Kimball Junction want to relax the rules to allow other types of businesses be housed at “The Tech Park.”
If changes are allowed to the original agreement, it goes against what most Basin residents originally thought they were agreeing to when they put support behind diversifying our economy through more advanced jobs (and approving this development).
Would you allow BOSAC (Basin Open Space Advisory Committee) to buy lands with public money under the auspices of making them open space and then allow them to sell the land to a Dollar Store because it was convenient?No. In this case, the development was approved with a lot of density (i.e. a ton of space per square foot) because we the citizens wanted to diversify the community through high paying tech jobs.
We believe the community still wants this. We don’t need more restaurants and stores with minimum wage jobs, we need jobs that allow the middle class to live here and our children to come back. We hope our elected officials still agree with that.
Here is the link to the editorial, in case you haven’t read it.
in Housing
8% of Summit County Mortgages Under Water
A recent report by Zillow indicates 8% of Summit County homes with mortgages are financially under water. Under water means that the home is valued at less than the mortgage amount. This is low compared to the national average of 16.7%. So, from that perspective Summit County is looking good.
That said, if we are depending on people moving here to spur growth, increase our government revenues, and ensure as many people live here as possible, other areas like Davis and Salt Lake counties have higher underwater rates. For instance Davis County, which is one of the locations where the most net immigration to Summit County comes from is at 17%. Salt Lake County is at 20% underwater. If people can’t sell their homes their (because of owing more than the house is worth) then they can’t move here.
So, if you are one of those people who are counting on a big population influx from the valley, you better hope home values start increasing rapidly.
What We Don’t Understand About Park City Municipal’s View on Transportation
Last week, Park City’s transportation lead, Kent Cashel, met with the Park City School District’s Master Planning Committee. He gave a 15 minute talk on transportation. One of his key points was that if the school district decided to move Treasure Mountain off of Kearns it wouldn’t “solve” the transportation problem. He repeated this a few times.
Sitting in the meeting, the take-away was that no matter what the school district did, it wouldn’t impact traffic in Park City. Yet, with grade realignment likely coming our way, there will be 400 more students on Kearns if Treasure Mountain is rebuilt there. While we agree building a school somewhere else won’t SOLVE the traffic problem it would HELP the traffic problem. It’s like the person who is 100 pounds overweight who decides to forgo the first and second helping of dessert. Will that solve their weight issue? No. Will they lose 20 pounds over the next year. Probably.
What Kent Cashel did was give the School District an out. Traffic is likely less of no longer a consideration for the school district. However, if we were to look at problems across Park City what would be Problem #1? Traffic. What would be problem #23? Rebuilding Treasure Mountain.
We had a chance to help solve two issues at once. At a minimum there would be fewer cars on Kearns at certain times of the day. If Park City’s transportation guru had simply said, “moving the school would help… it won’t solve the problem… but it would help” then the district may have had an additional reason to look outside of Kearns for their school.
Instead, it appears Park City was more concerned with keeping a school in Park City. That’s at the expense of every resident and visitor that drives in on Highway 248.
Of course Park City’s solution is for the Utah Department of Transportation to widen the lanes on 248 in 2019. Or perhaps add a bus lane in the next couple of years. Anyone want to bet a steak dinner that their plan will SOLVE Park City’s transportation problems? If so, please let us know… we are hungry.
Either way, be sure to think of your Park City government when you are sitting in traffic heading into town. They not only own the problem, but the decisions they have made will likely make things worse.
in Schools
Citizen Rails Against PC CAPS Program
In Tuesday’s Park City School Board meeting, a citizen who represents some members of the Park City High School PTO and Community Council spoke very critically about the school’s PC CAPS program. Her main issues were:
- Seems to be claims by parents and students that haven’t been followed up by the school district
- Enrollment is flat, yet additional funds are being poured into the program
- Students were denied withdrawal requests in order to keep the program’s headcount up
- In the 2015-2016 school year, enrollment in PC CAPS is up slightly but that’s due to the addition of sophomores
- There are unsubstantiated claims that PC CAPS has helped students get into colleges when their grades and SATs were low. The citizen said they had contacted the program’s director multiple times to get proof of these claims but have never received anything
- Believes the program’s director has written negative things about traditional education on a personal blog and believes that goes against what our school’s are emphasizing
All in all, it was a pretty scathing attack.
The School Board’s response to this Public Comment (in written form) was:
“Concerns were brought forth regarding budget and enrollment of the PCCAPS program. A request was made for a full review of the program. The superintendent, under her administrative duties, will provide a report to the governing board in an upcoming meeting.”
So, we’ll be watching for that report.
Below is the video. The citizen’s comments start at approximately 1 minute in and last 3 minutes:
in Park City
Question: How Do You Know If Our Weather Is Changing?
We were having drinks last night with good friends and the topic of the “future of the Wasatch” came up. We made the comment that growth may be a moot point due to weather. We cited Utah Atmospheric Professor Jim Steenburgh and his opinion that warmer temperatures are on the way, cross country skiing is going to be tough around here, and Park City Mountains will still have snow… but generally at higher elevations.
One of our friends said, “yeah… but there was weather like this in the 1970’s.” His point was just because there is a lack of snow this year doesn’t mean the future is lost. And just in case you were wondering… our friend isn’t Ted Cruz. He makes a good point, though.
How do we as a community (or individuals) decide whether our climate is really changing. Will it take 5 years of low snow? Will it take 10 years? What if we have 1 good year in 10? What if there is 6 good years in 10?
Ultimately we’re not sure. However, we do know that it’s perhaps the most important question we should be asking. If there is less snow, our resorts would suffer. It isn’t unimaginable to expect that fewer people would come here. Would a resort close in Park City? Right now that’s hard to imagine… but Deer Valley selling to Vail in 10 years isn’t impossible to contemplate… or perhaps the other way around.
The question is important because it drives almost everything we do. Should we build a train to Park City.? Should we allow the Boyer Tech Park to be a second base to Canyons? How should we plan for growth? If there is less snow how does that impact the second home market (2/3 of homes in Park City and 1/3 of homes in the Basin)?
If Park City becomes purely a Sundance and Summer place for visitors and the rest belongs to locals, the things we focus on would be very different. Instead of focusing on transportation we may focus on dual immersion for our kids. Instead of focusing on limiting growth, we may focus on actual affordable housing. We don’t know exactly how it would be different but we do know the problems we are trying to triage today will be completely different.
It’s just something we were left thinking about today… after a good conversation last night.
Parkrag
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