Overall, I’m supportive of Park City’s move to make Round Valley an off leash dog area. Granted, I understand some people’s concerns that the city went from a total ban on dogs in the area to the exact opposite in one fail swoop. However, the fact that it’s a trial program, helps mitigate the issue a bit.

A few days ago Summit County displayed the bravado usually seen from Park City. They declared that Uber’s helicopter “taxis” for Sundance were illegal. They floated zoning and permit reasons for the illegality. While most people in the community don’t seem to like the idea of helicopters buzzing through the Basin, many people questioned whether it was really breaking any law. In the Park Record, Tom

Park City is known for much enthusiasm from local parents regarding their children regarding sports. If your kids isn’t ski jumping by age 7, you might as well not even start. If you aren’t taking advantage of school early release and having your kids on the slopes every day, you’re doing something wrong. Yet, it looks like those of with children in Park City are going to have to try even harder.

With Salt Lake looking more like Beijing every day, Parkites are rightly concerned with the quality of our air.

If you are interested or concernedd

A few days ago we received an email from a reader telling us that the Basin Rec’s joint master plan, with Park City Municipal, called the “Mountain Recreation Facilities Master Plan,” was obviously flawed. What was the reader’s reasoning? A new aquatic center makes no sense as one of the top 3 priorities for recreation around Park City. There are arguments on both sides on that one. However, it’s important to take a step back and look at something with regard to this “Master Plan.”

When was the Master Plan put together? 2013.

A better question might be, when was data, that drove the master plan, acquired? The Park Record tells us that the Master plan was developed after a community input survey that was taken in 2012.

So, we are moving forward with a Master Plan based on data gathered 4 years ago? What were you doing 4 years ago? Were your college aged kids, that no longer live at home, in high school back then? Were you worrying about Park City traffic 4 years ago? Do you have the same job? Do you still have the same passions?

Many things change in 4 years. Don’t we deserve to base multi-million dollar decisions on the latest information?

To be fair,

I had heard it was coming but the Park Record confirmed that the city’s new video on “Dog Etiquette” on its off leash trail at Round Valley and the Library was up.

When I first heard about it, I could

• Presentation at national level. First graders describing what an algorithm is.
• Work with Park Ed to increase salary
• Citizen asked abut continuation of AP versus IB since people think IB may be better.
  • So much memorization inAP says DR Conley
  • Education is trying to put in more rigor.
  • Dr Conley tried IB for a few years and it didn’t go well.
• Citizen asks how many kids do AP at high school
  • Dr Conley says students did 1400 test
  • Over 55% of kids took AP class.
  • Citizen says it is good that the district has choice.
• Numbers for all day kidergarten are good
  • The board asked for 1.5 redsitribution from no instructiona l to instructional. If you tok that it would $800K to 1.1 million. But we’ve now been abel to shift and are at $550K. WE’ve added 14 FTE. WE have 12 teachers, a nurse, and a councilor. In 2008 we cut a huge amount of maintenance and custodial and we can’t, with our pay structure is, we can’t get subs. We put in a request to hire roving custodian and maintenance person. So, we have added a little to budget to custodian and maintenance. Requested that Molly go full time. After school administrator being shifted into a teacher. Restructuring transportation.
• Citizen asks if any more school start times. It won’t happen this next school year. The hardest thing is that the other communities that have implemented later start times, the traffic patterns are many different. We are going to have to continue to work with our cities and minimize the traffic. If we are going to go to later start times, it means riding the bus and carpooling. So, with th start times things are going in tthe right direction and we will go there.
• Citizen asks if survey is still going to come out. Answer is yes.
• School District working with county on new land next to Jeremy Ranch.
• One of things learned from post bond survey is that parents with kids understand how bad Treasure Mountain is but adults without kids don’t understand.
• Starting to re-form team that will look at high school.
• Board will be voting to hire an architect. Putting $140K in
• Shuttled direct from areas is something we’d like to look at.
• Citizen asks about later start times and impact on sports. Another citizen says it’s hard to go to tournaments with later time.
  • Citizen says there must be a way to adjust school schedules perhaps 80 minute classes.
• Hard to put 6-8th grade
  • Hard for dual language
  • First year dual immersion will be at TMJH
  • French teachers easy
• Vail funds our preschool through Ed foundation they have funded it. All day pre school at Parley’s this year. Next year at McPolin.
• Met yesteday with chiefo of pioilice, sherrif, Emergency response coordinator. This year at Sundance will have checks to open your bag. What are added risk to children?
• Getting to a place where we have critical conversation.
• Conley says she’s always open to new ideas.
• In any field it takes about 10 years to be an expert. In education, we can teach a techer in 6 years to be an expert. You have 6 years. Most teacherhave een here 12-16 years. More vertarna teachers …

During last Tuesday’s Park City School District meeting, the school board voted to reimburse its members for legal fees incurred while defending themselves against charges of electioneering during last Fall’s bond campaign. During the meeting, board member Nancy Garrison said, “it’s important that each of us know from these many months since several community members, in an effort to defeat the bond, made unsubstantiated accusation about board members that resulted in an enormous waste of tax payers, not taxpayers, but the state Attorney General’s office and county attorney’s office had to investigate claims that were found without basis and required us to hire legal council.”

Board member Phil Kaplan supported the reimbursement by saying that the law said that the school district had to reimburse board members for any charges, and that since the County Attorney found the issue was baseless, that it was even more imperative that school board members be reimbursed. School Board member Julie Eihausen said, “Being investigated for a criminal act was very difficult.”

During the bond election, I pushed hard that the school board should be investigated. There were two main issues that were brought up by the public. One was that school board members Nancy Garrison and Tanya Knauer made a video, at the High School, likely using school equipment, likely involving school personnel that some construed as pushing the bond. According to Utah Code: “Unless specifically required by law, and except as provided in Section 20A-11-1206, a public entity may not make an expenditure from public funds for political purposes or to influence a ballot proposition.” The second issue was that some students alleged, that during assemblies, school board members told students to have their parents vote for the bond.

Did these actions occur and did they violate the law? This is the entirety of the press release issued by the County Attorney’s office on the topic. “Summit County Attorney Robert Hilder has completed an investigation into citizen concerns regarding the school bond ballot proposition included on the November 2015 ballot. He has determined that there is no legal or factual basis to file charges against any elected or appointed officials.”

So, the County Attorney felt there was not a basis for filing charges. Fair enough. That doesn’t mean that there was not a basis for investigating the charges. These are serious accusations and I’m glad that the County Attorney took them seriously. We should be glad that we live in a system where there is judicial oversight and elected and appointed officials do have checks and balances.

So, lucky for citizens in Park City, our system both worked the way it should and the County Attorney found that no wrong-doing took place. Great.

Yet now we get to the school board’s decision to be reimbursed for hiring individual attorneys regarding the matter. It appears that Mr. Kaplan is right that Utah code says that public employees or officers will be reimbursed if they are indicted or charges are filed against the person and the charges are dismissed are quashed. The question I’ve had since I heard about the reimbursement is why they didn’t wait until they were formally charged to hire attorneys. Now reading the Utah Code, what I really wonder is if these fees are really reimbursable per the law, since they were not even charged?

I also found a response to a question by school board members during an interview on KPCW a little self-serving. KPCW asked the school board members, “Does this [being investigated] have a chilling effect for someone who wants to be on the school board?” The curt response was, “I don’t know, I would think so.” However, also keep in mind, that the anti-bond people also thought they were being investigated by the County Attorney for passing out material outside of Ecker Hill School during a bond presentation. Whether they ultimately were being investigated wasn’t addressed in the County Attorney’s press release. However, I know some of the members were concerned. Does that have a chilling effect on free speech?

The truth is that public service is messy.