Happy 4th of July. I hope everyone is doing as well as they can given the odd circumstances we find ourselves in. This is the time I start thinking about schools and the fall. This year, that is a particularly interesting exercise.

No one knows how Park City schools will function come late-August. The Governor has said classes will be in-person; however, that could be one day a week or five days a week. Things could get worse and in-person learning may no longer be possible. Certain types of education, like specialists or art, might be remote, while other classes are in person.

What I was taught from my high school Civics teacher, tennis coach, and later a good friend was simple. Hope for the best. Expect the worst.

One thing is certain. As we head into the fall, schools can’t function as they did in the spring. My kids had generally good experiences, interspersed with technical glitches. My kids, who were in kindergarten and second grade had good experiences. This was due to my wife being able to teach them and our teachers trying hard (and in some cases exceeding every expectation). Yet, as we gather with friends, talk turns to school. About half have had less than optimal experiences.

In some cases, the teachers disappeared. There was little communication from a teacher.

In many cases, the day-to-day work was pushed onto parents. The parents were doing the teaching with a little help from educators.

Many comments noted that a family could complete a day’s school work in far less than two hours. It made them wonder why their kids were in school for five to six hours a day under normal circumstances.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” Mary Antoinette uttered as french citizens starved in the streets in 1789. Let the starving eat cake.

Yet, recent events in Park City make for an interesting discussion, given the recent Black Lives Matter murals panted on Main Street in the last week.

Across the country, recent protests around police brutality make sense to me. You and I could have a good three-hour discussion over beers on the topic but my world-view is that in many places police have gotten out of control. This is especially demonstrated within minority communities.

However, I struggled with the Black Lives Matters graffiti (and the others) being painted on Main Street. Why this cause? Should other causes be allowed to paint a mural? I think back to an old Simpsons Episode where Maggy (the baby) is swiped through a cash register and the screen says NRA-4-Ever. Would Park City allow me to paint NRA-4-Ever on the street? What about “Workers of the world unite?” Why not a painting denoting native Americans’ struggles?

Then I found out Park City Municipal actually paid $15,000 to the Park City Summit County Arts Council to create the graffiti. What?

We are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. We hope schools will open in the fall. We don’t know if anyone will actually travel to our resorts this winter. Sundance has already dropped the bomb and said the festival won’t be normal. Local businesses are closing.

And Parkites paid $15K for spray paint on a street. That’s very Park City.

Three things…

First, if Park City and Summit County wanted to actually contribute to the issues impacting minority populations, they would find ways to decriminalize drug offenses in Utah – not paint pictures. Second, they would audit the county and city law enforcement agencies to ensure that justice isn’t biased. Third, they would spend this money on mental health services.

Instead, $15,000 was invested in painting a mural that will be gone come January. Well, it won’t be completely gone because only part of it will wash off in the snow. Then next May, Park City will pay someone $1500 to power wash the rest of it off.

It’s a misallocation of money. Those funds could have been used in so many better ways .If money was infinite then sure, pay artists to fill Main Street with all sorts of political statements that match the City Council’s values.

However, in a pandemic where city leaders should be worrying about the future of is citizens, perhaps paying for graffiti isn’t the best use of funds. Perhaps there are a million better uses for that money.

“I’m announcing a change in our color-coded guidelines We are going to make a modification t the orange guidelines to accommodate Salt Lake City School District and those schools within the district limits so they can open up.”

Park City is a tourism economy. We depend on Sundance

You have to love Utah. Rich, entitled developers manipulate the legislature to make up rules that can make them millions. One of their last names is Romney.

Such is the case with the town of Hideout.

Hideout is a town of about 900 people, near the Jordanelle Reservoir, on your way to Kamas. I knew of it, from a few years ago, as a place where you may live if you couldn’t find anyplace else to live. It seems the town wants to grow up, but like most adolescents, it is doing it in a stupid way. Hideout is trying to add land, that they can control, which isn’t adjacent to the town. They want to annex parts of Summit County, that don’t touch Hideout, whichare actually in Summit County, even though Hideout is in Wasatch County.

It would be like if Park City wanted to annex the Kennecott Copper Mine near Herriman. “Dude, can you imagine the money we could make if we annexed a mine?!!!!! Eff- Yeah!”

So, with joy, I read the motion Summit County filed in the 4th District Court to stop Hideout’s abomination. Summit County wants to stop Hideout from annexing parts of Summit County and laid it out in real terms. I’m often at odds with what Summit County does, but in this case, their filing is an absolute treasure.

The motion opens with the following: “Plaintiff Summit County will be immediately and irreparably harmed unless the Court enjoins and restrains the Town of Hideout in Wasatch County from taking any action to annex portions of Summit County over the objection and without consent of Summit County.” That’s standard legalese that says that our county has standing to object to annexation.

Then they go for the jugular immediately, “The Town of Hideout, a nefarious and arguably unconstitutional hamlet of 900 persons located on the eastern banks of Jordanelle Reservoir in Wasatch County is seeking to annex non-contiguous lands located in neighboring Summit County which until just weeks ago was prohibited by law.”

The motion then says, “Much like the scheme used for the creation of Hideout in 2007 through special-purpose legislation, Developers Nate Brockbank and Josh Romney through surreptitious and deceptive means , spearheaded the passage of HB 359 in an amended form during the 2020 General Session of the Utah State Legislature.”

They are basically saying that the entire town of Hideout is some forsaken spawn of power and the legislature.

Then they say, “Knowing that the Governor and Utah Legislature potentially intend to repeal that deceitfully obtained provision during the 6th Special Session currently scheduled for August 20, 2020, Defendants have initiated and hope to complete a 700+ acre cherry stem annexation and thereafter grant to Developers Romney and Brockbank, a high-density urban level development ten time the size of the current town and landing the monstrosity on the doorstep of Park City, Utah.”

Basically, Mitt Romney’s kid wants to take advantage of “a mistake” and get entitlement rights while he can, knowing that in a couple of weeks, those rights will probably go away.

You can read through the 105-page motion to draw your own conclusion, but as a local, political junky, I love it. Here are some highlights from Summit County’s motion:

“On information and belief, Romney and Brockbank intentionally sought to thwart the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act, Utah Code §52-4-101, et. seq. (the “Open Meetings Act”) by meeting with individual members of the Hideout Town Council, so that their meetings, discussions, negotiations, deliberations, and decisions with respect to the Annexation would be in secret and not subject to public scrutiny.”

“According to Romney, he concluded that ‘there was no hope to getting something done in Summit County, because the Chair of the Summit County Council was not willing to meet with him secretly and outside the public process.”

I’m not sure which chair that was, but if that was Kim, Chris, Glenn, Doug, or Roger … good on you — whoever it was. You REPRESENTED.

Then came the following in the motion, “On information and belief, Romney, Brockbank and their attorney Bruce Baird (“Baird”) used lobbyist Michael Ostermiller (“Ostermiller”) for the purpose of influencing the Utah Legislature to unknowingly adopt tailored-made special purpose legislation which benefited Romney and Brockbank in their Enterprise.”

It continues, “Based on Romney and Brockbank’s interactions with Hideout during this same time period, Plaintiff believes the Application to Summit County was a subterfuge to redirect the focus of Summit County away from Hideout, all the while waiting for the legislative scheme to unfold which would allow them to proceed with the Annexation over the anticipated objections of Summit County, Wasatch County, and Park City Municipal Corporation.”

“Hideout, Romney and Brockbank seek nothing less than to overturn decades of careful land use planning and community development: with non-contiguous land in Summit County they do not own.
The import of this cannot be overstated. From the available information, which is scant, Romney and Brockbank intend to put its North Park development, a high-density mixed- use development on approximately 655 acres of land in Summit County near the junction of State Route 248 and US-40 (Quinn’s Junction) to attract thousands of additional residents and workers. Part of the stunning scam in HB 359S1was that it removed the ability of counties to withhold consent and protest annexations under Utah Code §10-2-418(3) to the Boundary Commission”

So let’s review some of the terms and phrases used by Summit County to describe what Hideout is doing:

• Nefarious
• Unarguably unconstitutional
• Scheme
• Until just weeks ago was prohibited by law
• Through surreptitious and deceptive means
• Chair of the Summit County Council was not willing to meet with him secretly and outside the public process
• Benefited Romney and Brockbank in their Enterprise.

Of course, I’m only citing from Summit County’s motion against Hideout. I don’t believe Hideout, Romney, or Brockbank has responded. So, I will leave it up to you the reader to imagine their responses to this.

One last statement from Summit County’s motion is important. “Hideout does not have the current capacity to provide municipal services to the Development Parcels and does not currently provide for itself the following municipal services: water, sewer, law enforcement, fire and ambulance, transit, animal control, public health services, justice courts and prosecution services, recreation, or libraries.”

What that means is that Summit County would need to provide these services to Hideout — whether we want to or not. Our tax dollars would fund essential services for people who don’t live here, while millionaire’s children get richer.

That may be the Utah way, but it is not the Summit County way.

For the counter argument, please read Hideout Mayor Phil Rubin’s Editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune.

My opinion is that Hideout should go to Hell. You’re a parasite attempting to suck on the success and tax dollars of a successful community. You are trying to benefit from either a knowing or unknowing Utah Legislature that provided developers with an advantage to enrich themselves at the expense of us regular people.

Hideout, I hope you disappear into the sands of time.

For those who are/were part of Hideout,

Margaret Olson, David Thomas, and Jami Brackin, I salute you.

I have followed local government for a long time. Sometimes you hate the outcome but often you respect the people involved and the process. People throughout Summit County and Park City governments are generally competent. They know the game and are respectable.

Tonight I listened to a special meeting from the Hideout Town Council about annexing land in Summit Country. They are the ones that want to annex a whole bunch of land in Summit County and build hundreds of units and hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail by Quinn’s Junction. Their first attempt to annex the land was placed on hold by a judge and they seem to be driven by some force to try again. Tonight’s meeting was an attempt to restart a new annexation plan.

The meeting began with a cover-your-ass session that was enlightening. The Hideout town council voted to agree that the developer, Nate Brockback, was liable for any legal fees incurred from their first attempt to annex parts of Summit County. What? The fact that the town won’t accept the legal responsibilities, and the developer will, tells you everything you need to know about this. How can it be anything but developer-driven? Does Hideout want this or does Nate Brockback and Josh Romney want this?

Then the town council members spoke, well at least two out of the three. One couldn’t be there because he was flying. It was one of the most important moments in Hideout’s history and a third of the town council wasn’t there. That left two members of the council and the Mayor. Given that, any decision had to be unanimous to go forward.

The town council discussed rescinding the original annexation agreement. One member hoped by rescinding the annexation that Hideout, Summit County, and Park City could all work together going forward. Yet, about 15 minutes later the town council was discussing a different plan to annex land in Summit County.

Finally, Ron Winterton and Tim Quinn, from the Utah Legislature came on the line and told them that the intent of the legislature is that this annexation shouldn’t take place right now. Yet, it sounds like they may try again on Thursday to approve annexing pars of Summit County.

What I think is going on is that Hideout has Napoleanic disorder. They are small but they don’t feel small. Members of the Town Council repeatedly said they wanted a seat at the table to influence what is going on around them. They said that they felt more like Park City than Heber and they wanted to influence where they lived.

Unfortunately for Hideout they are what they are. They have 900 people (maybe). They are in Wasatch County. The folks in Heber do control their actions. It has been that way since way before Hideout became a town in 2007.

The way to garner support from Park City and Summit County is not a land grab that costs tax payers thousands of dollars in legal fees. For the Hideout town council person that said, “we just want to get along”, that time has passed.

To put it bluntly, I frankly can’t believe your process. The Snyderville Basin Planning Commission puts in more thought into the grade of a driveway than it seems you have into this idea. Tonight you were asking the developer about traffic impacts and it sounded like you took their answer at face value. In the Snyderville Basin there would have been five meetings about this with the Planning Commission before it ever got to your level. Do you know how long the debate was in the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission about whether there should be a roundabout at Whole Foods?

You are out of your league. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust the developer. This isn’t good for our community.

If we need development there, I will trust Summit County to build it. I don’t always agree with Summit County Planning Director Pat Putt, but I know he is competent. We can at least have a fair discussion about it.

After listening to tonight’s discussion with the Hideout Town Council, I wish I could say the same for them. They appear to be led at the nose by their developers. That never works out well.

If you want to listen to the meeting, click here.

It’s been a surreal 2020. I think most of you’d agree. It became more surreal on Sunday morning. Outside Run-a-muck, the world’s Utah’s best off-leash dog park, there was a gentleman from Basin Rec putting notices on car windshields who were parked along the street. They read:

WARNING

PARKING
REGULATIONS ARE
CHANGING!

PARKING IS NO LONGER
ALLOWED IN THIS AREA

VEHICLES OUTSIDE
OF DESIGNATED ZONES
SUBJECT TO
TICKETING AND TOWING

I spoke with the nice gentleman from Basin Rec, who ensured me that I was not being cited today. He said that too many people were parking at certain trails around the Basin and they were trying to encourage people to park in proper places. Therefore, it was likely that no parking signs would be placed in areas around some trails.

Because both parking lots for Run-a-muck were full, I had parked on the shoulder of the road that heads up to UOP. Evidently this is an area that soon won’t be available for parking.

Our trails are overcrowded. This was evident before Corona times and has become even more obvious regulations were lifted in May.

Many readers likely remember the Mountain Accord. It was a multi-faceted process that touched everything from watershed to transportation in the Wasatch Mountains. It drew members from almost every group imaginable including the legislature, local governments, outdoor groups, and ski resorts. It also drew ire from many Parkites about a proposed gondola between Big Cottonwood Canyon and Park City.

Proponents said that it would reduce traffic coming into Park City since visitors wouldn’t need to drive up I-80 to get to our resorts. Opponents said it would hurt Park City economically because people wouldn’t stay and dine here. There were also concerns over environmental impacts.

The Mountain Accord process was put to bed, with few actual agreements in 2015. Out of it, however, came the Central Wasatch Commission (CWC). It essentially is doing many of the same things as the Mountain Accord — without the baggage attached. The Mountain Accord was famously non-transparent and settled a lawsuit accusing it of violating Open Meeting Laws.

Recently the CWC published a draft document

There are a few days where you can be number one or two at anything! Today, Summit County is number two. Tomorrow we could become number one if everyone is willing to help.

Today we had 38.2 coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents. That puts us in the number two place behind Utah County — and well ahead of the number three challenger Salt Lake County.

If we try really hard, we may be

Party on Park City!

Today we hit the highest number of Coronavirus cases ever in Utah with 1,411 new cases reported. Our schools reached a new record as well, with the high school reporting 2 new cases, bringing the total to 5 at PCHS. Ecker Hill had 3 cases and Treasure Mountain had 1, the same number as of yesterday. The total across the district is 9.

The number you have to pay attention to is 15. State guidelines suggest that schools shutdown and go online when their total COVID numbers hit 15. You have to believe that given what happened at Corner Canyons in Salt Lake that Park City High School will be shut down at 15 or before.

For those not familiar, the Canyon’s school district decided not to close Corner Canyon High after they hit 15 cases. Those 15 cases turned into over 50. A beloved teacher, “Mama J” then came down with Corona, is in an induced coma, and last we heard, is fighting for her life.

The Park City School District will shut the high school down at 15 cases or before, without a doubt. That would last for at least two weeks. If schools are shut down for an extended period, it makes it that much more likely that resorts won’t open. If resorts aren’t open, tourists won’t come.

If tourists don’t come, and Sundance is some shell of its former self, many businesses are going to go under. Many friends and families are going to be impacted. It won’t be pretty.

So, yeah. Party On Park City. It’s your god-given right.