A solution to our annual traffic problems?
So I’m out with my kids and dog on the Millennium Trail this morning. We were on the section between Gorgoza and Fresh Market (by Pinebrook). All of a sudden, down the trail comes a BMW X3 with California plates. Yes, down the trail.
I quickly pull my kids and dog off the trail as they drive past. The woman in the passenger seat smiles and waves wholeheartedly. My five year old asks “Daddy, why are they driving on the trail?” And I answer that they shouldn’t be. He then asks, “why is she waiving at us?” I respond that it’s because they are clueless.
My kid then asks, “will they go to jail?” I say “No. I bet they are going sledding.” Yep. They somehow found their way around the Gorgoza pond, made it through the barriers that supposedly stop road traffic on the trail, and found their way out onto the road. They then headed down the road and pulled into the Gorgoza sledding hill parking lot.
I’ve seen a lot of head scratchers in my time time around Park City, but I’ve never seen a BMW on a 7 foot wide trail before.
Leaving Gorgoza, all I could think is that maybe UDOT almost had it right when they proposed a road next to the Rail Trail along 248. Instead, maybe they should have proposed that tourists drive the trails and leave the roads to locals.
I’d probably be OK with that trade-off.
in Olympics
Do you still want a Utah Olympics?
In October the Park Record’s editorial said Parkites should want to host another Olympics. Reading today’s Mountain Town news section, we wonder if that’s really true.
Park Record’s Mountain Town news is running a story about Alberta Canada vying for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Some of the choice quotes are:
The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports that a high-level financial analysis has estimated potential revenue for the 2026 Calgary/Canmore games at $2.19 billion, with expenses of $4.57 billion. That would leave taxpayers on the hook for $2.41 billion, with half of that expected to be covered by the federal government.
So this is Alberta, and things could be different in Utah, but their analysis is it will cost tax payers over $2 billion dollars. Uhh, that’s a lot of teachers… or really a lot of anything.
The article continues on:
According to the FiveThirtyEight, Bent Flyvbjerg at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School found an average 156 percent cost overruns for hosting the Olympics. This compares to 20 percent overruns for road projects, 34 percent for bridges and tunnels, 45 percent for rail projects, 90 percent for dams.
The good news is that Salt Lake’s Olympics in 2002 only overran the budget by 24%.
So we know the 2026 or 2030 Winter Olympics sounds cool, and it’s likely Utah will try to get it, but is it worth it? The proponents would tell you that what we’ll get out of the Olympics (long-term) is light-rail. That could be up Parleys (maybe… but it is pretty steep). That could be a connection from Big Cottonwood to PC (but that requires a big tunnel or 3 hour rides). That could be along 224 (most likely). Light rail is also $30 million a mile.
The question we ask is if we forgo the Olympics what could we do with a billion dollars?
Whatever it is, we’d bet it is better than light rail.
in Bikes, Park City, Summit County
Do you trust Summit County and Park City with your information?
A friend of mine recently received a survey about the Summit Bike Share program. The survey ask questions like whether you ride a bike more after using the bike share, what changes you would make, and how you would rate features. I was about to write a scathing email about the use of Survey Monkey. It’s my belief that FEW serious organizations use Survey Monkey to make any decisions. That’s because it’s an online survey, often not crafted by professionals, and not usually representative (for a number of reasons). Therefore it provides unscientific results.
We’ve been hard on the school district, but they provide an example of what should be done. They recently hired Lighthouse Research and Development to create and administer a survey about why their bond failed. It’s a professional way to do it. The results are somewhat meaningful.
In this case, an online survey is rarely meaningful, but we’ll leave it at that. If you hear of any results of a Summit Bike Share Survey, we would say “take it for what it’s worth.” That said, there are more important issues here.
The more important issue is one of privacy and data collection. As part of our research above, we wondered if it would be possible to submit thousands of surveys anonymously, in order to skew results. What we found is that the survey was distributed via email and it contains a link to the survey that has a user identifier in it. It appears that by default Survey Monkey ties this user identifier back to responses. So, it is likely that the responses are not anonymous. More importantly, the survey asks two questions:
What? Why do they need to know your age? Isn’t this about how to make the program better? More importantly, why do they need to know your income? That’s a head scratcher.
Unless explicitly turned off by the survey creator, all survey responses are tied back to your email (and name).
We then wondered what Summit Bike Share can do with your information. When you click on Summit Bike Share’s Terms of Use, go to the Privacy Policy and click on the link, it takes you to this:
Sweet, your privacy is governed by some bike share out of Tennessee! Gives you faith doesn’t it?
Now, to be somewhat fair, most of this is run by a company called Bewegen out of Canada (the makers of the e-bikes). Their company name is at the bottom of the survey email. However, it’s done on behalf of Summit County and Park City. The question I ask is should my friend expect her name to be tied to every survey question she answered and will that be provided to Summit County and Park City? Almost certainly. Will her age be on that survey response? Probably. Will her income be on that survey response? I’d guess so.
Just like with the School Board audit, the buck stops with Summit County and Park City. They are ultimately responsible for the actions of Bewegen.
Our only hope is that no one provided any information they didn’t want employees of Park City, Summit County, or some random Canadian company to see. If our local governments were provided with your name, email, age, and income, we hope they would delete those columns of information upon receipt. We’d hope they aren’t saying things like “Can you believe Sally Jones is really 59?” or “how does the Jones family make $125,000?”.
Again, it’s just a mess. We’ve outsourced this process and it feels out of control. Who knows who has your information?
We’ve got to be better.
in Schools
Park City School District’s inappropriate contract highlights many issues
On Thursday, The Salt Lake Tribune reported about a state audit finding where “Park City School District awarded an inappropriate contract to a general contracting firm that later violated state law while acting on the district’s behalf.”
Basically our school district awarded a contract that included language that could incentivize Hughes Contractors to charge tax payers more money than they should. The Park City School District agreed to pay both project costs and an additional percentage on top of those costs. According to Utah State Auditor John Dougall, “You have an incentive to inflate the cost because then percentage of cost is a bigger number” in this type of contract.
Then Hughes, acting on the district’s behalf, didn’t properly bid out work. That’s illegal.
According to the Tribune, Park City School Board president Andrew Caplan generally agreed with the findings but stated that the contract with Hughes ends at the end of the year, so it wouldn’t make financial sense to pull the contract now. He did say that “any future contracts will obviously be carefully reviewed for compliance with the Procurement Code.”
School District spokesperson Melinda Colton then told The Salt Lake Tribune district officials would have no further comment.
We have at least four issues with this mess.
First, obviously it’s a big issue. It has provided an opportunity for improper use of tax payer money. Additionally, it shows that there was a lack of oversight by our district.
Second, we’ve heard from various sources around town that the school district is trying to be more tight-lipped — that communication is being tightly controlled. We’re not a fan of that, but we suppose that’s the prerogative of school district leaders, some of which can be elected or “un-elected.” That said, to have audit issues show state laws were violated, and then say that you’re not going to comment any more about it, isn’t right.
Our third issue is that this story had to be dug up in the Salt Lake Tribune. This should have been front page news for the Park Record on Saturday. We need real reporting from the Park Record. Sometimes that happens, but sometimes it feels like the Park Record is an advertising circular in the middle of the Sunday Paper. We need the Park Record to do its job all the time.
The fourth issue is something we’ve worried about since the failed school district bond in 2015. It seems that in most discussions of new or replacement buildings, the architecture firm VCBO is a part of the needs assessment. They have often driven the discussion and sometimes pushed for things like additional athletic facilities.We’ve assumed the bidding process was fair. However, we’ve always been concerned they will be part of the construction of these buildings as well. If so, it’s much like the issue the Utah State Auditor had with Hughes Contractors. If VCBO drives the architecture of buildings and then VCBO is involved with constructing buildings, it provides an incentive for VCBO to over-architect so that it increases the payback during construction. We shouldn’t put ourselves or VCBO in that position. It’s a potential conflict of interest — and one that hopefully this audit highlights.
The Park City School District is in a period of flux. The Superintendent is leaving. Two board members have resigned. Audit reports like the one identified by the Salt Lake Tribune highlight previous issues.
This is likely one of those times that warrants extreme public scrutiny of the Park City School District. It’s a time where we need to ensure that the future is brighter than the recent past.
in Taxes
What we learned from Summit County’s property tax increase
This week the Summit County Council voted unanimously to raise your property taxes. If you have a million dollar home in the Basin, this will increase your taxes by about $190 a year. While the County is forced by law to have “Truth in Taxation” meetings to explain the increase to the public, the final vote was never in doubt.
What will you get for your annual donation? You’ll get the to keep the level of services you have become accustomed to. That’s about it. They won’t have to close the library in Coalville. The Sheriff won’t have to cut deputies. Roads will continue to get repaired. There will be money for mental health services. Those are probably all good things.
However, one of the interesting things pointed out by resident Kristen Brown at the first truth in taxation meeting is that the county budget had increased by about $14 million since 2013. That’s a 35% increase in budget, while our population has increased by about 9% over that time.
We also learned an interesting fact in a conversation after the meeting with Summit County Finance Officer Matt Leavitt. He said that if every piece of property around the Basin, that was entitled to be developed, was somehow developed tomorrow, it would only provide $700,000 in additional tax revenues per year.
So, we have a rapidly expanding budget that probably is unsustainable. Growth won’t provide enough money unless we want to increase entitlements. Most people either aren’t willing to accept fewer services or aren’t willing to tell their elected officials they can get by with fewer services.
What did we learn? We all better get used to regular tax increases.
in Election
Who does the Park Rag endorse for Mayor?
Who does the Park Rag endorse for Park City Mayor? Absolutely no one.
Each election cycle we hope the Park Record will make the decision to stop endorsing candidates. Yet, it never comes. This year the Park Record endorses Andy Beerman for Mayor. Their reasoning:
- For six years he has been on the City Council as it has confronted tasks like growth and affordable housing
- He is a consensus builder and he compromises
- He has earned endorsements of other people
If you look over Dana Williams’ tenure as Mayor, you’d see similar things. He presided and managed post-Olympic growth. He has worked with others to achieve goals. People generally think he did a good job as Mayor.
The Park Record endorsement then tries to throw a bone to Williams by saying, “Few voices are as important in Park City as that of Dana Williams. But the former three-term mayor has proven he doesn’t need to be in office to wield it.” It references his fight for the Park City trademark. Yet, the same argument can be made for Beerman, who has been successful as a City Council person. He has proven that he doesn’t need to be Mayor to make a difference.
The endorsement concludes that Williams had his time to lead and now Beerman should too.
So, we are left with justification for each candidate that is generally equal. The difference maker is that one hasn’t been mayor yet. That’s hardly a reason to vote for someone.
That leaves us wondering why the paper wants you to vote for Beerman? Is he better for advertising? Is it personal? Is it the “popular” thing to say in certain circles? Is it a gut feel?
That’s why we don’t like endorsements. The Park Rag’s opinion is that you should make up your own mind, for your own reasons. Do you like the progress that the city has been making over the past few years? Beerman’s been part of that and maybe that sways your opinion toward Beerman. Do you like how Williams stood up to Vail during the trademark issue? Maybe that sways your opinion to Williams. Do you feel that the city has tried to do a lot on transportation and affordable housing but has few results. That may sway you against Beerman. Maybe you didn’t like how Williams handled the recession and are worried how he will handle the next one. That may sway you against him.
The point is that choosing a candidate is personal and nuanced. The reason you would choose candidate x over candidate y is likely very different from the Park Record’s reasons.
That said, we like what the Park Record does with its Voter Guide. The information, in the candidates’ own voices, is helpful.
We don’t have a dog in the fight and think both candidates would be fine choices for different reasons.
Good luck making your decision.
in Weather
The Park City forecast is warm and snowy
Before we know it, chestnuts will be roasting on an open fire. You, like everyone else in the valley, may have bought your Epic pass. Or you may have decided to spend the winter at the new Whole Foods, which we’ve heard is gorgeous.
Regardless, you and the 35 million people descending on Park City for winter, will have to deal with what mother nature has in store. So, what does the NOAA predict?
They say there is a greater than a 40% chance it will be warmer than normal … which typically means it really will be warmer. There is a greater than 30% chance it will be wetter than average.
That sounds a bit like last year. We’re hoping we will see no rain in January.
Who knows how it will ultimately turn out… but it’s fun to speculate.
We’d like to see 700 inches of snow with temps in the single digits all winter. We do live in the mountains, after-all, and life should be a little hard. That’s just our perspective, though.
Regardless, winter is coming and it’s a good time of the year.
in Tourism
Is Park City hard to get to?
One of the things I’ve always heard is that Park City is so easy to get to, that we will always be flooded with tourists. It makes sense, with us being around 30 minutes from the airport. You compare any Colorado destination, and the distance from Denver is usually in the 1-2 hour (or longer) range.
This morning I was reviewing a presentation from the Chamber and it had a study results slide. The study took into account 1800 persons from 8 markets. Naturally it found that Park City was way above average on being family-friendly, providing a variety of activities, etc. However, we barely ranked as average (not in the top 25%) in “easy to get to.”
I’m not sure if survey responders just don’t know where Park City is, perhaps they have had some bad winter driving in Parley’s Canyon, or maybe they are just pissed that the Uber-Copter no longer flies, but was a little surprising.
Interested in the Chamber of Commerce’s Summer results and Winter marketing? Here’s a preview.
Today the Park City Chamber of Commerce is presenting to the Summit County Council on its Summer results and Winter plans. Since the Chamber is substantially funded through Transient Room tax dollars allocated by the County Council, and there were discussions earlier this year about revisiting that allocation, this meeting is an important one. Here are a few of the slides that will be likely be presented:
Again, if you’d like to see the whole presentation, you can click here.
We’re not made of money
The spat between the County Council and Summit Land conservancy over the purchase of the Osguthorpe Farm highlights a problem. Our governments aren’t made of money. Summit County offered to pony up $4 million to help Summit Land Conservancy buy the land, but the land conservancy needs $5.5 million to complete the purchase. The land conservancy rejected the county’s offer due to a number of conditions that the county apparently made with offer. The fact that the county says they can offer $4 million is surprising in itself.
The problem is that we spend millions on Bonanza Flat. We spend millions on the Cline Dahl’s parcel. We may spend millions on the Osguthorpe Farm. Yet, we have to raise property taxes because we can’t cover expenses (like roads). We get that each of those projects (Bonanza Flat, etc) have their merits… but not when you are broke. It’s like having no money, buying a Tesla, and justifying it because it’s emission free.
Some day, not too far away, these chicken are going to come home to roost.
Parkrag
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