I received a call from a friend last week. She, in a somewhat exasperated tone said, “Have you ever heard anything as biased as that story on the Randy Barton Show (KPCW) about the School Board’s First Public Master Planning Meeting?” She was referring to a recorded segment by a KPCW reporter that aired during Randy Barton’s show last Tuesday or Wednesday. My friend felt that the report was extremely biased toward the School Board’s committee plans and didn’t accurately reflect the tone of the meeting, which was one of a very concerned populace. She said the reporter basically took each topic and said “a few people were concerned with [insert negative here]; however [insert person’s name here] doesn’t think so. [Insert one minute audio clip of the person saying why the plan is so good].

My friend’s closing comment intrigued me. She said, “If KPCW is so obviously biased on something I know a lot about, are they just as biased on everything else they report?”

The honest answer is that all media has biases, just like every person. The people who report for the Park Record can be biased. KPCW can be biased. I can be biased (obviously, since the Park Rag is a lot of commentary). Yet, what we are really talking about here is trust. Because we can’t all be at every meeting and draw conclusions for ourselves, we all depend on our community news sources like the Park Record and KPCW to tell us what happened. We trust them. However, when people know what happened at a meeting, but it’s reported very differently, that trust begins to erode. It makes people like my friend start to question everything they hear.

Lest you think this may have been a rant from just one person, I have heard other people in the community bring up this same news report and question its objectivity.

Unfortunately for KPCW it appears they had a bad day, but it’s going to take many good days in a row to change the perception from that one piece of reporting (in many people’s minds). In my opinion it doesn’t signal some change in attitude or lessening of the value KPCW provides, but again it highlights that we all need to seek out as many sources of information to educate us on the topics we care about. It’s not enough to simply peruse an article in the Park Record, listen to a story on KPCW, or read something here. We also have to verify that information, too. Or as one elder statesman said, “Trust but Verify.”^*

This incident on KPCW serves as a good reminder of that fact.

^{*Yes, I did just use a Ronald Reagan quote, which means that many of you will likely no longer trust me either.}

I was sitting in yesterday afternoon’s Park City School Board public meeting on rebuilding the Kearns Campus, when a person made a very emotional plea. She said that she lived in Highland Estates and that last year’s School District tax increase almost caused her to sell her house. She said that if there is another bond that raises her property taxes she won’t be able to afford it. Her concern turned to anger when she spoke about adding on to schools that would enable Promentory residents (who are outside of our district) to attend Park City schools without paying their fair share.

Another person asked if residents of the new Park City Heights development would have to pay extra taxes, in response to a comment by school board officials that said they needed to add-on to McPolin Elementary to support the growth that will come from Park City Heights.

Another person brought up Park City High School and how $50 million of public money had been spent on building the school “and it has not gone well.”‘ Another person asked whether the school district had their financial estimates peer reviewed to ensure they were accurate.

At the most civil level, it highlights that people are starting to pay attention to how public money is being used — which is a good thing. At a less comfortable level, it highlights that many people who have lived here for a long time are getting fed up with how money is being spent and even more so at being priced out of the market.

Some might say, “that’s why we need affordable housing.” Yet, that ignores that a home owner who has lived in Silver Creek for 20 years probably doesn’t want to be forced to move to an apartment so they can continue to live around Park City. It’s an issue that runs through almost every decision that is made, and it crosses almost every traditional boundary.

For instance, most people want better schools. They also want lots of primary residents to live here to keep the community aspect of Park City intact. They don’t want sprawl or growth because that ruins the open space we have become accustomed to. They also don’t want higher taxes.

Yet, if we want better schools, either through newer buildings or the best teachers, that costs money. Secondary home owners pay much more in taxes than primary residents. The alternative to second homes is more commercial growth to increase the tax base. That induces growth.

It’s two diametrically opposed ideas, that are so far apart, common ground will likely be hard to find. It goes beyond transportation issues, affordable housing, and all the other “hot button” items. It’s a question of how Park City finds a way to stay true to itself — and in a way that should dominate every single decision.

A few years ago, a couple of people camped out in City Park in the name of Occupy Park City. The occupy movement was about inequality across America. While those people have since left City Park, the inequality still exists. And while many people want to focus on buzz words like “Keeping Park City Park City” the problem is bigger than that.

If yesterday’s meeting was an indicator of the beginning of a shift in sentiment of community residents, our leaders had better start to pay attention quickly. For this is a spark could become a full-fledged flame.

You may know that I love the concept of autonomous cars. I have have written countless articles on them and suggested that Park City is missing out on a huge opportunity in making testing the vehicle (snow and extreme sun make it difficult for the driverless car — which we have a lot of). With that in mind, Factor has an interesting article that touts 2025 as the time when self driving vehicles will be commonplace. While this type of story is commonplace now, it makes some interesting hypotheses. For instance, space required for parking is dramatically reduced because cars could park themselves within inches of other cars. Insurance would no longer be needed by drivers because people wouldn’t drive the car (it would be provided by the manufacturer). Police revenues would be down dramatically because these cars would not speed, park illegally, or run lights. Speed limits might not even be necessary because cars would communicate with each other to determine optimal speeds. People may not even need to own a car as autonomous cars would be like an instant “Uber” service.

Some of it is a little pie-in-the-sky but it does highlight that most long term predictions, based on today’s reality, don’t take into account the massive amounts of innovation taking place. Things have changed a lot in the last 10 years. Youtube is 10 years old. Uber was founded in 2009. Facebook was founded in 2004. Those three technologies have fundamentally changed the way most people interact with the world around them. If that much changes has happened in 10 years, what will happen in 25 years, in the year 2040 where most “long-range” planning seems to be focused on in Park City?

For instance if you believe in Global Warming studies, you should also probably believe that Park City will get very little snow by 2040. If you are planning for what Park City should be in 2040 and 2050, do you trust the growth statistics from the governor’s office saying that we will grow by 100% in population but ignore the global warming studies that say our resort community will likely be just a community by then? Then, if it’s just a slightly cooler version of Salt Lake, what does that mean? Why aren’t we focused on tomorrow — given a discussion of what tomorrow will likely really be like and find ways to meet those upcoming needs?

Take public transportation, especially bussing. In Salt Lake, which seems very public-transit friendly, only about 6% of residents take public transportation. Yet, here in Summit County we seem to look at it like a solution to our Carmageddon issues. Let’s say we do rise to have 6% of our population take buses, that still leaves 94% driving cars. How exactly is the bus going to solve the transportation issue when the impact is likely very minimal?

There are likely countless examples of this from affordable housing to economic development. The problem is that if we don’t generally accept that the future will be different, we will spend millions of dollars on solutions that will meet yesterday’s needs.