Depending on where you live in Summit County, you may be familiar with weed control. As a citizen in Summit county, you are legally required to kill your weeds. In some cases, Summit County sprays for weeds itself. In most cases, you are required to kill those weeds yourself. You can go to Home Depot to buy wee killer or you can buy it yourself.

Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) has come under fire for suppressing information that indicates glyphosate likely causes cancer. You may recognize glyphosate under its commercial name, Round-up. It appears that WHO studies shows that glyphosate probably can cause cancer.

By now you probably know that the Park Rag has a negative opinion on the proposed sales tax increases for transportation. However the truth is that most tax increases are passed in Summit County. You have the Park Record coming out in support of it. You have vested interests like the Chamber of Commerce who wants the public to solve their problems. So, let’s give the city and county the benefit of the doubt and say the propositions will pass.

What should you expect?

We’d like to be cheeky and say that you should expect “Transportation to be solved!”… but we all know that isn’t going to happen. So, what should you expect, given what the city and county have published?

Let’s just look at the Voter Information Packet sent out from the County. In a section called “Argument in Favor of Propositions 9 and 10” they have a sidebar entitled Program Elements. This appears to describe what to expect if the propositions pass. Here are the highlights:

• Carpool and HOV lane for buses on 248
• Better school access to the High School, McPolin, and Treasure Mountain
• The Richardson Flat park and ride will finally be regularly used
• The intersection at Bonanza and 248 will be made better
• Bus priority lanes will run from Kimball Junction, all through town, to Deer Valley drive
• The Kearns intersection at 224 will be made better
• There will be remote parking locations made on I-80 and Highway 40
• New remote parking facilities will be constructed to encourage bus and carpooling
• Funding will be made available for transportation improvements in Kamas, Coalville, Francis, Henefer, and Oakley.
• Program will be established that will enable other modes of transportation besides car. Options include bike share, iphone apps, and trail/sidewalk construction
• 50% shorter wait times on bus service
• Redo the Jeremy Ranch interchange to make it transit friendly
• Bus service to the East side of the county
• New bus routed to Kamas, Oakley, Francis, and Coalville to meet commute schedules
• Four additional runs of PC SLC Connect Bus Service daily to meet work schedules

One of the hot buttons around Park City for years is the lack of affordable housing. A development near town called Park City Heights has been chided for its delays in offering affordable housing. Today we read that 300 of Silver Creek Village’s planned 330 affordable housing units may be the first to be developed. So, people are paying attention to the topic and it seems important.

However, what we have always wondered is what exactly is affordable? Is a $500,000 house affordable? Is a $1,500 a month apartment affordable?

It seems one of the typical criteria of affordable housing is that no more than 30% of a person’s/family’s income should be spent on rent/mortgage and utilities.

So, let’s start with what seems to be the going rate for fast food jobs in Park City. That’s about $14 an hour (yes it can be lower). $14 times 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year equals $28,000 a year or $2,300 per month. Thirty percent of that is about $700 per month (rent plus utilities). So, you are looking for an apartment or a house/condo priced at about $175,000 (if you put 20% down). Neither of those are going to happen around Park City.

Let’s say two people get together (partners, married, or just living together), with two fast food jobs, all of sudden make an apartment look like an affordable option. If we recall, the “affordable” studios as part of the Whole Foods project were estimated to cost about $1500 a month.

According to the New York Times, Sundance’s theme is Climate Change. The NYT says:

“Mr. Redford, who recuses himself from programming decisions, bristles when his festival is seen as having an agenda. ‘We don’t take a position,’ he insisted. At the same time, his top programmers, John Cooper and Trevor Groth, say they are taking a specific stance, one that is political by nature: For the first time in the festival’s history, there will be a spotlight on one theme — global warming and the environment. Their goal? ‘To change the world’.”

We love that they are taking on climate change. We hope Sundance’s movies are being showed in India and China and make a real impact.

That said, do you know how much a CO2 a visitor to Sundance produces in route to Park City?

According to BlueSkyModel, a plane produces 53 pounds of carbon monoxide per mile. Let’s say, our average visitor to Park City flies from Los Angeles (580 miles). That plane has polluted about 60,000 pounds of Co2 (round trip). If there are 100 passengers per plane, that’s about 600 pounds of carbon monoxide (round trip) per passenger. According to Sundance, the 2015 festival attracted 30,000 out of state visitors. That’s about 18 million pounds of CO2 that result from out of state visitors.

We cam across this last

On Monday the Park City School Board met to discuss grade realignment. in attendance was the school board, the Superintendent, and Principals from across the district. If you haven’t watched the meeting, and have an hour or two to spare, we would recommend you watch it.

If you don’t have that kind of time, and most people don’t, we wanted to provide our impressions from the meeting.

Taking a Bite Out of Tooth Decay

Flossing and Brushing in the Classroom

February is National Children’s Dental Health Month and I, Dr. Marielle Pariseau, a retired dentist from Canada now living in Utah, have chosen to celebrate this special month in a unique way. On January 30th, I launched a 30day Kickstarter Campaign to promote Oh’Pal, a waterless toothbrush I invented to take a bite out of tooth decay. Before we go any further, let’s address the funny name. Here is what Oh’Pal means: O is for Oral and H is for Health. Pal, by definition is a very close, intimate friend; an accomplice. So there you have it. Oh’Pal is the disposable toothbrush with a social purpose about to become your oral health’s Best Friend Forever! Oh’Pal was inspired by Kindergartners and designed to support flossing and brushing in the classroom… and for adults on the go too!

The goal of the Kickstarter Campaign is to raise $40,000.00 to support the launch of Supervised Flossing and Brushing Programs in all Kindergarten classrooms across all three School Districts in Summit County. Summit County has the highest percentage of residents without health insurance in all of Utah, which means that more Summit County children than elsewhere in Utah don’t benefit from regular preventive dental visits. But these children all go to school where, working together, we can make a difference. My Campaign dream is to double the $40,000.00 goal as to also include Wasatch County, where I live, and the County with the second highest percentage of residents without health insurance… and then, expand beyond that.

Tooth Decay is Still the #1 Childhood Disease

How this all started stemmed from a lifetime interest in preventive care. Almost all children are born with perfect enamel and all children are born free… free of tooth decay. I believe that our job as individuals, parents, educators and dentists, is to keep them that way. But we are failing. Tooth decay is still the number one disease childhood disease ^1,2.The number one user of operating room time in Children’s Hospitals is Dentistry under General Anesthesia ³. This needs to stop.

In the eighties Scotland launched supervised toothbrushing programs in a few schools, programs that have grown across the whole country and are now known as the National Supervised Toothbrushing Program. Over the years, the Scotts have consistently shown that everywhere such programs are in place, the rate of tooth decay goes down ⁴. More recently, Mexico City made it mandatory to have supervised toothbrushing in its Public Schools ⁵.

An Entrepreneurial Journey

Seeing the great results of Scotland’s programs, I wondered how flossing could be added, and how this addition could have an even bigger impact. I imagined a special toothbrush with a brush head pre-pasted with Xylitol at one end and a floss tail at the other end of the same handle. A toothbrush specifically designed to make it easy, quick and mess-free to floss and brush in the classroom.

My entrepreneurial journey began in earnest in January 2015, and Oh’Pal was designed in no ordinary way. I enlisted the help of two teams of High School Students in the Park City Center for Advanced Professional Studies (PCCAPS). The first team, engineering students, went into rapid prototyping for a solution after researching the problem. The second team, business students, designed and ran surveys in the community. 102 “Pint size” Alpha and Beta testers, Kindergartners from McPolin Elementary, helped inform the design during the rapid prototyping phase of the project. Treasure Mountain Junior High School Leadership students raised awareness to the importance of flossing for good oral health. Recycle Utah guided me and my PCCAPS Team into making this disposable toothbrush earth-friendly.

Investing in Prevention will save money

Supervised flossing and brushing programs will make a difference. Too many kids do not benefit from adult supervision while brushing at home. Because of that, they miss cleaning many critical areas and they also tend to not brush long enough. Most kids do not floss, and the ones who do often do it ineffectively. For some kids, on given days, the classroom flossing and brushing session will be the only oral hygiene they will benefit from that day.

Investing in Supervised Flossing and Brushing Programs will save money. Studies in England have shown savings in dental treatment expenses of up to 2 1/2 times the cost of implementing supervised toothbrushing programs ⁶. The addition of the flossing component has the capacity to save even more because most tooth decay (and gum disease) starts between teeth. Oh’Pal was designed to make it virtually impossible to forget about flossing and to make it very easy to learn the good habit of flossing every time you brush.

With Oh’Pal, flossing and especially brushing can be done away from your home bathroom. Eliminating the need for a sink and running water makes oral hygiene in the classroom, at work, or on the go not only possible, but also very convenient.

Buy One, Give One

In addition to offering Oh’Pal at a reduced price during the Kickstarter Campaign, my Company, TeethFirst®, will give one Oh’Pal to a school program for every Oh’Pal bought. The more Oh’Pals find their way into homes and schools the more children will benefit from Supervised Flossing and Brushing Programs. My dream is to see programs launched well beyond the three School Districts in Summit

Sponsoring a Program

I also challenge you, the oral health care providers, to Sponsor a Supervised Flossing and Brushing Program for a classroom or an entire school in your community. I invite you to embrace this as a new model of strategic philanthropy ⁷ in oral health care led by dentists and hygienists. In joining the revolution, you are promoting your values and your practice, creating a winning situation for all involved. You also make the biggest difference for the children who need it the most.

Visit Oh’Pal, the Disposable Toothbrush with a Social Purpose now! The first days of any campaign are critical. The campaigns with a strong start tend to also finish strong. Our goal with this campaign is to fund Supervised Flossing and Brushing in as many Kindergarten classrooms as we can. Reaching our $40,000.00 goal will make it possible to launch Supervised Flossing and Brushing Programs across all Kindergarten Classrooms of Summit County: that’s 3 school districts! And because of our “Buy One Give One” model, reaching our goal will also mean that TeethFirst will place a matching number of Oh’Pals in a special “Oh’Pal School Program Bank”

Together we can take a bite out of tooth decay.

1- Dye BA, Tan S, Smith V, Lewis BG, Barker LK, Thornton-Evans G, Eke PI, Beltrán-Aguilar ED, Horowitz AM, Li CH. “Trends in oral health status, United States, 1988-1994 and 1999-2004”. Vital Health Stat 11. 2007;(248):1-92.

2- HHS. “Oral health in America: A report of the Surgeon General”–executive summary. Rockville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health. 2000.

3- Canadian Institute for Health Information. “Treatment of Preventable Dental Cavities in Preschoolers: A Focus on Day Surgery Under General Anesthesia”. Ottawa, ON: CIHI; 2013.

4- Macpherson, L. M. D., et al. “National Supervised Tooth brushing Program and Dental Decay in Scotland.” Journal of dental research 92.2 (2013): 109-13. Web.

5- O’Keefe J, Director, Edelson J. “Change for the Better: Introducing Mandatory Brushing in Public Schools in Mexico City”. OASIS Discussions 2017.

6- Yulia Anopa, Alex D. McMahon, David I. Conway, Graham E. Ball, Emma McIntosh, and Lorna M. D. Macpherson. “Improving Child Oral Health: Cost Analysis of a National Nursery Toothbrushing Programme”. PLoS One. 2015; 10(8): e0136211.

7- Alvetro L. “Strategic Philanthropy: Giving Back and Gaining Patients”. Viva Learning Interactive Web Based Training 2014, reviewed 2017.