Is There a Lack of Leadership Around Park City?
We’ve heard something interesting from a few people this week. The topic of leadership keeps popping up — and not in a good way. We’ve heard comments like “there is no leadership in Park City” and “we used to have strong people in elected positions where have they gone?”
The question is interesting but so is the timing. Why are we hearing this more now? What has changed … or have people’s perceptions changed? While we give our leaders a hard time, we understand that the job isn’t easy. Yet, because we are so close to the process, perhaps we have given them a pass on “leadership.” So we pose the question, IS THERE A LACK OF LEADERSHIP IN PARK CITY and SUMMIT COUNTY?
What is leadership?
Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.
Actually, there are a million interpretations of leadership but we like the one above from best selling author Kevin Kruse.
So, let’s think about big issues in the past couple of years in the Park City area. What were those? Traffic. Economic Diversity.Vail. Mountain Accord. Dogs. Parking on Main St. The PC CAPS building. Bonanza Park. Affordable housing.
We’d like to think of a big success in government and say, “yes, we have strong leaders, see what they did” but I’m not sure we can. We’re sure that decreasing idling times from 3 minutes to 1 minute doesn’t qualify. Nothing on the Mountain Accord seems to qualify. The failed holiday parking experiment on Main st. doesn’t qualify. Outcomes on traffic don’t qualify. We could go on.
On the flip side, one leadership success is Live PC Give PC. Maybe another is Recycle Utah? We could see those as leaders in the area of non profits. So, we have two.
Perhaps in the School System there is the beginning of leadership on a large scale? Only 9% of 11th grade Hispanic kids are competent in English and Superintendent Conley is pushing for all day kindergarten (which has been shown to help that issue). Yet, we are only at the beginning of that effort. As they say, the proof will be in the pudding.
Maybe the Bonanza Park redevelopment is leadership from the standpoint of trying to revitalize an area of Park City?Maybe?
Past that, we are frankly at a little bit of a loss. What big things have we left out where those people in city or county government or the education system have used their position to maximize others to achieve a goal? It can’t just be non-profits. We’d think there has to be one or two from the government side.
Maybe we are missing something or perhaps looking at leadership from too big of a perspective.
We wish we could write “Today Ms. ________ stood up and did THIS. She worked hard and got the people behind her. Together the people and government worked together to achieve something no one thought was possible and we are all better off because of Ms. _______’s leadership.”
Yet, we are at a bit of a loss. Is the Park City area at a loss too? Do we have great leadership or do we have people just driving the bus on cruise control.
After a little consideration, we think it’s a good question.
in Economy
University of Michigan to House “M City” a 23 acre Mini-Metropolis to Test Driverless Cars
By now you are probably familiar with our LUST for the driverless car and the impact we feel it could have on both transportation and economic diversity in the Park City area. While it’s something we wish we would do here, it looks like Ann Arbor, Michigan is taking the first step.
This summer a 23 acre facility will be opened near the University of Michigan campus to test driverless cars in a virtual metropolis built with roundabouts, freeway entrances/exits, other cars, pedestrians (robotic of course), tunnels, and other conditions one might find in a metropolitan area. Many of the major auto manufacturers are contributing to the project with the hope to have hundreds of driverless vehicles driving in M City at the same time.
We’ve received comments on the topic ranging from “that’s really exciting” to “maybe in 50 years.” We firmly believe that in 5 years, production ready driverless cars will be sold. Why do we think that? Tesla is offering a self-steering model this summer. Cadillac will have hands-free driving in two years. The CEO of Ford says the first self-driving cars will arrive on motorways in 5 years.
While we could wait on the technology, become a passive bystander, and hope some people around here buy these cars so that we alleviate some traffic congestion … is that the best way to approach this? We still don’t think so.
We still have an opportunity to lead and become part of the process that made this technology happen. We can figure out how to optimize it for our type of environment. We can get people excited about it. We can bring a technology company here.
Or not.
However, it seems like squandering this opportunity would be a big waste.
Bloomberg Business Week had a great article on M City.
in Vail
What We Have to Understand about Vail Forecasting Visitor Numbers
In an interview on KPCW with a Park City Planner about approving Vail’s new Canyons/PCMR Gondola, the planner noted that Vail said it would not increase the number of visitors with the Gondola. This apparently was one of the reasons it was approved with no increased need for parking. When we heard that, we couldn’t believe it. However now we know why.
We’ve gone back and listened to a few Vail Resorts Earnings calls. These are where Vail announces their financial results and answer questions from investment banks like Goldman Sachs. So, why don’t they think combining ski resorts, and making the largest ski resort in North America, will increase visitors? It’s because they don’t forecast the number of visitors (at least to outsiders). Not in Park City. Not in Colorado. No where. Their claim is that there is too much variability year to year to do that. Instead they forecast revenue.
Yet, if our leaders ask them questions like “will the gondola increase the number of visitors to Park City area resorts”? Then if Vail replies with something like “we can’t tell you that it will. It’s not something we look at. There could be more or less visitors.” Our leaders shouldn’t say, “Well Vail says there will be no more visitors, so we don’t need more parking.” That shows a complete lack of understanding of how Vail apparently operates.
Instead our leaders should say, “we understand you don’t forecast visitors so you don’t guarantee there will be more by connecting PCMR and Canyons, but we think there is a better than even chance this gondola will lead to more visitors and more homes being built. Because of that, we need additional traffic mitigation and parking.”
To do anything less is a compelte disservice to our community.
Driverless Car Makes Trip from San Francisco to New York
A Friend of the Park Rag sent us an article from the Salt Lake Tribune about a driverless car making a trip from San Francisco to New York. There is just more and more proof that this technology is getting ready for prime time.
If interested, here is the article.
in Schools
Park City Parents … Stanford is Now Free
Dreaming of your little Suzy going to the Harvard of the West? Or perhaps these days Harvard is the “Stanford of the East.” Well, we have good news for you. Stanford is now free, if your parents make less than $125,000 per year and have less than $300,000 in assets. We’re not sure what percentage of Park City students are left after those two qualifiers, but surely there has to be some.
Of course, Stanford takes only 5% of applicants — making it one of the toughest schools in America to get into (if not the toughest). Our guess is that will be even a smaller percentage next year.
So, if your parents are one of Park City’s “Poor” (we could hardly write that), you better get to work. We’d suggest curing cancer as part of your next PC Caps project. If you can’t manage that, at least there’s always Brown.
in City Council
At Least They Didn’t Pick the Spa Option
We were looking through the proposed itinerary for the City Council’s proposed trip to Whistler. City staff of course recommends that they go on the trip (their decision matrix could find no issue with the trip). However, that wasn’t the surprising thing. What’s surprising was the list of possible activities:
City staff recommended the bear viewing and ATV tours as part of the proposed schedule. Priceless.
If the Jordanelle Special Services District wasn’t in so much trouble, we’d bet they would have done the Jet Boating too, just to see if it was enough fun to warrant annexing Jordanelle Reservoir.
We’re glad it’s not our tax dollars.
in Schools
Is Our School’s Dual Immersion Program Like Pert Plus?
If you have kids in school, dual language immersion is probably a concept you love or hate. Dual language immersion (DLI) is a program where students spend half the day in English with one teacher and half the day with another teacher in a second language (French or Spanish). DLI has been a hot issue around Park City, as many parents have been upset that not all kids were able to participate into the program.
Yet we’ve always wondered, are you sacrificing either the language component or the educational component when you try to combine them. Much like we don’t trust a two-in-one shampoo and conditioner like Pert Plus, are we getting both the best French Teacher and the best Science teacher when they try to combine the two?
We were reminded of this yesterday when we listened to School Board member Moe Hickey tell a group of people that in New York City that all you had to do to become a teacher was sign your name on a piece of paper. His point was that there is a shortage of teachers and that is leading to unqualified teachers educating children. He then said that the same problem was headed to Utah. He did qualify his comment with, “not Park City though.”
Mr Hickey’s comments started us thinking about DLI. If it’s hard enough to get a competent teacher, how hard is it to get a competent teacher who is more than fluent in a foreign language, fluent in English, and knows a subject inside and out?
We don’t know the answer, but common sense tells us that it’s something to keep an eye on.
in Environment, Schools
EPA Results on Treasure Mountain School Soil Will be Released April 8th
We reached out to Park City School Superintendent, Dr Ember Conley, to receive a copy of the EPA test results of Treasure Mountain Junior High School Soil. The EPA tested the soil in December and DR Conley recently stated that levels of some contaminants were elevated. In subsequent discussions we have heard school district personnel state that there is no imminent danger to students.
Dr Conley responded that she would be on KPCW on April 7th to talk about the results and would release the results on April 8th.
in Schools
Our Hope for the School District to Relocate to the Triangle Parcel is Dead
A few months back we wrote a plea for the Park City School District to consider making a school campus on the east side of highway 40. We felt they should move the entire Kearns campus there, which would allow Park City to redo their entry corridor as they saw fit. People wrote us with great ideas about how the space vacated on Kearns could become artist in residence housing, open space, low income housing, condos…all sorts of things.
We noted the Triangle Parcel, a piece of land owned by Park City and Summit County (where you’ll often see alpacas), wasn’t in our district boundaries, but that it made so much sense for our schools that they should work out a deal with South Summit School District. The new campus could be made with expandability and shared services in mind. It could be designed with a transportation plan integrated into its design. Our students, teachers, and parents could have the best of everything — with 21st century education, placed at the forefront.
At tonight’s Master Planning School Board Meeting, School Board member Moe Hickey effectively said they would not be looking outside our school district boundaries to put a new school (i.e, the Triangle Parcel). Of course he said that people “keep talking about it” but they need to know it’s probably not going to happen. What do ordinary citizens know? Not much we guess.
So, while we are a little disheartened, we understand it. However, we hope those people in position to influence outcomes such as these understand it too. When they rebuild Treasure Mountain on Kearns Boulevard, and also move 9th grade into the High School, causing 400 extra cars on Kearns… all the while knowing that Park City Heights is coming online and adding 200 homes, which will further increase the traffic jam on 248, we will remember who made those decisions.
We’ll do our best to help everyone remember.
Perhaps we’re bitter. No, we’re definitely bitter. We thought this was a great opportunity to enable both our students and faculty to operate in a world class facility that could help regain the prominence our school district saw in the 2000’s.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen. We wish them luck…but only because it’s our students’ futures at stake.
Parkrag
We believe in citizen journalism. We believe there are stories to tell that can help to shape our community for the better. We believe tomorrow's Park City can be better than today's.