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.

We are entering dark days in Utah related to the Coronavirus. Each day, and every day, over 2,000 people are testing positive for Covid-19. That will only get worse as we enter flu season and people misattribute symptoms. In our schools, teachers are doing the best they can. Parents are doing the best they can. However, that doesn’t stop the reality. People are getting sick.

A couple of weeks ago we heard the story about high school basketball tryouts. Normally,

Call to Action: If you or someone in your household tests
positive for Covid-19, pick up the phone and spread the word.
Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

Contact tracing during the widening spread of Covid-19 is hard,
if not impossible at this point.

If you test positive

Remember who you could have exposed in the last week or so,
then call and inform them so they can get tested. They also need
to look out for signs and symptoms.

If your child (a PCSD student) tests positive

Remember who your child could have exposed in the last week
or so, then call in inform them so they can start looking for signs
and symptoms. Also, call your PCSD school secretary.

All positive test results automatically get shared with the
Summit County Health Department, according to a nurse at one
of our testing sites. Summit County reports it to Utah’s
Department of Health. Your positive case becomes a number

entered into county and state systems and third-party
dashboards.

On August 24, 2020, PCSD sent an email to district parents
announcing new healthAttend software, an attendance
portal which can also help track Covid-19 cases. It read:
‘Park City School District is implementing new tools to
help ease communication between parents and the
schools regarding absence reporting and potential
symptom monitoring from home. If your student will be
out of school, we ask that you use our online system to
report their absence(s). This greatly alleviates the strain
on front office staff during critical times of the morning
routine and enables us to focus our attention on COVID
precautions and getting your child safely to class. It also
helps our nurses monitor symptoms and cases, in an effort
to mitigate potential illness outbreaks.’

In reality, healthAttend is a stand-alone database that PCSD
nurses use to enter Covid-19 cases. Is not ready for parents
quite yet. HealthAttend became a company just one month
before PCSD decided to adopt its graphic database. There
is no interface between healthAttend and PCSD. Parents
still have to call and email school Attendance Secretaries
to report an absence or illness, then talk to the school
nurse to discuss and confirm a Covid-19 positive case.
According to one of the district’s Attendance Secretaries,
‘HealthAttend is an external program that does not link to
our school software therefore requiring manual entry.’

After a school nurse confirms the case, he/she enters it into
healthAttend. Late each night, the healthAttend system
gets refreshed, so data entered today is displayed tomorrow
for most people. District administrators have also
confirmed this information and that healthAttend is
stand-alone and displays only an aggregate of
school-entered numbers. After all that, the school
administration decides who to email about quarantining
other students who were in contact with your child during
school hours.

PCSD protocol Recently, a PCSD student tested positive.
The parent entered the information into healthAttend, but
PCSD did not see that entry. The parent called the school
right away, but it was on a Sunday. By the time the school
applied protocols and procedures and finished notifying
parents whose kids were exposed during unmasked time
together, it was late on that Monday afternoon after
exposed students were back in school, possibly spreading
this virus in classrooms and hallways.

Timely notification and action is what can prevent viral spread.

Have school protocols changed?
Yes. There will be no more quarantine unless unmasked
exposure happens.

PCSD changes protocols as often as the state changes them.

According to the state as of 12/3/20, students may return to
school before 14 days of quarantine only if ALL three
criteria below are met:

1. The school verifies the person who was exposed and the
   person who tested positive were both wearing a face mask
   as defined by the State Public Health Order on masks in
   schools. (Our student athletes were exposed without
   masks.)
2. The person who was exposed tests negative for
   COVID-19 at least 7 days after the last day of exposure.
3. The person who was exposed does not have symptoms of
   COVID-19.

On 12/3/20, Dr. Gildea issued a letter to teachers stating:
‘…With Mask to Mask contact, there will be 0 school
based quarantine – effective immediately – other than
lunchtime contact. The social distance in a classroom is
not a factor in whether or not to quarantine re: seating
chart. So, the only contact tracing schools will be doing is
potential lunchtime or school activity based exposure….If
our athletes practice WITH masks, there is 0 quarantine for
team based exposure.’

Where can I find real Covid-19 case counts?

Case counts reported at the state, county, and school district
levels vary because of the different procedures and timelines for

notification. You can find PCSD case counts at both the state
and county level. Often they report higher numbers than PCSD.
This varies. Word of mouth spreads faster than computer data in
the case of PCSD. Teachers may have a more accurate count
than healthAttend given their proximity to information in the
school.

State Dashboard

Summit County Dashboard

PCSD healthAttend Dashboard

It’s up to friends and community to call each other, through
word of mouth, if we want to notify and learn quickly about
Covid-19 cases.

Call everyone you know who may have been exposed—the
old-fashioned way! Post it on social media the new-fashioned
way! There’s no shame in it. This is a public health concern. To
meet the challenge of not spreading this virus, a phone call is
quicker than entering data into a void and hoping it goes

somewhere. It’s faster than a PCSD email. The most
responsible party is YOU.

Let’s pick up the phone, reach out to friends, and spread the
word, not the virus! Love our community.

The Park Record announced, “Sundance 2021 brings no movie stars, film moguls or corporate bigwigs to fill hotels.”

Is that what it was about? Filling hotels? Seeing stars? Airbnb-ing your second home’s mortgage so you could ski once a year? Enabling corporate takeover of Main Street? Sales Tax revenues? Transient Room Tax?

It sounds so far from what Robert Redford seemed to want in 1978. He wanted a competition for independent American films. He wanted filmmakers to be able to talk about their work. He wanted to provide an opportunity for those people outside the Hollywood system.

The 1978 festival featured a number of films that many of us remember today: Deliverance, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Midnight Cowboy.

I don’t think Redford ever worried about the fate of the Waldorf Astoria.

Now the Salt Lake Tribune is wondering, Could Sundance Leave Park City?

Granted, Redford was shown the door a couple of years ago. That was all too apparent when he was ushered off the stage during his opening comments at Sundance 2019. Redford has since sold the Sundance Resort to Broadreach Capital Partners and Cedar Capital Partners this December. He has said he found the right people to maintain his legacy. I’ll have to trust him on that.

Today, Sundance seems much more like a business transaction that an art project. If the Sundance contract falls through, then so be it. If online streaming allows Netflix and HBO Max to make more money, then so be it. If we really care about the fate of Sundance, we should be worrying about the loss of art this year — not the money.

Yes, many Parkites’ living was made whole by Sundance. Yet, it seems to me the soul of Sundance has been eroding over the years. The foundation was weakened because it is being built on money and not the original purpose.

If we truly want this part of Park City to thrive, maybe we should worry more about the movies and less about the hotels. It’s not about the number of Uber rides a person can sell or how to maximize space in a restaurant. It’s about the movies. It’s about the art.

If it’s not about the art, then it’s a transaction. Those are heartless. We likely need to focus a little more on why Sundacne came her ein the first place if we hope to keep it.

In some alternative universe, everyone who wanted to live in Park City would be able to live here. I wish it was possible. I wish there would be no impact. I wish traffic wouldn’t be impacted. I wish schools wouldn’t be impacted. I wish our natural resources would not be impacted.

In another world, we may imagine that Park City would have a hundred thousand people around it — so that anyone who wanted to live here could live here. Right now, the Snyderville Basin has about 30,000 people around the greater Park City area.

So, let us contemplate tripling that to 90,000 people. How nice would tat b

What would that mean?

I believe there is inherent guilt in living in the Park City area. We know how great it is and believe everyone should have the opportunity to live here. Somehow, and I’m not sure how, many of us have found a way to live in a place where homes cost $2 million dollars. My 20-something version of myself would have never dreamed that was possible.

Since we exited the financial crisis in 2012, housing prices went vertical, there has been a push to ensure there is affordable housing in the Snyderville Basin. The argument is that we need our teachers, law enforcement, firefighters, wait-staff and others to be able to afford to live here.

It makes sense. If you research the topic, there are stories about how teachers who live in their community have more time to spend with their students and their kids get better outcomes. We hear that law enforcement personnel who live in a community provide more protection. There is the argument that if people live in a locale, versus drive in, that they will take public transport and reduce traffic.

I don’t doubt this in many cases.

Yet, who wouldn’t want to live here? If you are living in the Salt Lake Valley and immersed in an inversion, wouldn’t you want to live above the pollution in Park City? Who wouldn’t want to be 10 minutes from a ski resort when the Cottonwoods are such a shit-show? We could literally fill every single inch of the Snyderville Basin with people.

I get why people want to live here.

Yet, do we who live here, really want more people to live here? Do we trust Summit County and Park City to solve trail issues? Do we believe UDOT will magically solve traffic through a traffic-study pushed by a developer. Will the health department find a way to stop the inversion from coming up I-80? Do I want to be more crowded?

Or do we believe that more traffic and more people lead to a worse experience for those people who have lived here for decades?

I tend to believe that affordable housing is used by developers to make money. It’s an end to the means for them. There is a rule in our General Plan that says that there is so much development that has already been OK’d but not yet built, that there has to be a reason to OK more development. So, developers trot out affordable housing as an incentive to get it approved. Do they do this because they want to make Park City and Summit County better? No, they want to make money.

The downside of this is that is fills our town with too many people. We don’t have the ability to support the traffic, people, and natural resources necessary.

We make Pa

We have to stop building in and around Park City where not required. We are getting it wrong from the long view.

There are entitlements where a landowner has the right to build something. Thos areas are like the million suqare feet of land approved at the Canyons. There is also land where people propose to change the rules to build more than we want. Those areas are in places like the Boyer Tech Park and Highland Estates.

Today’s perspective is that we have too little affordable housing. Therefore, we need to build in Park City and Summit County. We need to allow the open space at the Tech Center to become eleven hundred apartments and condos. We need to build four hundred apartments in the curved-space that is adjacent to Highland Estates at Highway 40.