The Battle For Boyer Heats up (Again)
In the Snyderville Basin, there are roughly four obvious areas for development: Silver Creek, the area by Home Depot, land north of Highway 40, and the Boyer Tech Park. The homes are starting to pop up in Silver Creek, 1000 units are planned near Home Depot, and the Highway 40 land is awaiting treatment per the EPA. What about the Boyer Tech Park?
The Boyer Tech Park is an area between the Village at Kimball and the Olympic Ski Jump. There is over a million square feet of development approved there. The catch is that it’s been tagged for businesses related to technology, science, and R&D. In the original development agreement there are certain uses (fitting the description above) that are allowed. If it’s not in that list, then it can’t be built there. The idea was to bring high-tech, high-paying jobs to Summit County. They also wanted to ensure that they wouldn’t canibalize other areas of town like the Kimball Village. So, they didn’t allow generic office space or restaurants. Finally, they didn’t want a lot of traffic. They felt the limited types of businesses would limit traffic.
You may then ask why the one building built so far has a visitors center, coffee shop, physical therapy office and a resort check-in located in it. Please don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. We’ll leave that one for never another time.
When the original building was built, the Summit County Council was responsible for deciding whether each individual tenant met the requirements for the “Tech Park”. They felt this was untenable going forward. The main issue with the existing process was that it required the county council to micro manage the process. Secondarily, a full plan had to be created and evaluated to see if it met the stringent requirements. This required a significant amount of money from the developer. So, about a year ago a new process was implemented.
A company could submit a “description of use” document to Summit County. This went to the Community Development Director, the County Manager, and the Chair of the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission. They would then determine whether the use described was consistent with the uses in the Development Agreement.
Over the past year, it appears there were a couple of informal discussions between organizations and the the county on whether it made sense to submit the “description of use” document. We have no definite information on those but it appears that formal requests were never made. However more recently, a brewery has formerly completed the request and was denied by the county. Since this is the first denial using the process it will be interesting to see what happens. The brewery has the option to appeal the decision to the Summit County Council. If they decide to do that we would expect to see that in the next month or two.
The Boyer Tech Park is an interesting development but perhaps is even more interesting due to the upcoming battle it represents. On one side are people who don’t want more growth. They feel it damages the character of the Basin. On the other side are those people who say we need growth. They feel that the only way to have good schools, great roads, and a diversified economy is through growth. This battle was put on hold due to the Great Recession but with the Park City Film Studio, Park City Heights, East Creek Ranch, and now renewed interest in the Tech Park, it is starting to heat up again.
The next 5 years should tell us a lot about what Park City’s future will be.
in Election
Does Our County Treasurer Need to Have a College Education?
Thursday on KPCW, Corrie Forsling, a candidate for Summit County Treasurer, mentioned she was the only candidate for the position who had a college degree. We thought we may have misunderstood her, so we checked. It appears that she is correct. Her opponent, Amy Yost, has a high school degree, while Ms. Forsling has both a college degree and a Masters in Business.
So, how important is a college education for this position? First, what does a County Treasurer do? According to the Summit County website, “The Summit County Treasurer collects property taxes, receipts and accounts for all county funds, reconciles cash balances, and invests available cash.” So, effectively they collect most of the money the county receives, tracks how much money we have and how it was spent, and invests money.
While we at the Park Rag are big proponents of experience and self-education, these are important responsibilities impacting lots of money and thousands of people. Therefore, we don’t want to be cavalier about it. We look at it this way… does having a generic college degree matter? A college degree demonstrates some ability to complete a task that took many years, that likely contained some adversity. It also shows some worldliness as whether you go to Brown, Miami of Ohio, or the U you are thrown into a situation with a diverse people, many whom are probably as smart or smarter than you. You could possibly gain that without going to college. You’d likely need to search it out, but you could find it.
However, let’s take the thought exercise a step further. If you were looking for someone to manage your money, be it an investment advisor, private banker, or the person who manages your organization’s pension fund what educational background would you want? You’d likely want someone with a business degree, or better yet some sort of masters degree related to finance. You’d want them to have both practical experience and the academic knowledge to backup decisions.
So, our opinion is that something like an Art History degree wouldn’t do much for our Treasurer. Just having a random college degree isn’t enough. In a county like ours with so much money and so much going on, we should demand the best and brightest person available. That person probably should have some sort of business degree.
in Election
Bravo KPCW! You should do this more often!
Right now (as we are writing this), KPCW has Doug Payne and Julie Eihausen, candidates competing for the School Board on the radio. Having both candidates running for the same position on the radio at the same time allows citizens to compare and contrast not only the answers to questions but each candidate’s style. At the end of the broadcast they then took calls from citizens who had questions.
It was really informative and compelling. We hope they can do more of this in the future!
How Other Areas of the State Want to Take Money From Park City Schools
We just read an interesting Salt Lake Tribune Editorial from late September by Utah State Representative Aaron Osmond. He takes a view counter to what many Parkites feel. He argues that we need complete equity in our schools and that places like Park City should not be able to use our higher property taxes to achieve better schools than locations with lower property taxes. Therefore, he argues for a Utah State Property tax to make sure all schools receive equal funding. Essentially, those tax dollars would be distributed equally across all schools (based on number of students).
Perhaps this is what representative Kraig Powell meant when he said he feared bringing up anything with regard to equalization in the legislature (i.e. the use of our tax dollars to fund other school districts).
It’s worth a read to understand where other areas of the state are coming from. Click here for the editorial.
Silver Star Restaurant Inspection
Summit County Health Department inspected Silver Star Cafe on 9/25/2014. We have created a page on how to read the Inspection Report. We’ll highlight the things that may be of interest. Please read the full report below for a complete and accurate report.
Good Practices:
- Adequate ventilation
- No contamination during food preperation
Temperatures:
- Milk: 40º
- Shrimp in the reach-in: 54.5º
- Ham on cold table: 60.8º
- Beef in walk-in: 41º
Observations and Corrective Actions:
- Employees not wearing gloves
- Dishwasher does not have enough sanitizer
- Cold table temp above 41º
- Ice machine needs cleaned
- Need to Date mark all items
Restaurant Inspections Online … Starting Tonight
Ever wondered how clean that restaurant you love is? After a bad experience in SLC, we did too. We contacted the Summit County Health Department in order to find out how we could access restaurant inspection reports. We completed a government records request last week and were provided access to recent records today.
We feel that as citizens, we should all have access to all public information, especially about the things we eat. With that in mind, we’ll be posting the inspection for one restaurant tonight, followed by a new inspection every day or two. There are a few things to keep in mind:
- These are point in time inspections. The Health Department finds problems and the restaurants are supposed to correct them. So, hopefully by the time you are reading about an inspection, the problem has been taken care of.
- Every restaurant has “violations” but many are far less egregious than what you have going on at home.
- Inspections are typically performed twice a year. Things change quickly, so your results may vary from what you read on these reports.
- We didn’t realize how important the Health Department and their inspectors are to our dining experience. We said to one of the inspectors during our review, “Wow some of this is pretty scary”. She said, that we had it wrong. We should be glad they found these things and they are fixed. We’ve watched enough Kitchen Nightmares, that after thinking about it, we completely agree with her.
- Our intent isn’t to harm our local restaurants in any way. In fact we want them to succeed. We believe they are the life blood of a tourist location like Park City. That said, we do hold them to a high standard since no one wants to get sick and the average diner only sees about 3% of what’s going on.
So, we hope you’ll find these as interesting as we do. First up tonight is Silver Star Cafe’s 9/25/2014 inspection.
in Taxes
School Board Property Tax Increase Will Not Be Postponed Because of PC CAPS Building Deferral
Someone contacted us and asked if property taxes increases would be delayed due to the PC CAPS building being put on hold. The answer is no.
The School Board voted to increase property taxes in order to accommodate student growth. It wasn’t directly tied to the Professional Studies Building that was agreed upon but is now delayed — awaiting a needs assessment.
in Schools
School Board Postpones Decision on Professional Studies Building Indefinitely Without Any Discussion?
On Tuesday the Park City School Board was supposed to vote to re-affirm their commitment to the $5.7 million Professional Studies building that would hold PC CAPS, among other things. In a surprise move (at least to us) School Board Superintendent Ember Conley recommended (via reading a letter she had written) postponing a decision on the Professional Services Building until a comprehensive review of the district’s building needs was completed. This was then approved unanimously by the board.
School Board president Moe Hickey was asked this morning by KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher if this is something they discussed in a closed meeting. He said no and then continued to describe why delaying a decision was important. We have watched video of the meeting a few times and it seems strange. Dr Conley reads a letter she has written about the PC CAPS building and the growth at other Park City Schools. She then cites that she and the Leadership Team think we need to perform a study of all district needs before moving forward. A motion is then made by board member Nancy Garrison to defer the decision on the building, per the letter. NO DISCUSSION around deferring the decision occurs. They then all vote for delaying it.
If we go back in time to May 20th, all members of the board (except Ms. Knauer) voted for the building. Then suddenly on Tuesday they all decide it should wait, without discussion? We get why Ms. Knauer may have voted that way but the rest? Did they all read the PTO letter that was sent out calling into question the timing of the building and then all individually decide more discussion needed to take place?
We’ll stop being coy. This is the type of decision that should have been discussed in front of the community. We’re not sure where, or if, it was discussed as a group beforehand (it shouldn’t have been discussed as a group) or if everyone just listened to Dr Conley read her letter and independently decided she was right at that moment. If members of our school board are willing to sign tax payers up for a $5.7 million building and then just let it go without discussion, it calls into question their decision making in the first place.
If they got together beforehand and decided that they needed to postpone the building due to public pressure, we are sure many people are happy with that outcome, but it’s not legal per the Utah Open Meetings Act. Legally, policy discussions are required to be made in public, except in a few, special circumstances. Again, we are not accusing them of breaking the law because we don’t know what happened. To us, watching the video, it was just weird.
Regardless, the people on the Park City School Board owe the community a discussion. By running for public office they have signed up to represent people who live here. They owe those people an explanation for why they make decisions, especially on ones this controversial and large. It’s unfortunate that they obviously don’t think that matters.
in Schools
Yes. You’re Kid Finally Got a D in Something. Where Do You Go to Make Yourself Feel Better About Sage?
During Tuesday’s Park City School Board Meeting, there was a presentation on Sage. Sage is a new standardized student test required by the State of Utah. We’ve heard over the past few months how bad the results are going to be. Results will likely be released next week and at that time we will know more about how Park City kids fared versus other schools in the state.
It sounds like this test is based on high expectations and that most Utah schools fared pretty poorly. You can tell from statements made at both the state level and local level that this won’t be good. Damage control is well under way. The good news is that this is just another standardized test and doesn’t really indicate whether you’re little Suzie will be a brain surgeon or collect food stamps from the salaries of brain surgeons.
So, we look forward to the results next week. As the old Chinese proverb goes…”may you live in interesting times”.
To get more information, in preparation for the Sage results, look here:
http://www.schools.utah.gov/assessment/SAGE-Communication.aspx
in Schools
School Board Could Educate Other Government Bodies With The Speed and Quality of Information They Provide
If you listen to representatives from our county and city, they talk about diversifying our community away from being a purely a tourist destination. They often talk about wanting to bring high tech companies to the Basin. They talk about all the things we have to offer these technology companies. It sounds so good. However, it’s easy to talk the talk but it appears walking the walk is harder.
The truth shines through when it comes to the meetings they run. In reality the only way we know what goes on in county and city meetings is to attend a meeting in person. The alternative is to wait a month or two and read meeting minutes. If you are concerned about an issue and want to know how your representatives voted, you better hope KPCW covers it the next morning. Is this 1978?
Contrast that with the Park City School Board. We wondered how the vote went on the Professional Studies Building last night. We checked the School Board web site and the results of the vote were listed by 6AM! Better yet, the video was available this morning too.
In the age of Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube what the school district has done is fabulous. Like the rest of society, they’ve embraced technology and it helps the community as a whole. What the Park City City Council, Summit County Council, and both Planning Commissions are doing — or not doing — is a disservice. How can we expect those bodies to help us transition our economy to high tech if they don’t embrace it themselves?
It’s like expecting the plough horse salesman to suggest the best SUV for your family.
We’ve been critical of how the board handles public comment; however, the speed at which this information is disseminated is best in class.
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.