in Virus
Parkites should plan on four weeks off of school for Corona Virus
Today the state of Utah mandated that schools are closed for two weeks. The problem in Park City is that there are three weeks until Spring Break. A rational person would not take two weeks off of school, come back for one, and then go on break.
My hope is schools are back in session April 13, but I’m not counting on it. Objects in motion stay in motion and objects that aren’t …don’t.
See you in September.
in Virus
Good job Park City Municipal on Covid-19
Looks like Park City Municipal is doing the right thing with the Corona Virus. For the next 60 days, Park City will provide a bonus amount to employees who are not eligible for paid leave. They say this will include people sick, people caring for elderly relatives, or people caring for kids.
We have not heard what this bonus amount will be — and it is likely in flux. However, the city seems to be trying to find a way to help employees.
Vail Fails on Covid Response
Earlier I wrote about Deer Valley’s 100% refund policy on trips with 24 hours notice due to the Corona Virus pandemic. That’s being human. Wouldn’t you expect the biggest ski operator in the world to do the same thing?
Nope. Vail announced that you can cancel trips but they won’t refund your money. Instead, they will apply money spent to a future travel date within the next year. That’s bullshit.
Yeah, you may not want to come to Park City because we have had cases of Covid-19 here. However, there are other reasons related to Covid-19 could be impacting visitors. Your business may have been impacted. Your hours could be down. Your stock portfolio may have dropped 20%. You may no longer be able to afford it.
I get that Vail is a business. They can’t be stupid. However, they can be compassionate. They should be doing what Deer Valley is doing. 100% refunds — no questions asked.
This soon will pass. Yes, earnings will be down, but they are going to be anyway. Be good to the people who want to come ski at our resorts. That’s being a part of the community.
in Resorts
Deer Valley is doing the right thing with Covid-19
I give Deer Valley a lot of crap these days. It’s not the same place as it used to be thanks to the Ikon Pass and Alterra. However, Ski School is still second to none. The chili is still good. The grooming is still great.
Yet, I always wonder about the management. Bob Wheaton is gone and a guy most recently from Austin manages the place. It has given me pause.
So, I was pleasantly surprised that Deer Valley’s COO Todd Shallan announced that lodging, lift tickets, and rentals are 100% refundable with 24 hours notice.
If you are reading this, you are likely a local and it doesn’t impact you. However, it should give us all a little faith that DV still gets it.
Good on you Deer Valley. It’s not all about money.
Summit County’s response to 2nd Covid-19 patient leaves us in the dark
FYI, a second person in Summit County, under 60, has Covid-19. If by some luck of nature the Summit County Health Department knows you were at the same place as him/her you will be notified … Sure.
Frankly, this is crap.
Instead, they should be listing times and places where the individual ventured. Were you at Smith’s 30 minutes after this individual was there?
Do you have a fever? No. Great!
Do you have a fever? Yes. Get tested for Covid-19 immediately. Limit the spread.
It’s as if our Health Department went to Google and searched, “How do you handle a Pandemic?”. The problem is that it does us, residents, a disservice. I get it. The Health Department doesn’t want to create panic, hurt local businesses, or cause alarm. Yet, this is the sort of action that will lead to larger consequences.
Don’t get me wrong. I think Rich Bullough, who heads the department is good at his job. I have met many employees there and they are caring, wonderful people. Yet, how they handle this mess will define a career.
My view is that residents need all the information we can get. We need it detailed. If I feel sick, have a fever, and have been at a location at a time when a Covid-19 carrier has been there, it will influence me to be tested — which is the right outcome.
Instead, if the Health Department tells me that someone under 60, somewhere in Summit County has the virus, and they have been lots of places, but they can’t tell me where or when it doesn’t do me or anyone else any good.
I don’t need personally identifiable information, I just need to know whether I likely soaked up their germs at the Fresh Market. Then I can self-isolate.
The Health Department can’t do it on their own. They need your help. They need my help.
Help me… help you.
in We Love You
Corona Virus in Park City is a big deal for many reasons
There’s a divide in Park City. Is the Coronavirus (Covid-19) a big deal?
I was in line for some bacon at Deer Valley on Sunday and my seven-year-old asked if the Coronavirus was in Utah. A woman ahead in line interrupted and promptly told him that “he needed to stop watching the news” and that it was “no worse than the cold. “
On the other hand, a trip to Costco will show you people, clad in N-95 masks, pushing carts filled with 50 gallons of bottled water.
So which is it, a hoax portrayed by media outlets to garner better ratings or one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse? In the end, will this be an unfortunate blip on the radar or Spanish Flu part 2?
No one knows. You have to decide for yourself.
In these cases, I tend to follow Pascal’s Wager. For those unfamiliar, Pascal (a 17th-century mathematician and philosopher) argued that a rational person should believe in a God. If you believe in god and there is a god, you are rewarded. If you believe and there isn’t a god, it won’t matter. So, you might as well believe.
In the end, this pandemic will be bad, or it won’t, but preparing, being safe, and taking precautions is rational. That’s what my family is choosing to do. We keep a little extra food around. I have some cheap water sanitizing devices that I bought in case of an earthquake. We wash our hands more. We aren’t flying anywhere right now. We still have birthday parties and go to birthday parties. Our kids go to school. We ski. However, our kids don’t go over to their 70+ year-old grandparents for now.
We live our lives but are a little more careful. You have to do what you feel comfortable with.
Unfortunately, the medical piece is only half the battle. The other half is the add-on effects — which in the end will likely impact more people in Park City. Those manifest themselves in a number of ways.
If you have kids, you may have noticed some after school programs being canceled. The district has sent a survey about internet access at home. Teachers have been instructed to be prepared for sending work home with students should they start spring break a week early. I am counting on schools being closed from March 30 to April 10 (two weeks of spring break instead of one). My only worry is if we can actually make it to March 30.
The problem for us working parents is how do we handle that. Usually, you can send your kid to a camp and still work. That’s not going to be possible here. It will be a big interruption. It may be wise. It may prevent the spread of the disease, but it’s not going to be easy.
Then you look at the economics. The Basin’s economy is based on real estate and tourism. I’m not sure who has the fortitude to come to Park City and buy a house right now, but I’d love to meet them for a glass of High West. As for tourism, Vail suspended their fiscal guidance due to the disease. People are not flying to Park City to ski. If this continues, people are not flying to Park City to spend the summer either. The ripple effect then hits lodging, AirBNB/VRBO, and restaurants. It hits people who help manage properties. It hits people who clean properties. It really impacts non-salaried individuals working across town.
At some point, it’s likely businesses like Woodward will need to limit the number of people coming. Utah has announced restrictions on public gathering to 100 people. This is going to impact them. The only question is whether it then extends to Deer Valley and Park City.
It’s frankly a disaster and that’s probably the good news. The bad news is that the virus will likely be here through the early summer and back again next fall.
So, that’s the situation we are presented with. All we can really control is how prepared we are and how we react to what is presented.
We can debate whether the medical side of the Coronavirus is a big deal, but I guarantee you that the add-ons are as big — if not bigger. There’s no doubt about that.
Please be good to each other. It’s likely going to get worse before it gets better.
Be safe. We’re all in this together.
in Roads
I almost caused a crash on the Kilby Road roundabout today
The Jeremy Ranch roundabout construction is the gift that keeps on giving. I was exiting Fresh Market and was stopped. Cars were coming from the roundabout, and I assumed they would stop, because of the stop sign that has been there for months. Except the stop sign is now gone. I pulled out, saw the cars weren’t slowing, and I accelerated to avoid the collision. Now, I assume those other drivers were cursing my name — as they should have been.
Now, I don’t consider myself an idiot, although I’m sure some readers might disagree. I’m generally paying attention and have written quite a bit about the roundabout changes. Yet, I almost caused a big problem.
Why? That’s a damn good question.
Are the roundabouts big with lots of construction going on? Yeah. Has the construction been going on for months? Sure. Is it complicated? Of course? Yet, none of that rings true.
A person from New Jersey chimed in on the roundabout issues and commented that this project was actually better than they had seen in New Jersey.
The comment solidified the issue. The issue isn’t obtrusiveness; it’s the changing rules of the road. One day traffic moves in both directions around the circle. The next day it moves in one way. Some days there is no merging required, and some days, you have to cross lanes to get to your exit. Some days there is a stop sign, and some days there is a yield sign. Some days there is neither.
Oh, and at night, it is pitch black.
In the case of my issue this morning, the stop signs had always been there, but today they weren’t. Now, you could say, “just be observant.” When I circled to see where I messed up, that’s what I thought. “God, I have to be more observant.”
However, then I continued back through the gauntlet and tried to practice that. In some places, there are four or five different points you have to examine mentally in detail if everything can change. Imagine that every four-way stop that you ever came to required that you had to look at each individual intersection, deduce whether there was still a stop sign, whether there was a yield sign, had anything else changed, and nothing you knew before or had become accustomed was guaranteed. You’re no longer a driver; you’re a fighter pilot heading into enemy territory.
For those that don’t drive the Jeremy Roundabout daily, imagine the same scenario on highway 248 headed into Park City. Some days you would drive in the left lane. Some days you would drive in the right lane. Sometimes there would be a four-way stop at Wyatt Earp while other days it would be a one way stop. However, you never know what’s going to happen, so even if you don’t have a stop, you may want to stop. Buffalo Bill may have the right-away some days, and in that case, a yield sign pops up on 228. Otherwise, traffic on 228 can just blow through that intersection.
It’s dangerous.
Any time there is an accident, we as drivers are responsible. Yet whoever designs these changes has culpability. I don’t know if that’s Summit County, UDOT, or the road construction company. We’ll find out if something really goes bad.
We’ll get another chance to embrace change this week when it is all going to change on the Jeremy side.
The sooner this experiment finishes, the better. It’s mentally exhausting.
in Schools
Wait, there was no rock thrown through the Superintendent’s window?
On Friday, the Sheriff’s Department investigated the rock thrown through Park City School Superintendent Gildea’s window at her residence in Jeremy Ranch. It turns out there was no rock — just a crappy window that broke because it was cold in the mountains.
The Park Record reported that the most definitive sign that a rock didn’t break the window was that the outer pane of the window and the screen were not broken. So, unless this was a magic rock, something else happened.
The problem is that everyone treated this as fact. The Park Record reported it, the school district talked about it, the school board penned a letter scolding the community, and even we at the Park Rag wrote something. I’ll still stand by my take; activism is better than violence.
We understand how the Superintendent and her family could be freaked out based on a Salt Lake news station stalking her house, accompanied by the negativity on social media. That said, this urban myth caused a ripple effect across the community.
In the aftermath, we were hoping the school district would come out and say, “sorry, we made a mistake,” much like Backcountry.com did. Instead, we received a statement from the school district saying, “District leadership and Superintendent Gildea are understandably relieved that the negative social media comments did not escalate to negative actions toward the district-owned property. The Superintendent has appreciated the kindness (and) thoughtful gestures this week from students, staff, and community members.”
The real consequence of the district being so wrong and vocal is that people don’t know what to believe. I’ll provide a personal example. When I found that the district pushed the myth so hard, I didn’t think they were lying — and still don’t. I think it was a story that fit into a narrative that got out of control.
However, then I kept hearing that the district agreed to an additional $200,000 to make improvements to the property. This is actually where the recent public uproar over the property started. Then I started wondering if that was really true? Was that part of the original plan when the school board voted to buy the property on September 4, 2018? Was it agreed to later by the school board? Was it part of this year’s budget discussions and formally agreed upon? Where did it come from?
I hadn’t even considered the question until there was no rock.
Putting my time where my question was, I spent hours this weekend researching that. I watched the school board meeting from last September, where they voted 3-1 to approve the $870,000 purchase. There was no mention of an extra $200K approved.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that during that meeting, School Board member Petra Butler questioned her fellow board members on how they can buy a house without ever seeing it. She said none of them would personally ever do that with their own home. What? The board voted to spend over $800K of our money and never looked at the property. The response was that the district’s Business Manager had looked at the property with the district’s Facilities Manager. This would be like voting for a $65 million bond for new schools, never looking at the plan, then voting for it because someone said they should. But I digress…
During that conversation, they mentioned several times that they were only spending $870K. So, I don’t think there was approval for $870,000 plus $200,000. I never heard an OK for buying a $1,070,000 home. When the board approved this purchase, did they know they have a fixer-upper on their hands that would take 25% more money to make it livable — where even the windows shatter when it gets cold? Maybe, but I never saw it.
Then I went through the agenda of every board meeting since the purchase. Again, I could find nothing. Maybe I missed it, and perhaps the board talked about how the house needs a lot more work than they thought, and then they approved the extra $200K. However, not finding it, I continued to look at this year’s budget.
I started by watching the budget presentation done in May. It was extremely informative but there was no discussion of the house renovations. The video of August’s ratification of the budget was even more informative. Yet, I could find no discussion of the $200K, which is real money. It’s two starting teacher salaries plus benefits.
Now, perhaps renovations to the house are no different than fixing issues at Treasure Mountain. Maybe it’s just all part of the facilities budget. Yet, did the board know when they bought the house? Did they sign up for it?
Or perhaps, the district said they would pay up to a million dollars for a house, and then they found something for $870K and just reckoned they had a couple of hundred grand in slush money — even though 870 + 200 is more than 1000.
When I finally email school board member Andrew Caplan, and we have a coffee (as discussed in an earlier story on this topic), he’ll probably have the answer. Yet, the point is that I no longer trust the narrative — even at a basic level. You get burnt in such a bad way, on a story that isn’t true, and you start to question everything.
I know I’m not alone in this sentiment. I hope every detail of the school’s Master Planning proposal is well documented, researched, and defensible. It won’t be enough to say, “isn’t it good for the children?” and “we met for months on this.”
Things in the school district became much harder because of this blunder.
Throwing rocks doesn’t change things but activism can
Where does vandalism against a school official and bullying by local company intersect? No, it’s not Welcoming Schools. It’s a lesson in how you elicit change.
Last week, Park City School District Superintendent Jill Gildea was a target of vandalism. A rock was thrown through her window. It could have been a disgruntled teenager upset over early start times at the high school. However, it was most likely an idiot who was upset at the School District for spending extra money on a house they bought for the Super. The only thing comical about the vandalism is that someone was so upset that the school district was spending money that they threw a rock. Now they have likely caused the school district and Summit County to spend thousands of more dollars in fixing the window, security services, and sheriff patrols.
Did throwing a rock through a window, terrifying a family, and getting community-wide condemnation achieve anything?
Contrast that with the uproar over Backcountry.com. They were suing any small business that used the word backcountry. The Colorado Sun published multiple stories about it. People became enraged. Boycott’s ensued.
Backcountry’s CEO responded:
Which approach to change was more successful — throwing a rock or activism?
The problem with the rock, besides of course demonstrating the worst in human beings, is that whoever threw it has made it harder for those of us who oppose purchasing a house to be used by the Superintendent. Now, those of us who don’t like how our tax dollars are spent are lumped in with the crazies. When I get up and speak in front of the school board and say I don’t like that we spent $800,000 on a fixer-upper that will need another couple hundred grand invested, I’ll be looked upon as a “Rock-thrower.” It will be the new derogatory term that replaces NIMBY. Thanks for that.
How could it have been handled differently?
- Write a letter to the school board members expressing your concerns. Trust me, they read this stuff and consider it.
- Go to every school board meeting for six months, and during the Public Comment period, say the same thing over and over. Speak your piece, and it may influence change.
- Email your school board representative and ask them to meet for coffee so that you can plead your case.
- Organize a Facebook group that says no more additional money for schools until the Super’s house is sold. PCSD’s Master Planning effort is going to end in a bond. South Summit’s bond failure tells you that anything is possible (whether it’s right or not).
- Picket
- Petition
- Protest
Any of these ideas that took me ten minutes to come up with would be more effective at achieving change than throwing a rock.
Violence is rarely the answer. I get why it is happening in Hong Kong, but we have other methods here. If you don’t like what the school board is doing, vote them out. Organize and find like-minded people. They are out there. You can achieve change. We can achieve change, but we need to do it in the right way. We should do it in a way that is thoughtful, considerate, and effective.
Intimidation and violence don’t solve anything. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be spiteful. We as a community need to be better than that.
Is it BackCountry.com or BadCountry.com?
It always pains us to see local companies doing crappy things.
In this case, Backcountry.com, a Utah-based company and a significant employer in Park City, appears to be a crappy corporate citizen. According to The Colorado Sun, “Backcountry.com a year ago filed for trademarks protecting the word backcountry for all sorts of outdoor gear as the online retailer launched its first-ever branded jackets, skis and apparel. Now the e-commerce behemoth is suing small business owners.” The story recounts several cases where Back Country appears to be a bully.
Effectively, it appears the company sued all sorts of companies who use the term backcountry for a product name. Sell some skis that have have backcountry in the title, you may be sued. Sell some clothing with the word backcountry in the description and the hammer may come down. We aren’t sure that if your company did some sort of backcountry ski touring, that it would be safe either.
This verges on the same level as Vail trademarking Park City. In one case, you have a company trademarking a place we live. In this case, we have a company trademarking a thing that many of us do. So far, it appears Back Country has not commented on the story. Being as they are now owned by a VC firm out of Michigan, I’m not sure we will hear much. But it does appear that Back Country doesn’t have the same values that many of us in Park City have.
That said, if you work for BackCountry.com in Redstone, your nugget has definitely lost some shine. However, if you work there, you may have the only influence over righting the course of the ship.
It appears that boycotts are mounting over this issue. Count us in on that. We’ve always had good luck with Moose Jaw. Or you could shop Cole Sport or Jans which would be even more local.
Parkrag
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