Snyderville Basin Planning Commission Needs You
Sorry I didn’t notice this sooner but the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission has two vacancies for the next term. Interviews are this Wednesday. While there are no guarantees, I bet you can still get on the interview list. Currently there are 3 people interviewing for 2 positions.
The Planning Commission is responsible for probably 80% of what you love or hate about Summit County. Especially given the growth we’ve seen, the Planning Commission in the coming years will serve an important role in ensuring that development across the Basin happens how, and where, we want it to. If you are interested in building, planning, guiding the development of the Snyderville Basin, this position is for you.
If the thought of interviewing for the positions scares you, it shouldn’t. Each member of the County Council will ask you about a question about why you want the job, what would make you a good candidate, given that you have done XXXX, how is that a good fit for this position, etc. They are nice people.
If you are interested in applying (which I hope you are), please immediately email the Assistant County Manager, Anita Lewis. She will likely let you know if they can fit you in.
Good luck. We are all depending on you.
Know What You’re Doing Before Using Those Supermarket Reward Cards
This post isn’t specifically about Park City, but it applies to us. Many of us use our rewards cards, at places like Smith’s. Other times we key in our phone numbers at places like Fresh Market or Petco to get a discount. Yet what happens to that information behind the scenes?
I had always assumed that the companies probably used that data internally to provide coupons or send mailers. Looks like I was a little naive.
This weekend I was reading an article about Ted Cruz, who is running for President. If you follow politics, you probably know he won the Iowa Republican Caucus. Yet, the tools he used to win were surprising to me. According to the Associated Press, “The scope of Cruz’s system is formidable. Cambridge’s (the company supplying information to the campaign) database combines government and commercial data sets such as voter rolls and lists of people who liked certain Facebook posts, along with consumer data from grocery chains and other clients that can provide a voter’s preferred brand of toothpaste or whether he clips coupons.”
What this is saying is that your detailed shopping history appears to be available for sale. Want a list of all people in Summit County that buy organic meat, you can probably get it. Want to know who both “liked” Mountain Trails on Facebook and also buys dog food? No problem. The possibilities are really only limited by someone’s ability to slice data and target voters.
Let’s say in the 2016 Summit County Council race, a Republican candidate decides to challenge Roger Armstrong. Since Mr Armstrong was the County Council member who started the county down the path of greater leash law enforcement (and holding public hearings, and forming a dog task force, etc.), the challenger decided to hit him hard on dogs. The challenger realizes it is hard to unseat an incumbent, especially a Democrat, in Summit County. So, she has to go after hot button issues. How does she do it? She buys a list of people and addresses who have voted in the last 8 years, who are not affiliated with a party, who buy pet supplies, and support Mountain Trails on Facebook. She then creates a targeted campaign directed at those voters. She then repeats it on other areas of perceived weakness for Roger Armstrong. What does that cost her? Ted Cruz spent $3 million for nationwide information. Could our hypothetical candidate get the lists required for just Summit County for $20K? Probably.
Now, in Mr Armstrong’s case, I hope that doesn’t happen. While I don’t agree with him on every stance, I think he has done a good job over the past three years. However, that won’t stop a competitor from using our own personal information for their agenda. I know $20K sounds like a lot, but I think around $100,000 was spent in the last Park City mayoral election between the two candidates.
Likewise, a similar strategy could be used for school board elections. Why blanket Park City with mailers and email when you can target the perfect people with the perfect information. Find people who have voted recently and don’t have kids. Target them with specific messages that suit the cause.
By us freely giving up our personal information, without realizing the consequences, it may be used against us.
Now, you may say I don’t care if Kroger in Cincinnati (Smith’s) knows that I buy kale three times a week. I don’t care that all my likes on Facebook are correlated with other information to create a perfect digital representation of me. I am saving 20 cents a gallon gas. Fair enough.
I just hope that on your life insurance policy you didn’t declare you were a non smoker, when sometime in 2013 you bought a Swisher Sweet cigar at your local grocer. There’s nothing like DATA to ruin that perfectly good life insurance policy that your wife is depending on.
Note: I don’t know that Smith’s, Fresh Market, PETCO, etc. sell purchasing data. They may not. But it seems a lot of people must be doing that.
in Park City
What Good Survey Results Look Like
During the School District’s Bond effort they did a “survey” of residents in order to understand what they’d be willing to pay for a bond. I think the answer was about $60 million. From reports it seemed like many survey calls were to cell phones of prominent people… which runs counter to the randomized nature you’d want in a study.
Then came the outcome of the failed bond and the school district. The school board decided they needed to do a study to understand why people didn’t think what the school board thought they would think. They reached out to people by phone and that led them to incorporating some of those people into focus groups. The results of those focus groups will likely be disseminated in March.
The problem is that it’s not transparent. We don’t know what was asked of the citizens by phone. We don’t know how the focus groups were chosen. We don’t know how many people were included. We don’t know how the focus groups were operated. We don’t know what questions were asked of the focus groups. We don’t know what answers were provided.
Yet, I’d guess the “answers” provided by the focus groups will be presented as perfect information.
So, how should it be done? I’m sure there are many different answers. In the past, I have heralded Summit County’s Citizen survey (produced by a professor of a university) for its methodology to determine the “state” of Summit County. It was a random, professionally done study that incorporated over 2000 people in our community.
However, I would present Park City’s National Citizen Survey as the gold standard in the area from what I’ve seen`. Park City has been participating in the survey since 2011. The survey is centered on the livability of Park City. What is fabulous about the survey is that the appendices tell us exactly what questions were asked, how many people participated, and what their answers were.
For a data nut like me, it is perfect. You’ll be able to see stats like 65% of the surveyed population thinks they will be living here in five years. You’ll find out weird statistics like more than 30% of people surveyed spend over $2500 a month on HOA dues! It is interesting info. It tells you that the numbered of Parkites surveyed was 300 (about 4.5%). All in all, there were about 50 questions asked.
While you may disagree with the outcomes of the survey, its methods seem strong. I would like to see such detail around the specific questions asked, the responses revealed, and the numbers participating in every survey our city, council, or school district performs going forward. It’s truly the best way of using the information presented to help impact your opinion in an accurate way. Otherwise, you may hear on the radio, “Our focus group said that people want to build a million square foot field house on Kearns.” However the question asked, that led to that sound bite, might have been, “Do you want to cancel all athletics or build a million square foot field house on Kearns?” Without knowing the questions, answers, and participation… the data is basically useless.
Let’s hope that all of our political bodies start releasing survey information in the same way that Park City did with the National Citizen Survey.
For those who care, it portrays a much more accurate picture.
If you’d like to delve into the details of the National Citizen Survey, the best place to look is The Technical Appendices. It makes for some interesting reading.
Shower Thought: Medical Marijuana Coming to Utah? Sure.
Everywhere you look on traditional media you see coverage about Utah legalizing medical marijuana. When my friends no longer have to go to Evanston to buy a keg of beer, I’ll believe it.
For now, I wonder what the powers that be are trying to distract us from? Is it making public land available for obtaining oil and gas? Is it building a train up Little Cottonwood Canyon and connecting it to Park City. Is it something I never considered?
Probably the latter.
Are you agitated after waiting 45 minutes to park at PCMR? Better ask your doctor whether medical marijuana is right for you..
He’ll likely say no, due to state law… but that oil pipeline right through your backyard looks really good.
in Park City
The National Citizen Survey Shows Park City is a Great Place to Live
If there is a truism across most of humanity it would be that people like to complain. Yet even given that, in the 2015 survey of “livability” of our city, Park City generally came up all roses.
- 96% of people felt quality of life was positive
- 97% felt Park City was great place to live
- 95% of people felt that it was a “clean” city
- 96% felt our ambulance services were good
So what was the bad? Traffic (shocking). Only 41% felt traffic wasn’t a big deal and running fine (I assume that 41% work from home like me). Another bad was affordable housing. Only 22% felt it was being handled well. Finally, less than half the people were positive about services provided by federal government to our citizens.
The other interesting aspect of this survey is that it was also performed in 2011 and 2013, so we have trends that better help us understand whether things are getting better or worse. What’s getting better?
- Park City is a better place to raise children. In 2011 90% of people felt that way. In 2013, 85% of people felt that way. Now, 93% of people felt that way.
- Shopping quality has increased from 63% of people feeling it was positive in 2011 to 76% feeling that way now.
- Childcare/preschool went form 31% positive in 2011 to 51% positive in 2015.
What’s getting worse?
- In 2011, 68% of people felt the traffic flow was positive. Now, 41% of people do.
- Housing options decreased from 40% of people being positive to 30%
- In 2011, 80% of people felt the Park City government welcomed citizen involvement (something important to me) but that decreased 14% to 66% by 2015.
- The percent of people feeling Park City Government had the correct overall direction decreased from 70% of people to 50% of people.
All in all, it’s an interesting study. Park City as a whole is doing well. However, traffic and the Park City government, may be not doing quite so well.
If you’d like more detail, I would encourage you to look at the entire collection of National Citizen Survey results (related to Park city). They can be found here:
http://www.parkcity.org/departments/community-public-affairs/national-citizen-survey
Update: A previous version of the post said less than half of people were happy with services provided by local government. However, this should have been less than 50% were unhappy with services provided by the FEDERAL government. For Park City, 80% of people are satisfied with local government. Sorry for the mistake.
in Schools
Park City School District is Taking a Big Gamble with Removing Reading Aides
This morning, on KPCW, Leslie Thatcher interviewed school board member Tania Knauer. Ms. Thatcher asked Ms. Knauer about removing reading aides from our elementary school classrooms. The exchange was as follows:
Leslie Thatcher: There is a petition moving through, lots of churn on social media with regard to reading aides and the fear from parents that the district is taking away reading aides. Is that the case?
Tania Knauer: Yes. But we are also basically looking at reallocating resources because our scores show that our current reading program is ineffective. We have 7.4% of our 11th graders reading at proficiency and these are kids that have been with us up to 10 years. We are missing something somewhere. So, all educational program need to evolve and especially when they are not showing progress. So we actually have 22 people as reading aides which comes out to 12.8 FTE and something we’ve heard from our classified people is that they really want full time jobs and benefits. So basically we are turning those into 14 full time job, 32 hours a week which is 11.2 FTE and we are giving them all benefits. We are having higher quality classified jobs. Those 14 aides will then be in our Full time Kindergarten classrooms. We’ll have a full time gifted person, an intervention specialist, as well as an instructional coach… and these will all be licensed educators that will be providing the support that teachers need.
I probably need to clarify the lead statement by Ms. Knauer. I don’t believe only 7.4% of our 11th graders are reading at a proficient level. If so, Park City School District should be worrying less about being the best school district in the country. Yet, I’m not sure which group she was referring to. Here are this year’s sage results for 11th graders in Park City:
Let’s say Ms. Knauer was referring to groups classified as Hispanic or Economically Disadvantaged, which both are at the 20%-30% proficiency level. While not 7%, those levels are still not acceptable. Given that, I have three questions:
- Will shifting reading resources to kindergarten improve lower performing groups proficiency throughout elementary school and ultimately in ten years (once they hit 11th grade… which seems to be the school district’s measure)?
- What is the impact to other populations from losing these aides in elementary classrooms? Will our reading proficiency (for the majority of students) stay at the level it is now (or improve)?
- What’s the impact on elementary teachers and their ability to teach (all subjects) without reading aides?
I think the school district is taking a big gamble with this. In order to call this change a success, they’ll not only have to show that lower performing groups reading skills are improving but that the majority of students weren’t hindered by this move.
What they risk is that many of these high-performing reading aides will find satisfaction elsewhere. If we find that our gamble didn’t pay off, there may be no way to get them back.
I don’t begrudge the district for making changes. It is much easier to do nothing than to stick one’s neck out. Yet, I wonder if they are putting too many of their eggs in one basket. That one basket seems to be that all day kindergarten, with enough resources, will solve our biggest problems. I’m not sure the research actually bears that out.
It will take a while, but we’ll eventually see whether the gamble paid off. I suppose that is at least one benefit of standardized tests. By 2020 we should know whether decisions made by our school district and school board were wise. If so, we should heap praise on those who stuck their neck out. If not, we’ll need to remind those people who made these decisions, and are still in our community, what damage was done.
And this is a big enough decision that there should be no excuses.
I have kids starting in kindergarten in the next few years, so I hope the district is successful (whether they plow forward or decide to take a step back). If they move forward with assigning resources to all day kindergarten, I just hope their gamble pays off and they have chosen wisely. If not, the line of people waiting to say “I told you so” may be very long.
in Sundance
Park City Needs to Be Wary of Hubris Regarding Sundance
The Park Record’s Jay Hamburger wrote an article entitled, Sundance moves forward, but is it too big? The article cited a conversation between Robert Redford and Park City City Manager Diane Foster. Apparently Redford “wondered [to Foster] if the festival was getting too big.” It also cited comments from an Associated press story where Redford said he heard, “negative comments about how crowded it is and how difficult it is to get from venue to venue when there’s traffic and people in the streets and so forth.” Redford mentioned some ideas for either breaking up the festival or ending the festival.
Later in the article, Hamburger writes, “Nancy Garrison, a member of a Sundance Utah Advisory Board who lives in the Snyderville Basin, said the 2016 festival was a ‘fantastic experience.’ She said the Utah Advisory Board has not discussed a change like the one Redford described, adding that the festival has ‘evolved dramatically since its early days’ and it could be difficult for the founder to witness the changes.”
If the quote and paraphrasing of Ms. Garrison are accurate, it appears what Ms. Garrison is really saying is “Sorry Mr Redford, perhaps the festival has just outgrown you.” Oh, the hubris.
I don’t attend many Sundance screenings, but I always watch the Sundance Day One question and answer session with the movie critic from the Tribune, the director of the Sundance Film Festival, the Executive Director of the Sundance Institute, and the reason everyone came (Robert Redford). It provides a great state of world, through the eyes of Robert Redford. Why through Redford’s eyes? Because 99% of the questions (maybe all of them) from the attendees during Q&A are directed at Robert Redford. He is what they care about.
To say that Sundance has grown beyond simply Robert Redford is likely both true and false. Just listening to him speak, you understand that he never imagined the festival like it is today. However, he knows what he is trying to do and completely understands what the festival has become. He just may not like (all of) it.
Yet, to imply that somehow his opinions aren’t valuable because he can’t handle change, is pure folly.
You know, Robert Redford is 79. While we wish it wasn’t so, Park City, Sundance, and Utah will likely only be endowed with his gifts for a very-few more years. When the time comes that Mr Redford no longer arrives on a snowy day in January to our little corner of the mountain, it will be a big loss. When that happens, we’ll really get to see who handles change well.
What Will The Measures of Success Be When Considering Transportation?
This morning on KPCW, County Manager Tom Fisher was talking about the various options to pay for transportation solutions in Summit County (bonds, tax increases, etc). He spoke about one of the components or the process being a wish list of projects that could be presented to citizens, so they know what the options are. It appears the County is doing its best to ensure that a repeat of the School Bond election doesn’t happen — by giving citizens every opportunity to know the SPECIFICS around what will be provided by a new bond or taxes. That’s very good.
Yet, when it comes to transportation solutions in Summit County, the county hasn’t exactly inspired confidence. First, obviously, the traffic can be horrible (we’ve had a problem for years). Second, they spent over $100,000 on consultants that basically told them to run more buses, which was universally derided as a failure. Third, the County Council pushed back on the Mountain Accord in order to get the Accord to provide the county with funds to study transportation impacting us (so our unique viewpoint could be represented). However now the county appears to be backtracking on leading the study saying something like “we think UDOT should take the lead on this since these are roads are managed by UDOT.” UHHH… pretty much every road with trouble in our area (Highway 224, Highway 248, I-80, and occasionally Highway 40) are managed by UDOT… so should we just get out of the transportation business all together and let them handle it? No, we should be leading these efforts (and bringing UDOT and UTA in as necessary).
So, what would inspire more confidence going forward? First, as mentioned above, a list of projects that will be completed using increased taxes goes a long way to helping people understand what our money will be used for. Second, and perhaps as important, we need to understand what the measures of success will be and what success looks like.
Let’s say the county proposes a bond for widening 224 for a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Lane. I’m not sure that is even possible given UDOT manages it, but let’s say it is. We as citizens need to know what the impact of this will be. How many cars will take off the roads and at what times? How many travel time minutes will it cut on travel from Park City to I-80 at peak times? Will there be any vehicle reduction (or increase) on 248 due to this? Then, we need to make sure there is a timeframe, method, and funds to judge whether this is a success. There have to be metrics to judge whether this was a good decision.
Likewise, one of my personal favorite projects is using our trails as a mode of transportation. I’d love to see an E-Bike program to maximize multi-modal use of paved trails. It sounds like a great idea (to me). Yet, I don’t know what that would really mean toward solving our transportation problems (when the pencil hits the paper, it may be a useless idea). I’d love to see the same estimate as used above for a BRT lane for multi-modal trails. And of course, if a program is implemented, what metrics will be used to judge the program’s success.
If we are going to consider spending additional, large-level funds on transportation we need to ensure that both program specifics have been communicated to the public and metrics are in place to judge success. It sounds like we are on the way to ensuring the specifics are communicated to citizens. Let’s hope that along with that, our county leaders are planning on putting in place metrics that will let us know what bang to expect for the buck… and then also a way to provide information that will be used to hold Summit County accountable for the success or failure of new transportation solutions.
If they can do those two things, it will go a long way to help rebuilding trust in our leaders’ ability to help solve transportation issues. It would also make it much likelier that the public would vote for tax increases or a bond.
in Economy
Why the Upcoming Recession Will Be Good In Some Ways for Park City
As the stock market has dropped over 6% in the last 5 days, the Chinese economy is slowing, and there are signs that boom we’ve seen since the end of the great recession is coming to a close, I feel bad for those of us that will be negatively impacted by the next recession.
However, I can’t help but think that what is coming will likely benefit Park City and the Snyderville Basin as a whole. Much like the forest that needs a small fire to occasionally clear out the underbrush and foster stronger trees, a short recession may provide a cooling off period for our area.
Over the past five years, we’ve constantly heard that population growth that is coming. We’ve stared into the face of growing transportation problems. We’ve concerned ourselves with all the building that is happening. Yet, solving a crisis when you are in the middle of it, is hard to do.
Take for example, Summit County’s Transportation Manager, Caroline Ferris. She was on KPCW a few days ago when Leslie Thatcher asked what we can do about transportations issues right now. Ms Ferris answered with “We’d ask people to carpool.” While that’s never going to happen, I don’t blame her for that answer. Does anyone else have a better answer that we could put in place on Monday? Yet, she and her cohorts in Park City are fighting fires while trying to figure out how to prevent even bigger fires. It’s hard.
Or perhaps take development in the Snyderville Basin. There is immense pressure to build here. There is money chasing projects. However, our planners don’t really have the tools in place and haven’t been able to fully vet ideas that may help us put growth in the right spots. It’s partly due to fighting the daily battle and not having time to craft a plan to win the war.
Finally, consider the various bonds and taxes that may be floated this November. Over the past year there have been talks of transportation bonds, another try at the school bond, recreation bonds, etc. Likewise, sales taxes and property values are high, thus funding more and more and more. In a recession it will be hard to pass bonds, sales tax revenues will be down, property values won’t rise, and lot’s of new property won’t be added to the tax base. It’s been a great few years financially but that won’t go on forever. It may be better to figure that out sooner rather than later before we overextend and over commit ourselves.
What a mild economic downturn really provides is time. It provides our leaders with an opportunity to figure out what the people really NEED. It provides transportation personnel and planners the chance to make better decisions because they aren’t consumed by what’s happening in five minutes. They can think about what’s best long-term. It reduces the number of people who will move here (recessions slow migration).
Please don’t get me wrong and think I’m hoping for a replay of 2008. However, I do think the garden variety recession will do some good for Park City and the Snyderville Basin. During that time, hopefully our leaders will use that opportunity to make huge strides in preparing us for the next period of growth.
Out of the next recession, we may get back to a semblance of normalcy not seen since 2005-2006. Perhaps interest rates will rise to normal levels. Our older population of locals who are likely savers, will have more to spend. Building of homes at Park City Heights, East Creek Ranch, and Silver Creek Village will move forward moderately instead of gangbusters, because if interest rates are higher people can’t afford as much house. Perhaps, even overall growth will occur at a moderate and sustainable level.
Personally, I’m not looking forward to what will likely happen over the next 18 months, but we as a community may be much better off coming out the back end.
in Weather
Spring Skiing May Be Upon Us (for a few weeks)
It looks like Punxsutawney Phil may have called it right.
While I know that February and March are our biggest snow months and weather forecasts longer than 7 days are fraught with error, it looks like spring skiing for the foreseeable future. I’ll take it … given the cold winter.
Parkrag
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