Stocks Versus Snow
Yesterday on KPCW, Ski Utah (a group representing our ski resorts) was talking about the season with Leslie Thatcher. They were talking snow. The point Ski Utah made was that SNOW is the key to booking visitors at our resorts. I’m sure, in some ways, that’s true. If the snow isn’t flying, neither are the people.
Yet, equally as important is the stock market. If retirement accounts are tapped… if people perceive their wealth is decreasing… if the stock market is down… people may disregard their feeling about snow and care more about their financial condition.
It’s not something we have really seen since the financial crisis. With the market down a good 3% in the first few days of the year, it should be interesting to watch. A three percent decline is really nothing in the scheme of things… but if the decline accelerates, locals may get their wish.
More fresh tracks in February isn’t a bad thing for most people.
in Wildlife
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
I have a sixteen year old dog. Every night, in the dead-middle of the night, she needs to go outside. As a “good dad”, I let her out and faithfully wait at the door for her to come back in. Each night I listen carefully for any signs of trouble. I live on the edge of open space, and it’s not uncommon for 20 elk to bed on our yard. If those elk are there, it’s likely the pack of coyotes are occasionally close too. It’s also likely the mountain lions are out there. Given this year activity, it’s even likely a bear has wandered through. Yet, I still let her out and listen for any signs of trouble (like I would actually probably hear a thing). I’m just plain stupid — and not just for the likely time she’ll not come back… but for the entire set of repercussions that will follow.
I was reminded of that fact yesterday when reading “Mountain lion killed after attacking Utah family’s dogs.” It seems a women in Summit Park let her dogs out at night and they didn’t come back. One of her dogs was luckily found alive with puncture wounds. The other dog was not so lucky. It’s neck had been snapped by a mountain lion looking for food. When the blood trail was tracked, they found the cougar lying on top of the dead dog.
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources killed the mountain lion with a shotgun.
BAM.
Every way one looks at this story, it’s horrible: The loss of a family member, Maizy, the Australian Shepherd… the killing of the mountain lion … the reminder of the conflict that happens when humans encroach on wildlife.
Since I heard the story, so many thoughts have run through my mind. I first blamed the woman for letting her dogs out at night. “How could she be so foolish as to let her dog out in the middle of the night!,” I exclaimed. Then I realized I do the same stupid thing (every night). Then I blamed the Division of Wildlife resources for killing the cougar, but it seems that if wildlife kills a domesticated animal, they will then kill that wildlife. It’s their policy for a number of reasons.
The only thing I can come up with is that with great power comes great responsibility. When I let my dog out at night, I may not realize it, but I hold great power. I hold the life of not only my dog, but any wildlife that my dog comes into contact with, in my hands. In addition, wildlife is part of what makes the Park City area such a great place to live. If my actions then eventually cause that wildlife to be harmed, I’m not only taking the soul from that animal but a little bit of the soul of our community.
I feel absolutely horrible for the woman from Summit Park, her dogs, and the cougar. If it’s any consolation to her, at least her loss has caused my behavior to change – and hopefully others’ too. I will not let my dog go out alone at night. It’s just not worth the potential outcome and everything that will follow. Its unfortunate that it took this terrible incident to drive the point home.
Our thoughts are with the woman from Summit Park for her loss.
Another Day … Another Carmageddon
It sounds like this morning that the traffic light on Highway 224 at Ute Boulevard (by the McDonalds) isn’t working. This is causing traffic to backup onto I-80:
A couple of weeks ago there was a wreck at the Canyons intersection that caused huge delays on 224.
The more these things happen, the more it seems we just have a very fragile system. If one of a million different things happen on 224, 248, or downtown, there are huge impacts.
In technology, the answer to a fragile system is redundancy. No one problem should take you down.
I’m not sure how we get that redundancy in our transportation system.
in Environment
Chamber of Commerce Should Consider Turning Off Night Time Videos
Over the past few years, Park City and Summit County have worked hard on sustainability. They’ve achieved semi-finalist status in the $5 million Georgetown Energy Contest. They’ve initiated group purchases of solar panels. They’ve made anti-idling ordinances stronger.
I think our collective governments have made a great start at changing behaviors in our community, so much so, that now when you see something egregious and wasteful in our community, it often sticks out.
A case in point is the Park City Chamber of Commerce’s Visitor Center on Highway 224 across from Kimball Village. The Chamber has space where visitors can come, ask questions, grab a cup of coffee, and learn about Park City. From most accounts, the people staffing the location do a good job of promoting Park City. That would be during the day.
Then comes the night.
At night, the Visitor’s Center isn’t open but it’s still shining bright. I had heard stories of how the Chamber was projecting videos on its walls all night long. People had joked that the number of accidents would likely rise because people would get distracted looking at twenty foot images of Park City being projected on the walls as they drove by.
Last night, I saw it for the first time … and is seems like a complete waste. It does appear that at least one projector (and maybe more) is shining images across the walls, so that they are somewhat visible from the road. The initial problem is that while driving, even when stopped and looking in the building, it’s hard to discern what the pictures are. The real problem is that every minute images are being projected on walls, it’s wasting energy — valuable drops of energy that our community is working hard to save elsewhere.
To be fair, I understand that the Chamber of Commerce’s job is to sell Park City businesses. That’s why I’m not advocating shutting off the various TVs in the Visitor’s Center, that run all day, every day, selling Park City to visitors. There is at least the argument that there is value in that.
However, what’s the value of images being projected inside a building, that can’t really be seen by cars driving by? Perhaps if there were many pedestrians walking by there would be some merit but there are few of those. Perhaps most importantly, if it doesn’t present any actionable outcome (i.e. what benefit does it provide), but just uses energy, it’s a waste.
While many in Park City are working hard to conserve energy and the police are cracking down on idling, having the Chamber of Commerce contribute by shutting down what appears to be a wasteful display would make a difference. Perhaps those in charge of our efforts to win the Georgetown Energy Prize could even use this as another example of how our community is working to conserve energy.
in Skiing
European Ski Resorts Turn to Petting Zoos to Appease Families
I know many of us thought last year’s skiing was bad, but it never looked like this:
That’s an image from Leysin, a resort in the Swiss Alps, that is part of an accompanying Bloomberg article on how bad skiing is in Europe right now. It’s gotten so bad that french resort, Chamonix, has opened a petting zoo for children to keep them entertained.
It’s an interesting article that provides insight into how Europeans view skiing:
- Resorts are raising prices, even with less snow, to limit the number of people that will come to the resorts. Think Vail would do that?
- Even with no snow, Austrian resorts are still at 80%-90% and France’s largest resort, La Plagne, is at 97% capacity. Aren’t Park City hotels at around 57% capacity right now?
- I loved this quote about how Europeans ski even when there’s no snow and it’s more dangerous: “Normally, you break a leg and you fall, maybe you slide a bit further and hit the snow but that’s it,” he said. “Now, when you fall you slide and hit a rock, or a tree, break another bone, get a bruise, that’s where the multiple injuries come from.”
So, it appears we should count ourselves lucky. While lift lines at Park City may have been backed up beyond what was expected, at least we had some snow… and we were not relying on petting zoos.
in Vail
Park City May Have Made Big Mistake By Not Fighting Vail’s Use of the Mark “Park City”
I was writing an earlier column on how bad The Resort Formally Named PCMR (TRFNPCMRCANYONS) had handled this year’s first snow storm. It was the first time I’d written on the resort, since Vail combined two of our local ski hills.
A few months back, I heard talk on KPCW about Vail’s use of the words “Park City” for their combined resort but really hadn’t contemplated what it meant. Now that the season has started we have two Park City’s… one is the town and the other is the resort.
So let me provide a few phrases:
- Park City Sucks
- There is no where to park at Park City
- Park City is crowded
- Traffic is horrible getting to Park City
- Park City is expensive
- People at Park City are rude
- There’s nowhere good to eat at Park City
Which of those phrases describes the resort and which describes the town?
That’s the problem. Which is which?
It appears Vail has tried to mimic Colorado… where there is no distinction between the Vail the city and Vail the resort. They appear to have co-opted the entire city in a marketing move. The difference here, or course, is that Park City existed for about 150 years before Vail arrived.
The real problem is that Park City city officials haven’t prevented it. This is a serious issue, especially when Vail fails and people have bad experiences. It undermines the entire Park City (the city) brand.
This has the potential to be one of the largest screwups in Park City history. It’s likely looking back that we’ll have wished we didn’t let our horse be tied to the Vail wagon.
I’ve always maintained that the Vail men and women are the “smartest guys in the room.” It’s moments like this when I realize that, without paying a penny, they own the whole town, that confirms they are really a step ahead.
in Skiing
Park City Resort… The Proof Will Be in The Pudding
The proverb “The Proof is in the pudding”dates back to the 14th century but was popularized in the 1700’s, in Don Quixote, the story of a man who tilts at windmills and doesn’t see the world as it is. As I read a recent Park Record Article, Park City Deals with Operations Problems, I couldn’t help but think of the aforementioned story.
As many of us know, the past few weeks haven’t been kind to the PCMR, The Canyons, Canyons Park City. Let’s cut to the chase… Park City sucked during the last winter storm. Wait, am I talking about the resort or the city (I’m talking about the resort by the way… but I’m sure we’ll cover that lack of distinction in another column)? In today’s Park Record, Park City Chief Operating Officer Bill Rock made excuses for the resort’s performance. He basically said:
- There was a lot of snow
- We had to ensure everyone was safe
- We had to break in new equipment
- “None of the opening delays people saw were the result of a lack of staff. It was more an impact of the complexity of the mountain and the prioritization of staffing”
What we as citizens know is that people complained of 40 minute lift lines. People complained of no parking at the Park City base. People complained of traffic preventing them from getting to Canyons Village. The Park Record reports that, “He [Bill Rock] added that he believes mountain operations will run more smoothly as 2016 approaches. ‘The good news is the snowstorm has been excellent for our resort, the region and our guests,’ he said. ‘I think it’s going to be great for everyone. I think we’ve gotten through [the big challenges] and will have a great season.'”
So the question is does Mr Rock and Vail really have it figured out or is Mr Rock tilting at windmills? The good news is that we as a community will be to know the answer when the next storm hits. When the next 24 incher falls on Park City, will Vail easily support everyone who bought their $560 Epic Pass this year? Have they worked with local government to ensure traffic flows in and out seamlessly? Will their lift lines be under 10 minutes? Will they have ample parking?
Or will it be a clusterf**k like it was before Christmas?
I’m hoping for the best but expecting the worst. While this year I have both my Epic Pass and my Deer Valley Locals Book, if things don’t turn around, next year will be a different story.
That Deer Valley Difference is looking better by the day.
Paved Trails are Likely The Key Component to Solving Our Transportation Issues
If you think about our transportation issues, typically answers start with buses and end with light rail. They may include dedicated lanes for the buses. Long range plans may go a slight step further and include getting easements along popular travel ways to widen roads for rail or buses lanes. If we think out of the box, plans may include high speed gondolas that connect locations within Park City.
Yet, all these solutions suffer from the same problem: locals (and many visitors) would still need to drive, park, and wait on these methods of transport. There is only a small segment of the population within short walking distance of transportation lines. It’s likely most people that live in Summit Park, Pinebrook, Jeremy Ranch, Silver Creek, Trailside, Silver Springs, or Sun Peak live more than an easy walk to a rail stop. Therefore that impediment will always curtail adoption of public transport.
The question our leaders need to ask is if they think people will drive 5 minutes, park, wait, and then take public transportation. I think that’s a pipe dream. Now, it may be more likely that visitors may take public transportation; however, our government’s own studies have show that local traffic (traffic starting and ending in the Basin) will overtake other types of traffic in the next few years. This means, even if visitors coming into the Basin do use public transportation, our “locals problem” will only continue to grow.
With that in mind, Phys.org has an article about Germany starting to build bicycle highways. According to the article, “Aided by booming demand for electric bikes, which take the sting out of uphill sections, the new track should take 50,000 cars off the roads every day, an RVR study predicts.” The great thing about the Snyderville Basin is that we already have these “highways.” They are the paved trails we’ve constructed over the past 20 years.
In our case, using E-Bikes on these paved trails solves a number of problems that trains and buses don’t:
- Most person in the Basin can start at their house and easily ride to a path which will connect to their destination. No parking. No Waiting.
- A person can ride the bike all the way to their destination. They don’t have to get off the bus and walk another 10 minutes to get to work.
- An E-Bike is slower than a car (maybe slightly faster when there is traffic) but it’s faster than the bus in many cases.
- An E-Bike solves the problems of our hills. While many people take traditional bikes around the Basin, the E-bike enables those people, who have to traverse large hills, to easily commute.
- An E-Bike still can be peddled, and therefore fits into many of our resident’s desire for exercise.
- With an E-Bike people are still “out in the mountains” and not cooped up on a bus.
- An E-Bike doesn’t have the negative stigma associated with public transportation.
Of course, our trails are not a commuting solution 365 days a year (for most people). However, for the period between March and November, paved trails could take a significant burden off of our roads. There may be other ways to use our trails for transportation, in addition to E-Bikes. E-Bikes just seem like the low hanging fruit of options and one that doesn’t require too much investment. I know that Summit County has proposed some money dedicated to E-Bike initiatives (for 2018 or 2019). However, it would be nice to see the city and county work together to look at E-Bike options in the short term. Perhaps Sustainability Departments in our local government could put together some sort of group purchase (like was done for solar panels) that would get the cost down. Or perhaps the city and county could purchase and lease bikes to residents. I’m sure there are a lot of alternatives. What I’m not sure is whether we can wait until 2019 to see if solutions like E-Bikes have legs.
If we can figure out the traffic issues for the non-powder days (March-November), that could let us focus on a smaller problem. We’d no longer have this goliath problem OF FIXING TRANSPORTATION. We could focus on solving ski traffic twenty or thirty days a year. During the heart of the winter perhaps we use smaller buses that run into the neighborhoods and stop at all the places school buses stop (maybe there is a small charge for this). Perhaps we partner with Uber or Lyft for group rides. Perhaps we decide we want to spend $200 million on rail for 30 days a year (when people may actually use it). At least, our problem would seem smaller and more manageable.
When we look at our great accomplishments in the Park City area over the past few decades most people will cite open space and then trails. While our trails already get good use, perhaps they could also serve another use, and provide a large part of the solution to our transportation problems.
in Schools
Park City School District Is Hiring Communications Specialist
We’ll file this one under “You get what you pay for.”
I was perusing the Park Record this weekend and noticed an ad from the Park City School District:
A Communications Specialist may help the district, if they use the person correctly. A person with enough experience and understanding of our community can probably find ways to educate the public on important issues and concepts the school district is undertaking.
Yet, they’ll need someone who is really good and can find new ways to reach the public. Members of school board or the Park City School Superintendent are on the radio almost weekly. The Park Record wants to ensure the public receives information about our schools and regularly publishes school articles … it even has an Education section. So, the traditional media bases are already covered.
In order to add benefit, this person will need to find ways to contribute that the Superintendent and school board are not currently doing. Traditionally, this sort of role would do the following for the school district:
- Works with local media outlets (Park Record and KPCW) to ensure stories are being both written/aired and in the correct way
- Creates social media content that attempts to disseminate the school district’s ideas and messaging
- Organizes events where school personnel meet with the public to talk about ideas
- Controls information output from the school district
- Handles incoming requests from media
The new Communications Specialist will have to do these things for sure, but he or she will also need to find new ways to go above and beyond. Given that the school district is coming out of a failed bond election, where trust was a major issue, this person will need to find a way to convince the public that the school district is trustworthy again.
So what does the Park City School District need? A SUPERSTAR that will work with the superintendent, administrators, and the school board. The Communications Specialist needs the experience to educate the district on communications but also the confidence to ensure that her talents are actually used. If the district doesn’t follow the suggestions of the Communications Specialist, it will be wasted time, effort, and money.
This brings us back to the school district’s job description. Did you notice two key points in the description above? First, it’s part-time (20 hours per week). Second, they are paying $11-$14 per hour. From my experience, a person in charge of messaging needs a full understanding of every issue. They need to understand the motivation for our government making decisions. They need to understand how the people will view the decision. They then need to direct the actions of everyone involved. Most importantly they need to be GOOD at what they do.
It appears that the school district is hoping to pay someone $12K-$15K per year to do this job. Just for reference, you can make just as much (or more) per hour ($13/ hour) being a cashier at Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza. The issue is that a GOOD Communications Specialist costs GOOD money. If you look at what Summit County or Park City pays for a similar position, they are full-time jobs and pay at least $50K. This is likely still below market value for an experienced individual.
By the way, the University of Utah is hiring a Public Relations Specialist and the pay range is $38K to $70K. It is a full time job and pays 60% more at the bottom end and 133% more at the top end than the Park City School District is willing to pay.
I frankly don’t understand where the school district is coming from. The bond election process seems to indicate they have a communication issue. In the run up to the school bond election, I visited with various school board members and their arguments made sense, but the message wasn’t communicated effectively to the public. Yet, now they “go cheap” on a Communications Specialist.
Perhaps they will luck out and find someone who is highly qualified, who is willing to accept less than market value, and who wants to help out the school district. However, finding a “normal” candidate who is an exceptional communications expert for $15 an hour is crazy.
It seems either the school district has been told they should really have a communications expert but don’t really want one because they think they can do it themselves … or they aren’t living in the real world.
While perhaps I’ll be surprised and they’ll find the next Ari Flescher at firesale prices, I doubt it. Perhaps, they’ll find someone who is capable for the price and they get some value out of it. More than likely they’ll find someone willing to do the job for basically nothing and they’ll get what they pay for.
What I really fear is that the district’s “communications expert” is being hired so that the district can say they specifically hired a person, in the wake of the bond defeat, to gather “the people’s feedback” thus showing they are listening to the community. If that’s the motivation, the eventual outcome of that decision will only paint the district in a worse light.
in Wow
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