For Whom the Bell Tolls …
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
-John Donne, 1624
Two years ago a writer for the Park Record interviewed me for a story about the Park Rag and our attempt at citizen journalism. We spent about 2 hours discussing the Rag and why citizen journalism was important. The night before the story was supposed to be run, I received a call from the writer who said that the story had been shelved. It appears that persons within the Park Record felt the Park Rag somehow competed with them. I joked… “sure, like the fruit fly competes with the human for a sip of wine.” Still, I understood.
So, it was with more than normal interest that I read that the Park Record had been sold to Swift Communications, a company with 27 newspapers in 5 states. Previously the Park Record had been owned by Digital First Media and was a part of MediaNews Group which had 56 papers in 12 states. MediaNews Group is one of the largest newspaper companies in the country and includes papers such as the Denver Post, Salt Lake Tribune, and the Detroit News.
According to the Park Record,the transition will be smooth and seamless. I suppose I am more worried about the long term impact. While there are outspoken critics of the Park Record who state that it is purely in existence for real estate and restaurant advertising, I believe they serve a crucial function in our community. They not only update us on what is happening with our local government, but provide information on Park City events, local sports, and cover the important news topics each week. They have dedicated reporters that are good at their job.
I have no knowledge of Swift Communications or how they operate, yet a quick glance at Swift’s Wikipedia Page doesn’t inspire confidence. Whether you are a reporter, reader, or advertiser it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. I also look at swift’s online newspaper properties and they are clearly inferior to what we experience today. They look like they are something designed out of 1999 by your next door neighbor’s kid. Not good.
Of course, what we really care about is the reporting, and as long as sweeping changes don’t happen to the editorial staff and reporters we will hopefully continue to get good information from the Park Record. However, if staff is cut, or publication days are reduced, it could confirm some of our worst fears. It should be interesting to watch what changes happen over the next twelve months.
I truly hope that whatever changes occur, that the essence of what we have come to expect from the Park Record remains intact.
in Dogs
How Do You Solve Off-leash Dogs when Skate Skiing or Biking?
In this weekend’s Park Record, Bart Nichols wrote an Guest Editorial entitled “Where the Dogs Don’t Run Free” about run-ins he had with police and animal control officers over the past few months. His pro-offleash-dog point was we need to come up with a compromise solution around off leash dogs.
One of his points was “So as of now the Summit County Council is basically making it illegal to bike or run with your dog (try biking or running single track with two dogs on leashes) in Round Valley or other open spaces…”
I am about as pro off-leash dog as one could get. I firmly believe responsible dog owners should be able to have their animals off-leash but I also firmly believe in SEVERE consequences if a problem arises.
The difficult part with supporting biking or skate skiing with a dog is that in many cases:
- There is a significant distance between the owner and the dog
- Both the rider and dog are moving at a speed faster than the average hiker/walker
- There is a disincentive to stopping and picking up poop (have to get out of skis or off the bike)… if the owner even sees the poop
I’ll acknowledge that not everyone fits into the category above. Some dogs stick by their owners. Some owners stop and get out of their bindings to bag their poop. Yet, I see a huge proportion of those populations where it’s more about the skier/biker and their dog and less about being a responsible pet owner.
That’s the problem in figuring a good solution for this problem. On one side, the owner who wants to ski with their best friend can’t go do that in a fenced in dog park. On the other hand, others shouldn’t have to be negatively impacted because someone chooses to be irresponsible.
Mr Nichols, in his editorial, came up with a few ideas to address the solution (aggressive dogs, dogs in high population areas, dogs in areas around trail heads, and dogs at events should be on leash but in other places dogs should be allowed to be off-leash). However, I’m not sure that solves the entire problem.
What if a bike rider’s husky is just a playful pup and bounds enthusiastically at a person or dog (which I have seen) and scares them… or worse jumps on them. Is that fair to the person walking with their 10 pound bichon? What of the poop that isn’t picked up because it isn’t seen or it’s too hard to pick up? What of the dogs I see running way up through the sage brush at Round valley, with the owner nowhere in sight. If that’s OK, should we all just wander aimlessly through Round Valley, trampling the open space?
I completely get what Mr Nichols is saying. We love our dogs and we want to spend time with them. Yet, some things just don’t have a great solution. This is likely one of those topics where we need to finally decide whether we are Bark City and look at ways to make off leash dogs both safe and more respectful (even though that will be very expensive) or decide we don’t want off leash dogs and we take the measures to enforce that (even though that will be very expensive, too).
I think we need some out of the box ideas because what we are doing now just seems non-coordinated and wasteful. Perhaps instead of giving Basin Rec $10 million for buying open space next time, we invest some money in certifications for off leash dogs, people to pick up the poop on trails, enforcement of dog incidents, and trail monitoring. Perhaps, we put in the stiffest fines and consequences possible for poor dog/owner behavior. Perhaps we invest in other large scale areas for dog parks like the Run-Amuck trail. Perhaps we find ways for the average trail user to easily report bad trail behavior (i.e. some sort of app for your phone).
I completely agree with Mr Nichols that stationing a police officer at a trail head is not an answer. Nor is having animal control officers hiking trails to enforce leash laws (although I’m skeptical that would ever happen).
Reagrdless, the dog-debate purgatory we are living in has to come to an end.
in Health, Recreation
The Question We Should Be Asking About Our Proposed Athletic Facilities
During the debate over the school bond this Fall, questions over athletic facilities kept coming up. Should we spend $10 million on a field house? Is Kearns the right place for a field house? Is Basin Rec going to build a field house at Silver Creek? Who should pay for it? Can our governmental agencies partner together?
Yet, perhaps the question we should be asking is should we should be building indoor field houses at all.
Over the past few years, University of Washington Soccer Coach Amy Griffin has spearheaded an effort to better understand the impact of artificial turf fields on our kids. Her efforts began in 2009 when she started visiting two young female soccer players Griffin knew had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. When she was there helping the women pass time in chemo, a nurse said to the two girls, “Don’t tell me you guys are goalkeepers. You’re the fourth goalkeeper I’ve hooked up this week.” According to a 2014 NBC News report, “Griffin has compiled a list of 38 American soccer players — 34 of them goalies – who have been diagnosed with cancer.” With further research during the past year, MS. Griffin’s list of athletes with cancer that may have been caused by turf fields has reached 200 names, according to ESPN.
It seems that the issue may be those little black crumbs, made from ground up tires, that are used in artificial field turf. The worry is that since many ingredients in tires are carcinogenic, these crumbs likely also contain carcinogenic materials. The field turf industry has done various studies around inhalation of crumbs, but according to news reports there have yet to be studies done on ingestion of these tire crumbs or what happens if they come into contact with cuts and abrasions on the skin.
I don’t have soccer age children but my little ones do go to many birthday parties and “open play” on the field at Basin Rec. Every time their hands and feet come back in a shade of black — likely from rubbing against the little crumbs of tires in the fake grass. I now ask myself, “did I in effect just let my kid play on a pile of ground up tires for 2 hours?” I then think to all our kids playing on our turf fields, and wonder what they will experience. Even more, I wonder with the number of athletic of children in our community, what’s the impact on our children going to be after playing on turf fields for 18 years? Will this end up being like smoking.
One of the interesting parts of these reports is how tires started being used on field turf in the first place. It appears the EPA was searching for a use for discarded tires so they didn’t go into our landfills. They came up with the idea of recycling them and putting them on fields.
I don’t mean to be alarmist and I know the research isn’t conclusive, but it seems anecdotally that we should at least proceed with caution. The State of California is now studying the issue and will likely have results in 2-3 years. The state of Washington is now comparing lists of soccer players who have been diagnosed with cancer are at rates higher than the general population. Those results will be out in 2016.
During the debate over school athletic facilities, we heard many people say how horrible it was that our kids had to practice outside in cold and snowy conditions. If the alternative is the likely ingestion of Benzothiazole, Butylated hydroxyanisole, n-hexadecane, and 4-(t-octyl) phenol, I just might prefer my kid to get a little cold. I know there are parents out there who will say, “but how is my kid supposed to practice lacrosse, if they can’t play inside on a turf field?” I don’t have a good answer for that, except to say that if fields turn out to be cancerous then maybe your kid shouldn’t be practicing on them. Of course, that’s you and your child’s choice.
From a governmental perspective, I hope that our leaders at least pause to wait for more research to be done on the topic before adding more synthetic turf fields to our community. Hopefully unbiased studies will confirm that the fields are safe and my kids can go back to crawling around the Basin Rec field and your daughter can play goalie without you worrying whether every time she dives to stop a ball that she is eating ground up tires. However, to proceed with building more fields, until more research is done, would seem reckless on our government’s part.
If you’d like more information on the topic, please watch this video from ESPN’s E:60:
in Development
No, We Don’t Need More Hotels Right Now
You may be familiar with the new Hyatt Hotel being built on 224, across the street and down from Soaring Wings Montessori. This location was previously “zoned” for a small restaurant and business space. In early 2014, the Summit County Council agreed to let the development house a hotel, instead. A year and a half later, that hotel is almost done.
The main problem is that this hotel enters an already crowded field, where capacity exceeds demand. In fact, the November 22-28 hotel occupancy rate in Park City (per the Chamber of Commerce) was at 22% occupancy. and the November 29-December 5th occupancy is estimated at 18% of capacity.
In fact, throughout this year, the highest occupancy reported was about 57%. It just seems like such a misuse of space, especially when land rights have been changed to accommodate a hotel versus other uses.
in Feel Good
As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly …
Each year I have dreams of KPCW’s Rick Brough reenacting this classic Thanksgiving WKRP episode at Smiths in Kimball Junction. Well, maybe next year.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Tis the Season to Imagine Yourself and Others on Light Rail
Imagine a light rail service that runs on I-80 from Summit Park towards Park City. It continues to Kimball Junction where there is a transit center. Then it continues in two directions, one heads out on I-80 and then highway 40 by the Home Depot. The other cruises in on 224, past Snyderville and the Canyons resort. Both eventually end up at a transit center in Park City. There would likely be stops every few miles at the Jeremy Ranch Park and Ride, Kimball Junction, Snyderville, the entrance to Canyons, the white barn, PCMR, and Main Street. Coming from the Highway 40 direction, there would be stops by the Bell’s Gas station, Home Depot, the hospital, Park City High School, Bonanza Park, and Main Street.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Does it? I only ask, because now is the time to start thinking about it. As we enter the winter season, and approach that fateful time of year when Carmageddon is lurking around every corner, our elected officials are going to press forward with plans to “fix” our traffic problems. One of the ideas being considered is light rail and it is up to us citizens to decide whether its something we will really use. One of the knocks against light rail is that everyone says they love it, but once it’s built, many of the people who say they loved it, never use it. That’s because they love the idea for other people, because it would free the roads up for them to drive on with less traffic. The problem is that if not enough people actually use it, it’s a waste of money and effort.
So, would you ride light rail around town instead of drive? Before you answer, let me provide some other facts that may help:
- Most light rail cars look similar. If you’ve seen TRAX in SLC, then you know what they look like. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that most light rail operates off of overhead electric wires. So, when you are visualizing what this may look like, keep that in mind.
- The distance from Summit Park to Kimball Junction is about 5 miles. The distance from Kimball Junction to Main Street is about 6 miles. So a complete run from Summit Park to Main Street is about 11 miles.
- The distance from Kimball Junction to Main street via Highway 40 is about 9 miles. This service would likely need to be built in the next few years, to serve the new Silver Creek Village, Trailside, and Park City Heights areas.
- New light rail systems travel at about 17 miles per hour (without stops in good conditions). So a trip by rail from Kimball Junction to Main Street would take at about 22 minutes of travel time. Factor in times for stops and you are looking at about 25-30 minutes on the train. A car takes about 15 minutes from Kimball Junction to Main Street (when there is not traffic).
- If we look at what is probably a similar project, the Tide Light Rail in Norfolk, Virginia, offers 7.2 miles of service and runs every 10 to 30 minutes depending on time of day. So, we should expect similar waiting times for our trains.
- The Tide Light rail cost $43 million per mile to build in 2007. So, at the same costs, we are looking at about $470 million for the Summit Park to Main Street line. The Highway 40 line (from Kimball Junction to Main street via Highway 40) would be about $387 million. So, a total project would run about $850 million (or more if prices have gone up).
- The Tide light rail costs about $6.2 million to operate every year (or $880,000 per mile). So, our operating costs could be about $17.6 million per year. For reference the Park City budget is about $100 million per year and the Summit County budget is about $60 million. Not that operating costs would come directly from our local budgets, but it would represent about 10-11% of the combined budget to run every year. That said, it is likely bus use would decrease, so some of the increased costs would be countered by decreases in busing.
- The Tide costs $1.75 each way to ride. I’m not sure if Park City would continue with the free service process like they do for buses or whether they would feel the need to charge.
To be fair, these stats are just estimates thrown on a page. When the wheel hits the track it could be different, but this should serve at least as a swag to better understand what rail may look like.
So, what does that all mean? Let’s combine the above information and see what a trip might look like. If you lived in Pinebrook and wanted to go to PCMR, you would likely drive to the Jeremy Ranch park and ride (or something similar) at about 8AM. You’d probably wait about 5-15 minutes for the train, depending on how tightly you wanted to play it. You’d probably have about a 40 minute train ride. You’d probably be dropped off by Fresh Market in Park City at about 8:50. You’d hike the distance to PCMR. It may cost nothing to ride or it could cost about $4 to ride round trip (is the Tide model was used).
So, would that be better than a car? On Carmageddon days and when parking is full at PCMR, I’m sure it would. What about other times? Would it be good enough to use every day? Would you take it to the store to get groceries? Would you ride it to work? Would your high schooler ride it to school? Would you take it to the various concerts around town in the summer. Would you do those things consistently. Most importantly, is your schedule flexible enough that train could always be an option?
If you can envision you and your family actually riding the rail every day, and your friends could envision themselves riding every day, and your co-workers could envision themselves riding every day, then rail may be a good solution for Park City. Typically when rail is embraced by the populace and is actually used it can be a very good thing for a community.
Of course, if you think you may ride it a couple of times a winter, and you think your friends and coworkers might do the same, $850 million is a lot of money.
That is ultimately the decision that we as citizens need to make. Our city, county, and state are going to start running with solutions soon. Sometimes they don’t stop to consider whether the brilliant idea that they have come up with will actually be used. So, I would encourage you to think a little bit about rail this winter season. Imagine yourself taking it to the slopes. Imagine taking it to work. Imagine driving to the Park and Ride and waiting for it. Imagine speeding past that traffic jam you are sitting in.
Then when your government asks “if they build it, will you come?”… you can give them an honest answer.
Will I See You At The New Bus Transit Center Planned for Kimball Junction?
Summit County has been working on a new transportation center that will be behind the library (Richens building) in Kimball Junction. I believe the county and Park City hope this $3 million+ effort will enable buses to run between Kimball Junction and Park City more quickly. At the 60,000 foot level I suppose providing a dedicated location for buses to pick up people makes sense. However, I was talking with a friend who still couldn’t wrap her head around the benefits. She kept saying, “Will it be as fast as a car? Will it be as fast as a car? Will it be as fast as a car?”
The truth is that if they want locals to use it, the trip from one’s house in their car, to a park and ride, to get on a bus, to the transit center in KJ, to their final destination had better be as fast as a car. As our English teachers know, when writing, a comma indicates a pause, and that’s the problem here. It’s hard to fathom in the next 5 years (with or without a transit center) that people will generally get to their destinations as fast as they would in car. Every pause in my sentence above means a pause for the commuter. Sure, on a random Saturday during Sundance, it may be true that a bus is faster (if dedicated bus lanes are developed) than a car… but not generally.
If our citizens don’t make public transport part of their routine, it will never catch on. That’s why I worry that the KJ Transit Center will just become a $3 million boondoggle. Sure, a couple million of that money is provided by federal funds…but it’s still our money.
So, will I see you at the new bus transit center? Probably not… because I won’t be there.
in Utah is Utah
Utah Never Ceases to Amaze Me
If you’ve been following the refugee crisis in Syria, you’re likely aware that the war there is causing a humanitarian crisis. Many people are fleeing that crisis and have gone to Europe. The U.S. has said that it will accept 10,000 refugees in the near future. However, not everyone is happy with that decision. Some people feel that these refugees will at best be a drain on our social welfare system and at worst may be sleeper cells for the Islamist State (ISIS) terrorist group. Yet, some people feel that as a compassionate society, built on the backs of immigrants, we need to accept this responsibility.
Over the past few weeks many state governors (now 26+ Governors) have said they will not accept Syria refugees. I was trying to confirm my suspicions that Utah would of course be on that list. Just listening to an interview with Representative Jason Chafetz of Utah would likely lead most people to that conclusion.
However, low and behold, we seem to be on the compassionate side of history on this one. How often can you say we are aligned with California, Oregon, Washington state, and Vermont? Utah never ceases to amaze me. The nuance here is incredible.
in Community
The Role of the Contrarian on Our Government Boards
Back in high school there was a kid that wore the same T-shirt almost every day. It said, “QUESTION AUTHORITY!” Let’s just say that “the authority” didn’t like that shirt much and I recall him spending more than a few hours with the Assistant Principal because of it.
Yet, I think that kid had a point. As I was writing the article this morning on the Park City School board needing to regain the community’s trust, I wondered what could be done in the future to get better numbers regarding capacity. In the article I said that going forward the public needed to question everything. That sounds good in an article, but in practice, the citizen rarely has as much information as the person sitting on a government board. In practice, if citizens have to question everything, it’s going to be miserable for everyone involved. Isn’t there someone that could both have most of the information but is also responsible for vetting ideas?
Of course, they are already sitting on our city councils, school boards, county councils, etc. They just need to both have the confidence that asking a lot of questions is fine and be given the “freedom” from the rest of the board that being critical is OK. A great example is outgoing County Council Member Dave Ure. Mr Ure was/is the only Republican on the County Council. So, by default he was given the leeway to look at things a bit differently. Would Mr Ure spend hours belaboring points? No. What he would do is have a couple of critical points that he would bring up that would be original and contrary to what other people were saying in a discussion. For example, when he was was one of the two County Council members to vote against continuing as part of the Mountain Accord, he questioned whether the environment would be better off because of the program. He said that the Mountain Accord was supposed to be about the environment and he felt our watersheds would be worse off because of the Mountain Accord. He found a way to question the prevailing thought, and he did it in a constructive way.
We can contrast that with the Park City School Board where there was a year without a dissenting vote. Would the school bond process have been stronger, and may it have even passed, if there was someone on the board that questioned almost everything about it? For sure. The parts that were found to be weakest would have been fixed by the board. If those discussions would have been held out in the open, would the public have felt that the plan had been drug through the ringer and gained more confidence because of it? Likely.
I’m not advocating for the person who beats the dead horse, who continually asks dumb questions, and wastes time. I’m advocating for the person who may say, “How did you calculate those enrollment numbers? Can you explain that again, I don’t get it? Do they represent real capacity? It doesn’t sound like our schools are going to be full? Does this plan still make sense if we have negative growth and our schools aren’t at capacity? Is there another way to solve this?”
I know that some people think that any dissention shows weakness, but my experience from watching other councils and boards is that the public gets comfort from knowing that conflicting views are being presented and understanding why either those conflicting views are strong enough to stop a process or why the process was strong enough to overcome the negatives.
The County Council is going to have a harder time because Dave Ure isn’t going to be sitting next to them asking the tough questions. Luckily on that board there are a few contrarians that raise their hands on various issues. So, they’ll likely be fine.
I hope other individuals on other boards and councils around Park City have the confidence and wherewithal to play the part of contrarian now and then. Then in November, we the voting public need to remember there is value in those who see the world a little differently. A little contrarian questioning authority now and then can be a good thing.
in Schools
School Board Still Needs to Work on Regaining the Community’s Trust
In the wake of the school bond defeat in early November, some of the school board members have done an admirable job meeting with the public to understand why people were against the bond. This is a very encouraging sign that hopefully the relationship between the board and the public won’t be adversarial going forward.
Yet, every once in a while something pops up and still makes me shake my head. If you recall, one of the chief school board arguments for needing the bond was because our schools were at capacity. Board members and district personnel often presented this chart to the public to demonstrate capacity:
I believe this chart was generally driven by open enrollment number calculated by the school district. Here are the Open Enrollment numbers for 2015-2016:
The high school and Trailside were closed, which means out of district students weren’t generally eligible to enroll at those schools. Keep in mind that the argument of “full schools” was being made up until election day. A few days after the election, the 2015-2016 open enrollment numbers were released:
You may now notice that the high school’s capacity has increased by 23%. You may notice that Parley’s Park’s maximum capacity increased by 8%. You’ll also see that capacity went down at some of the schools. The issue is that a few weeks ago we were being sold that our schools were full. Today we find that, at least per this estimate, that our schools aren’t going to be full.
I’m not arguing that there is some grand conspiracy to inflate and deflate numbers. After all, these numbers are driven by state of Utah formulas. According to School District representatives, changes to capacity at the high school are influenced by renovations that are occurring there. Capacity at our elementary schools are influenced the reading program being brought back into the classrooms (and out of dedicated rooms). So, there is a method to the madness.
Unfortunately, we as voters were told by the district that the schools were full. However, we weren’t told that other crucial piece of information before the election… that in about 10 days they wouldn’t be “full” anymore. School board member Julie Eihausen, during a recent school board meeting on the topic, said what I’m sure many people were thinking. She said, “I’m trying to wrap my head around how we went from 5 of 7 schools at capacity to having none.” The answer from the district Business Administrator, Todd Hauber, was that there were additional instructional spaces now and that the average class sizes had changed.
Yet, for me it’s still a matter of trust. Wasn’t the fact that our schools weren’t going to be full known before the election? If they weren’t going to be full and the district knew it, why wasn’t this told to the public? It’s like your child telling you their school day was good, but leaving out that crucial part about getting detention. Going forward, there’s a lack of trust that now will require extra vigilance.
It’s the same here. When the school district goes for their next bond (likely in 2016) and says anything about their enrollment numbers, how do we know we can trust it? While before we took them at their word, now someone will need to stand up and ask: “That high school capacity number what’s it based on? When was that calculation done? What’s changed since that number was created? Will anything else be changing that’s driving these numbers? Are these capacity numbers what a lay person would consider real capacity? When was your last projection for student numbers? How has that changed since then…etc…etc…etc…”
I suppose it’s not just these numbers that should be carefully vetted by the public. Any estimates done on timelines, construction costs, or needs likely should be carefully analyzed. For instance, I think most people believe that Treasure Mountain Junior High should be torn down. I didn’t start with that opinion, but I probably agree now. However, my agreement is largely based on the fact that there were 3 studies done that showed the costs required to maintain the building were in the $20 million range (almost as much as a new school). Yet, now I want to look at those studies. I want those to be passed by someone in our community with the knowledge to confirm that THE REQUIRED REPAIRS will cost almost as much as new school, so we might as well spend our money wisely. Perhaps the studies were all done in the right way. Perhaps, the costs estimates were only for the things that we HAD to have. Perhaps the studies’ findings were black and white and there could be no other argument other than to tear down the school.
But perhaps they weren’t.
That’s the problem with trust. Once it’s questioned, you start looking at everything (whether there is something there or not). As they say, fool me once — shame on you…fool me twice — shame on me.
It’s a great thing that the school board is working with the public to understand the pieces of the bond that the public doesn’t like. Yet, as the district gears up for the next bond, things need to be different the next time. Fair or not, the school district was already living in the shadow of cost overruns for the last renovations done to the high school. They were living in the shadow of running out of money in some of their funds, thus causing taxes to be raised. Now they are living under the shadow of how they used and presented capacity numbers.
At some point, that shadow’s going to be so dark, it’s going to be really hard to find their way out.
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.