Vail is Spending $50 Million This Off-Season and it is …
You probably heard that Vail is investing $50 million in Canyons PCMR Park City Mountain Resort this off-season.
I know, it sounds great. It’s like community service — they are doing this for the people of Park City. It’s like a big funnel being put over Park City’s mouth, and Vail pouring the juice in. MMMM. Tasty.
So, I have family in town and they wanted to ride the Red Pine Gondola at The Canyons Village at Park City (or whatever it’s now called). As we arrived at the top of gondola, there was construction going on at what appears to be a restaurant. I initially thought “oh, that must be part of what Vail is spending their $50 million on” but then thought “THAT IS WHAT VAIL IS SPENDING THEIR $50 MILLION ON”.
When I repeatedly heard that Vail is spending all that money in Park City, it sounded like something really benefiting the community. Almost like it was a $50 million investment in our libraries or schools. Yet when I stepped off that Gondola and looked at the restaurant, it clicked. Vail is making an investment in making more money. They are connecting PCMR and Canyons to make the largest resort in North America and make more money. They are building more restaurants to make more money. Eventually they will sell more condos to make more money.
I don’t begrudge them. They are in the business of making money — and they are damn good at it.
Yet, it really isn’t different from Walmart announcing some sort of investment in their Utah stores. Suppose Walmart announced a $50 million upgrade to their stores in our beloved state. It has the same purpose as Vail — making more money.
Something about Vail announcing spending money sounds so much better than if Best Buy did it or Walmart. Yet, it is really the same thing. I wonder why Vail sounds so much better and I let that “feeling” influence how I look at the issue.
It tells me that I’ve really got to grow up.
in Environment, Growth
A Scathing Op-ed on Envision Utah
You may have heard of Envision Utah. Their mission statement says “Envision Utah engages people to create and sustain communities that are beautiful, prosperous, healthy and neighborly for current and future residents.” I first heard of the group during KPCW’s Local News Hour. A representative from the organization has appeared a few times encouraging Parkites to take a survey about what is important to them about the Utah environment. I have to admit, it sounded pretty good at the time.
This morning a Friend of the Park Rag emailed an op-ed by Brooke Jennings from yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune. If even half of what Mr Jennings says is true, it casts a lot of doubt on the organization. Mr Jennings’ main contentions are:
- The survey Envision Utah will use to drive change frames questions in ways that will cause citizens to choose the outcome that Envision Utah wants.
- The survey was conducted by Cicero Group, and that their business includes “shaping public opinion in favor of corporate interests.”
- That the president of Envision Utah, Robert Grow, was previously vice chairman of the Utah State Economic Development Board and was on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Managers and the Utah Manufacturers Association.
- Envision Utah’s real mission is to create the appearance that Utah public opinion supports industrial interests.
If this topic interests you, you should read the op-ed and form your own opinion on whether you agree with Mr. Jennings’ contentions. If you do agree, you may then also be concerned about how Park City government is working with Envision Utah.
Park City Council Member Tim Henney and Park City Mayor Jack Thomas, along with the aforementioned Robert Grow, gave a presentation about Envision Utah. You can read that here.
h/t to the person who pointed us to the op-ed and the presentation by Park City officials on the topic
in Resorts
Thoughts on Paying For Parking at Snowbird
This weekend, I took the long drive to Snowbird for Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest was just as good as ever. It was family friendly, the rides were great, and it was beautiful (as usual). I was prepared for the $5 parking charge, thanks to stumbling upon the fact previously. I don’t think many other people were, though. The cars entering in front of me seemed to be having long conversations with the money-collectors at the parking lot entrances. Friends that joined us reported the same thing.
I’ve been told by people who work for Snowbird that there weren’t many complaints about the $5 at earlier events. I wonder if that will be the case with this event, since it has a large, and varied audience. I should be interesting to watch, especially if it gets some negative press by the Tribune or one of the TV stations in Salt Lake.
The other thing I found interesting is that this $5 charge is somewhat being “sold” as an incentive to get people to ride the bus. If that were truly the case you would think there would be all sorts of large signs warning people of the charge before entering Little Cottonwood Canyon. I don’t recall seeing any. Maybe I missed that.
I could be wrong, but I am still sticking with theory that this is all a cash grab. Why wouldn’t you try to get an extra $10,000 a day for free, if you’re Snowbird? The only problem is that if it ends up costing them more than that in the end.
Is There Anyone Still Opposing the Mountain Accord?
I received an email this week from a Friend of the Park Rag. He forwarded news that Wasatch Backcountry Alliance was now supporting the Mountain Accord. I guess the old motto of “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” still holds true.
A couple of thoughts come to mind:
- I wonder if anyone is still out there opposing the Accord?
- This has been a good education on how things work… If you can just get something passed, even outspoken critics will join you. Why? Because it will seem they have no choice.
That’s not entirely fair. Sometimes, by staying part of the process, you can still elicit the change you want. That said, by staying part of the process you are also putting your name behind the endeavor.
Here is the group’s reasoning (which I must say is well thought out, as usual).
h/t to the friend who sent this in
What Visiting Los Angeles Taught Me About Park City Traffic
Postings over the last few days have been a little sparse due to a family vacation to Los Angeles. One of the things I love about travelling is that you get to bring back thoughts and ideas from other places. In the case of LA, some would say it has the worst traffic in the country (perhaps with the exception of the D.C. beltway). It was interesting to look at a place like Los Angeles where they have real traffic issues and contemplate what that means for Park City.
My trip to Los Angeles wasn’t too dissimilar from someone visiting Park City. I flew into Long Beach, was staying about 20 miles away in Manhattan Beach, and had one excursion planned. Otherwise, we planned on walking. Given that, did we even think about ditching the rental car and taking public transportation? Hell no.
Keep in mind, this is in Los Angeles, where their traffic issues dwarf our thrice-a-year CARMAGEDDON concerns. I don’t think my trip to California is too different than your average person visiting Park City. Renting a car for 5 days cost us $130. Parking at the VRBO was free. We had flexibility. We didn’t have to figure out public transportation. We could come and go as we pleased.
You may ask, “But what if traffic was really bad?” Are you kidding me? We sat in bumper to bumper traffic, luckily could use the HOV lane (when it was available), spent 15 minutes hunting for parking when we parked, and spent more time in the car than we would have liked. That said, would I do it any differently? No.
That’s the rub. To get visitors to use public transportation in Park City is going to be quite a chore. For a couple of hundred dollars, most people are going to opt for the rental car (or if they are from SLC… opt for their “free car”). Even if traffic is bad, they’ll deal. I spent a decent portion of our flight home thinking about what it would take to actually change that behavior … or perhaps better stated… what it would take to change my behavior if I was visiting Park City? I believe Park City would need to become the Parking Fee Capital of the World. Parking EVERYWHERE would need to cost at least $30. Park at PCMR, $30. Drive to Fresh Market and park there… another $30. Drive to the hotel and park there… another $30. No business in their right mind would want that, let alone the Chamber of Commerce, so it would have to be a city/county ordinance, which probably isn’t even legal. The level of pain that would likely be required to incent enough people to take public transport isn’t going to happen.
You may then say, “why don’t we concentrate on locals?” The problem is that 2/3 of homes in Park City and 1/3 in the Basin are second homes… effectively making those “locals” very similar to visitors. You could concentrate on the rest of us locals, but again I think people’s willingness to endure a little traffic will outweigh our willingness to figure out public transportation, give up flexibility, and spend just a much time (if not longer) to get from point A to point B.
What I learned from Los Angeles traffic is that people will endure quite a bit before they change their daily behavior (if they ever do). It really makes me wonder if our money is best spent on propping up public transportation (like the Park City SLC Connect Bus) and spending hundreds of thousands on transportation centers … or whether spending that money on point solutions that solve traffic during high congestion events is a better use of money and resources. Perhaps our population and visitors will never be daily bus riders but perhaps we could “learn” to take public transportation for events like the Kimball Arts Festival and during super snow events?
If I had to choose, I’d bet on the latter, especially if our local governments turned all their attention that direction.
in Schools
School Board Public Input on School Redesign
On Tuesday, the Park City School Board will be meeting at 4 PM to discuss a number of items related to their Master Planning Committee, grade realignment, tearing down of schools, rebuilding schools, etc. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend, but I would encourage you to be there to voice your opinion. Public comment will begin at 5:30 PM at the School Board District Office (on Kearns BLVD).
This meeting is the probably the last chance to provide your input into the process.
in Schools
Park City School Board, Please Be Straight With The Public
Below is how an interview with representatives of the Park City School Board began on KPCW this morning…
Leslie Thatcher (KPCW): “It sounds like there is a unified decision to not follow the Master Planning committee recommendation and go ahead and move Dosier Field.”
Tania Knauer (Head of School Board): “80% of what we are looking at is what the the Master Planning Committee has been talking about for 6 months… We took a straw poll [in favor of moving Dosier] but we have a week or two to change our minds.
What Ms. Knauer seems to be saying is that the school board had some light discussions about the subject of moving Dosier and a majority of people were leaning towards expanding the high school west and tearing down Dosier. What actually happened is that Park City School’s Superintendent demanded asked the board to tell her the direction they were headed so they could start figuring out the amount of bonds they needed.
What I don’t understand is why not just say it. Say, “All the board members, except Nancy Garrison, were in favor of tearing down Dosier and expanding the high school to the west. We did this because it allows future expandability, it keeps our academics more centrally located, and it probably costs about the same to get a whole new stadium as it does keep Dosier (at least that’s what we heard). So, unless the heavens and Earth move, that’s what we are doing.”
Be strong, for better or worse, and tell people what you are thinking. Give them a reason to show up at next week’s meeting and tell you they don’t like the idea. Don’t give them a reason to stay at home, because you are aren’t sure how you’ll vote. Encourage confrontation. Encourage different points of view. Don’t run from it or try to deflect it. Embrace it.
If you do that, years on your actions will be judged not on whether you managed to get a school bond passed but whether you made good decisions that ultimately benefited students, teachers, parents, and our community.
Shouldn’t that be what the school board is aiming for?
Snow Versus Pocketbook…which Wins?
They say it’s going to be a great snow year in Utah due to an El Nino event in the Pacific. Evidently the El Nino event is similar to 1997-1998, and the thought is the snow will be like that too. That season, for instance, Alta had a little over 575 inches of snow. That’s not jaw dropping but really good. If that materializes, people who own snow related businesses should do AWESOME!
Yet, I’ve also watched as the Dow Jones Industrial average drops about 100 points a day. That means the wealthy, AKA those who can afford $120 a day ski passes, $300 hotel rooms, and $100 dinners, have less money. I suppose “normal” people (like most of us working in Park City) who ski our slopes are impacted as well. Is there a shift from the $1900 Deer Valley pass to the Epic Pass at under $700? Do people buy the 10 pass book instead of a season’s pass?
It should be interesting this winter to see whether the snow or the pocketbook wins out.
in Schools
Random Thoughts on Wednesday’s School Board Meeting on Rebuilding Our Schools
On Wednesday, the Park City School Board met to discuss the recommendation of its Master Planning Committee on tearing down, rebuilding, and adding on to ours schools. Here are some random thoughts from the 5 hours of the meeting I was able to watch:
- The school district will go forward with a bond. It will likely be primarily for tearing down Treasure Mountain, adding on Park City High School to the west, moving Dosier Field to the east side of campus, redoing the traffic flow on the Kearns campus, adding on to McPolin, and building a 5/6 at Ecker Hill.
- There was a great debate over exactly what was needed to “add on to McPolin.” School Board member Julie Eihausen gave an impassioned plea that she was elected to help ensure fiscal discipline and that she didn’t believe adding on to McPolin was fiscally smart. She essentially asked why we should add capacity before we need it and risk using it on out of district students. Administrators at McPolin essentially said they would have enough room for all day Kindergarten, without adding on. Yet, the school superintendent, Dr Ember Conley pushed hard for it.
- After all that, they still decided to include it in the bond… but said “the money wouldn’t be used unless it was really needed. That’s a little bit like my 3 year old saying “just give me the cookie. I won’t eat it unless I’m hungry.”
- All I could do was try to read Ms. Eihausen’s expressions on her face regarding the “McPolin money” still being included in the bond. I wouldn’t say her expressions showed she was happy with that route and I wouldn’t say she completely won the battle, but it does stand up there with one of the best tries at being fiscally responsible that I have see with regard to this process. So, I guess this is one we’ll have to keep a close eye on over the next 10 years to make sure that $3-$4 million required to add on to McPolin is only used ONLY IF NEEDED…and always stands available should it be required.
- It was said that the discussion over rebuilding Treasure Mountain Junior High started the master planning process but that the growth of Park City is what is forcing so many changes with regard to this process. I would say that the stated reasons for rebuilding are a little bit like sands in the desert — constantly shifting. But since we are about at the end of this process, we’ll go ahead and hold the school district to growth and the need to help our Hispanic kids as the reasons for this project.
- I know it’s just a personal opinion, but I think they have misjudged the “school” growth needs in the Basin. In 5 years I wouldn’t be surprised to see less kids in our schools than today. Factor in a coming recession, lack of residential space in the Park City school district boundaries, the rise of second homes, and the district low end growth estimates (loss of .3% of kids per year) and a forecast of fewer kids isn’t exactly crazy. Again, I could be wrong but we’ll see.
- This meeting had some of the best discussions I have seen with regard to the school board. You can tell these people really care about doing what they think is best.
- At the end of the meeting, it was mentioned that the entire school board needed to provide a unified front on this plan. During a straw poll, School Board Member Nancy Garrison was the only member who thought we should leave Dosier where it is and expand the high school to the south. Yet, the board will provide a unified front stating that they all believe the same thing. That seems to happen a lot, if not always, with the school board. I think that is a huge mistake. It’s as if they think that any alternative opinions makes them weak. I think it makes them stronger. Which is a stronger statement? “We the school board completely agree on this entire proposal” or “We the school board have some differing opinions about some of the details of this plan. For instance, Nancy doesn’t believe that the high school should expand to the west. However, she overwhelming believes the plan AS A WHOLE is the right thing for our community.” To me, one sounds manufactured and while the other one sounds real.
- I think Julie Eihausen’s comments about looking to change boundaries before we invest additional millions makes a lot of sense and wish they would have considered that more strongly.
- The bond the public will be asked to vote on in November is really for allocating money around general concepts (like moving the 5/6 school). The details aren’t really considered. Having not seen this type of process before, that was a little shocking. It’s been said many times that “that’s how it’s done.” I guess my advice for us public is to get any specifics of what will be built out of your mind. Yes, there will be another school area at Ecker Hill. Will it be a stand alone building? Will it be added wings to the current building? Will it be purple? No one knows yet. That’s the case with this whole process. Faith… lot’s of faith.
- Nancy Garrison was very focused on educational aspects. It was all about the kids in many of the points she brought up (which was great to see that focus).
- My odds on VCBO, the firm handling planning of this process, also getting the architectural contract for the rebuild (the real money)? Over 80% .
- I didn’t see the School Board thank Rory Murphy for his service as co-head of the Master Planning Committee. He spent over 9 months on this process (for free). Perhaps I just missed the “big thanks.” I hope so. If not, that was a gross oversight.
- They actually had designated space on their plans for a PC CAPS section of the high school. When one of the school board members said she didn’t remember seeing that discussion in any minutes (and that they just renovated the library for PC CAPS), the school superintendent said that it was just general space and could be used for lot of things. This whole PC CAPS building is like a zombie where the public keeps trying to kill it and it comes back to life. My odds of a dedicated space being built and used for PC CAPS (outside of the library): 90%
- Phil Kaplan, the newest board member, gave a good summary of why many members felt they should expand the high school to the west and move Dosier:
- It consolidates athletics in one are (the east side of campus) and academics on the other
- Their are more possibilities for future expansion
- It doesn’t impact transportation as much
- There was a strong focus on putting in turf fields. Jamie Sheetz, Athletics and Activities Director, made a good case that having turf that could be plowed was more important than a fieldhouse (if you couldn’t do both). He said that gets kids outside to practice in the months leading up to spring and reduces wear and tear on Dosier, and use of Basin Rec. It also may get kids home from practice earlier each night.
- Rory Murphy, Co-head of Master Planning, warned that moving Dosier field was an emotional issue and it could cause a lot of people to vote no for the bond on that principle alone. The board decided to risk that by going forward with adding on to the high school to the west and moving Dosier. It will be interesting to see who was right.
in Schools
Live Blog on School Board Discussion on Rebuilding Schools and Potential Bond
Today we are live blogging the school board meeting. This is a discussion between school board members about rebuilding our schools. Click more for the discussion:
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.