City Watch

Some people are saying Mary Brown Malouf is dead. But that is not possible. It is not a thing that can be believed. Any minute now, she’ll flounce on in, bangled arms jangling, launch that black hole of a handbag into the corner, plop down at her desk and make a big ’ol sigh.

’Cept she won’t. And that, as she herself would say, is “all just so awful.”

Mary entered our magazine lives in 2007, like a Texas tornado, wrapped in a package of talent, joy, love and laughter. Her reputation as a feared food critic preceded her but it was her keen mind and her crackling writing that is why she became the longest-serving editor in Salt Lake magazine’s 30-plus-year history. Mary saw things, really saw them and loved the brain-tease of stacking those observations into tidy sentences that tickled her.

She respected food and the people who make it; she understood the life of a chef and the language of service. Her work defined and championed our city’s culture. A city needs someone to tell its stories and Mary’s no-bullshit sensibility filled that need.

For Mary, there was no such thing as work-life balance, it was all just life. Her living room was Salt Lake’s salon. Artists, journalists, historians, chefs, bartenders, politicos and sommeliers mingled in a lively mess of joy, poorly played trumpets and a couch that was always open to crash on. We were all the strays and misfits that she took in and were forever welcome. Her late husband Glen Warchol, whose death is also not to be believed, told me, “Once you’re in with Mary, you’re in. There’s no getting out. She won’t let you.”

Our city will never have another Mary. She was a real dame. A love child of Raymond Chandler and Janis Joplin who lived, truly lived and touched everyone she met with her love.

Plus, she would think getting swept off a pier by a random wave was funny as hell.

xxoomm.

Read more here.

It is with profound sorrow that the staff of Salt Lake magazine announces the death of Mary Brown Malouf on Dec. 7, 2020, in northern California.  Mary has been our beloved executive editor since August 2007, our north star, undisputed culinary queen, and one of the brightest and funniest people we will ever know. She is survived by her children Anna Malouf and Britt Brown and Kit Warchol and Sam Warchol, and her brother David Waddington and sister Helen Duran.

Photo by: Stuart Graves

More details will follow as they become available.

The theater marquees project confidence belying the empty spaces behind them. “We’ll be back,” they promise. I hope they’re right. The artworld is unduly burdened by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic; an unfortunate plight for trades sustained by gatherings of people. The timing for an extended artistic hiatus couldn’t be much worse for Park City as the community has invested in legitimizing its image as an artistic and cultural hub of the American West.

Officials in Park City long to diversify the town’s identity and economy beyond that of a traditional ski town reliant upon increasingly fickle winters amid a changing climate. The heart of the transformation is the Arts and Culture District, a five-acre parcel of land at the corner of Bonanza Drive and Kearns Boulevard slated for studios, galleries and performing arts spaces. The district represents an enormous commitment to advancing arts and culture in Park City.

The town is shouldering upward of $70 million to develop the area along with partners Kimball Art Center and Sundance Institute, both of which plan to have headquarters there. The two organizations, however, have been hard hit during the pandemic, clouding their potential involvement. Each has been forced to lay off staff as their main fundraising events—the Kimball Arts Festival was canceled, and the Sundance Film Festival will be radically narrowed—have been disrupted. Both Kimball and Sundance remain committed, but the town is making backup plans should their involvement fall through.

The Arts and Culture District is vital to cultivating a creative community in Park City that isn’t ancillary and transient. For all its accolades, the Sundance Film Festival casts a long shadow. For two weeks the festival transforms the town into an international curiosity, but once the celebrities and corporate-sponsored pop-up clubs leave, the cultural maw is evident. The Park City Film Series and the Sundance Institute continue to screen independent films, but cinema fades into the background. The same can be said of the Kimball Arts Festival, which for three days brings vitality and diversity to Main Street. Despite consistently wonderful programming at the Kimball Arts Center, the festival’s end shifts Park City’s artistic emphasis to expensive galleries selling mountain scenes evoking a misplaced fetishization of manifest destiny.

Park City is bleeding culture. The Egyptian Theatre, a Main Street icon, indefinitely shuttered to conserve resources until they can safely put acts on stage again. Sundance in January will look little like the norm. Kimball Arts Center is still waiting for a permanent home. Low-interest rates alone can’t cultivate an art community in Park City. Without our local cultural curators, and arts and culture district will be devoid of both. 

See all of our Park City coverage here.

The plots are mostly native grasses with some Gambel oak sprinkled in. You’d be hard-pressed to describe the land as particularly notable, but as developable acreage diminishes in the Summit County, some see opportunity. Some see exploitation. I suppose it’s a matter of perspective, but the way each development was pursued—the “tech center” land west of 224 by Dakota Pacific and the Richardson Flat area by the municipality of Hideout—is so starkly different, it’s difficult to avoid picking a side.

Is the Hideout Annexation Attempt Legal?
Legal? Probably. Appropriate? Depends on who you ask. The bill, H.B. 359, allowed municipalities to add to their boundaries across county lines without approval from the impacted county, though the language allowing such action was later repealed. Brockbank and Hideout Council Members have been adamant everything was done above board. A lawsuit brought by Summit County alleges meetings were held in secret in a deliberate attempt to deceive lawmakers.

Development is a boogeyman along the Wasatch Front with seemingly every inch of available space consumed by infill. Wasatch Back residents fearing they too will be penned in by endless development have grown sensitive. Thus, the kneejerk reaction to any development news is a mixture of disdain and hysteria, some warranted, some misguided. 2020, being the waking nightmare it is, brought two opportunities for anti-development outrage beyond the multitude of ski resort-related projects already in the Park City pipeline, and we soon learned not all outrage is created equal.

“We’re not based in Summit County, so some people won’t like us anyway,” says Jeff Gochnour, Director of Development for Dakota Pacific (DP). “But despite the name we’re a Utah company, and the owner does live in Summit County.”

Gochnour is leading DP’s mixed-use development project across S.R. 224 from Kimball Junction. The development has been a long time coming. The Skullcandy building and visitor’s center were already built as part of a misguided plan to create a Park City Tech Center. Then DP purchased the languishing property in 2018. “There’s always pushback, especially from people who want the area to remain open space,” Gochnour says. “We understand that, but we’re respectful of the process and trying to design the project around public input about what Summit County residents want to see.”

To that end, DP is attempting to align the development with the county’s updated 2019 master plan. This includes items like building hundreds more affordable and workforce housing units than DP was obligated to provide in addition to addressing community requests for a dog park, a farmers market and a new outdoor concert and movie screening area to replace the open space and stage at Newpark, which was buried by condos and retail space. Development rights for the area were secured years ago, so there’s no recourse against the new building. County residents should be relieved the project is being managed by a party that respects community input.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the development being sought by the municipality of Hideout, which has undertaken means so nefarious it borders on self-parody. They seek to create a Kimball Junction-sized development on ill-gotten lands unilaterally annexed across county lines after backroom dealings during a special legislative session in the State House that ultimately benefitted Mitt Romney’s son, Josh. Nothing contained in that grammatically incoherent string of clauses is a joke.

During a July legislative special session, Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, sponsored a bill with substitute language that legalized precisely the kind of annexation that Hideout, a town of 1,000 in Wasatch County, attempted to perform with land in Richardson Flat, part of Summit County. The language allowed Hideout to annex adjacent land across county lines with no county approval. After Hideout’s council approved the move, they entered a pre-annexation agreement for development rights with Josh Romney and his business partner Nate Brockbank, who had previously requested and were denied zoning changes allowing for a mixed-use development on the same land.

Summit County was understandably miffed at being stripped of land-use authority, and public outcry brought the issue to the forefront. “It’s unconscionable to me that Hideout would continue to attempt this,” Summit County Manager Tom Fisher told the Park Record. At that point, Sen. Cullimore attested the purpose of the altered bill had been misrepresented to him and joined the effort to repeal the language at the subsequent special session in August. Still, Hideout attempted to move forward with the annexation in the 60 days before the repeal became law and were blocked only by an injunction from 4th District Court Judge Jennifer Brown.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only hastened Utah’s population growth, so don’t expect the endless tide of development to stop. Public pressure remains the most effective way to curb unseemly expansion, so let’s remember to use our limited stock of outrage wisely. Not all development is created equal. 

See all of our Park City coverage here.

Ski season is officially underway in Utah, but not without some hiccups for anxious locals. Heavy snowfall earlier in November had many dreaming of hopping directly into midwinter conditions with widespread terrain openings, but a dreaded high-pressure system has settled in with warm, dry temperatures. Between the dearth of snow and the complications of the coronavirus pandemic, some resorts have pushed back their opening days, while others like Park City Mountain are open with the equally-beloved-and-loathed white ribbons of death. The limited terrain has also impacted the much-discussed skier reservation system implemented by Vail Resorts (owner of Park City Mountain) for this season, making it difficult for some locals to access the mountain for early-season turns.

The skier reservation system was put in place to manage crowds and facilitate safe distancing on the hill. Love it or hate it, the system at least signaled a plan was in place to get, and hopefully keep, resorts open for the winter. As a little bonus for the locals, skier reservations for the early season until December 8, 2020 would only be available to pass holders, which many hoped would be a low-stress opportunity to work on the ski legs without fighting the crowds. But limited terrain has necessitated limiting the availability of skier reservations, leaving many pass holders out in the cold.

Several Park City residents I spoke with were among those unable to make reservations for opening weekend or the weekend following Thanksgiving, despite trying to sign up near the reservation system’s opening time. One of them, Mike Legendre, was able to secure a spot to make a few turns on the opening Friday after repeatedly refreshing the reservations page, but he was still blocked out of the coveted weekend spots. Currently, all but one day left in November are totally booked up, and the December 12-13 weekend is already full as well.

“I understand limiting reservations because you can’t spread people out right now, and I’m not for people hoarding days, or any resources for that matter. Going skiing is a privilege, after all, and we all have to make some concessions this year. But it’s still frustrating not being able to ski after purchasing a pass,” Legendre says. “I’ve only been able to reserve for opening day, and that was after sitting there most of the day refreshing the browser. There were overtones made prior to the season that reservations would be widely available, and that hasn’t been the case thus far.

A spokesperson for Park City Mountain, Jessica Miller, indicated in an email with the Park Record earlier this week reservations will likely become easier to secure once more terrain is open. Miller also urged skiers only to reserve days they are likely to use, warning if skiers repeatedly miss or cancel reservations they may lose reservation privileges for a period of time. This prospect has rankled some local skiers and snowboarders who feel the system favors vacationers with pre-planned dates over locals who rely on flexibility while balancing family and work schedules to ski. Spencer Steinbach, a hospital executive at the University of Utah and an avid skier is among those who feel the system works against their interests. “I try to plan afternoons to ski when I can, but what if I get stuck in COVID operations meetings and I have to cancel? I should be able to cancel without fear of being penalized and worrying I won’t be able to make a future reservation to ski with my kids. It’s ridiculous,” he says.

Reservations have been difficult to come by, but resorts don’t want people hoarding days when they’re available. Even if it makes sense, it’s fueling a sense of powder panic without the snow. COVID-19 won’t go unnoticed this ski season, but hopefully processes and policies evolve over the winter to let skiers to enjoy the mountain as they always have while enabling resorts to stay safely open and financially solvent. I was able to make it up for a few turns on opening day, and while layering a mask with a neck gaiter to ride chairs alone and ski a single run felt strange at times, I can attest to some fleeting moments of joy while arcing turns downhill. The moral, as always, is to go skiing when you can. It’s good for the soul, and we all need that right now.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is this Friday, November 20th. It was initially founded in 1999 to bring awareness and remembrance to the murder of transgender woman Rita Hester. Every year since, it’s continued to be a day to honor transgender individuals who have died.

In Salt Lake City, over 300 flags stand outside of the Salt Lake City and County Building to represent the lives of transgender people lost this year.

Virtual Events: 

LGBT Services at UVU, together with Spectrum, Genderbands and Provo Pride is hosting an online event, Stories of Trans Resilience, on November 20 (1 pm) to share good news, stories of personal triumphs and successes that we can celebrate together with folks in our community. Learn more here.

TEA and Project Rainbow (Sponsored by: Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce, Equality Utah, Utah Pride Center, HRC Utah) presents a vigil of remembrance, a live streamed event (6 pm), reading the names of transgender individuals who have passed. Learn more here.

For more city life click here.

Winter arrived furiously over the past week with several feet of snow piling up at high elevations in the Wasatch. Scores of skiers and snowboarders eager to reclaim lost days on the hill from last spring have emerged from COVID-induced hibernation, packing resort parking lots to sneak in a few early season turns before the lifts start turning. Energy and excitement for ski season abounds, especially in Park City where the town is looking to turn the corner from an extended economic swoon. The outlook hinges on control of the coronavirus pandemic and people feeling comfortable traveling to Utah. Amid Utah’s recently declared State of Emergency and Park City’s flagging lodging reservation numbers, neither seems certain. Anxieties are balancing on a knife’s edge yet again.

Optimism was building about a winter rebound after Park City experienced a summer of better-than-expected—though still frighteningly low—occupancy and revenue. National coronavirus case numbers ebbed, and naturally people started looking to the future and booking trips for the winter. Alas, reality bit and cases surged—acutely in Utah—and confidence began to wane. Emboldened by looser cancellation and refund policies, people have begun to cancel or postpone their trips.

Park City’s economy is a feast and famine affair with periods like the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day in addition to myriad holiday weekends being typically lucrative. The latest forecasts from the Park City Area Lodging Association show an expected 20% decline in traditional hotel occupancy from December through March, where the vast bulk of revenue is collected. Hotel occupancy is a leading indicator for the broader economy and the town’s budget health, which relies heavily on sales tax.

These numbers, however, are not necessarily indicative of overall visitation forecasts. People concerned about coronavirus are likely to steer clear of hotels in favor of VRBO and Airbnb rentals, which don’t have shared spaces like lobbies and elevators. Then again visitors with these tendencies are less likely to visit and spend money at restaurants and shops in town.

Nobody knows with any certainty where this will wind up, but perhaps recent positive news about vaccine efficacy will encourage more people to travel. Then again it could inspire them to hunker down for the winter in anticipation of safely liberated travel a year from now. What is certain is it’s dumping snow in the mountains and skiing remains a fun and relatively COVID-safe activity. Dust off the skis or snowboard and indulge in a little powder therapy when it makes sense for you. And for those who feel comfortable traveling, hotel rates have dropped with occupancy—between 10% and 12%—so you can save a bit of cash on your trip to Park City.

While most of Summit County takes a deep breath as the strangest summer season on record winds down ahead of what is certain to be a bizarre winter, developers, councilors and concerned citizens continue to advocate for their respective priorities. The inevitable churn of development never hibernates in the Park City area, even as coronavirus continues to stifle the local economy and upend daily life. The future for the mountain community is very much unwritten, and the time is now for interested parties to make their voices heard.

Hideout Plans Emerge Ahead of Public Hearing

The public hearing on October 12 regarding Hideout’s attempted annexation of land in Richardson Flat is rapidly approaching. The hearing, which can be attended remotely via Zoom or by dialing in with your telephone, at 6:00 p.m. on Monday is quite possibly the last opportunity for individuals to provide their input on the proposed annexation and subsequent development. The process has rankled many observers, Summit County Officials and Park City Officials as the effort to annex and develop the land moves forward under the provisions of an ill-considered and short-lived state law seemingly designed to serve a small special interest.

Google Maps satellite view of Richardson Flat area encompassing Hideout’s attempted annexation

Details of the proposed development have emerged from a litany of court documents owing to the several concurrent lawsuits facing developer Nathan A. Brockbank, Wells Fargo Bank and United Park City Mines Company among other defendants, as reported first by the Park Record. Among the planned developments is a 24,000-square-foot grocery store, a police and fire station, nearly 200 condos, a church, a school in the Park City School District and—preposterously—a chairlift that will whisk hikers and bikers to the highest point on Richardson Flat.

Thus far Hideout officials have steadfastly pursued annexation of the land in Summit County even after state lawmakers almost immediately repealed H.B. 359 due in large part to public pressure. Pressure and awareness are the only tools the public has at its disposal. If you want to express your opinion, join in the hearing on Monday, October 12 at 6:00 p.m. It’s hard to ignore the insidious appearance of scheduling the hearing on a holiday evening during Indigenous Peoples Day, but you can celebrate by engaging in civil discourse. Details for joining the meeting are below.

Meeting URL: https://zoom.us/j/4356594739
To join by telephone dial: US: +1 408 638 0986
Meeting ID: 435 659 4739

Transit Possibilities Abound

Untenable traffic situations have become commonplace in Utah, threatening to strangle the Central Wasatch as increasing numbers of tourists and locals want to visit and play in the mountains. While most recent efforts have been aimed at alleviating traffic woes in the Cottonwood Canyons, the Central Wasatch Commission is looking for a more all-encompassing solution.

The Mountain Transportation System (MTS) project is focusing on vastly reducing the reliance on individual vehicles when traveling to the mountains with a regional solution serving both the Wasatch Front and the Wasatch Back. Among the floated ideas are a gondola connecting Park City Mountain base area with the Brighton Resort base area, providing an “as the crow flies” connection between Big Cottonwood Canyon and Park City, which are only 4 miles apart but require a 45-mile drive in the winter.

Rapid-transit bus lines, aerial transportation systems with gondolas and trams and rail systems are all being considered, and can be viewed in detail on the Central Wasatch Commission’s Draft MTS Alternative’s Report. You can provide your input by taking the CWC’s build your own MTS survey or by submitting a comment up until October 18.

Everybody loves to complain about traffic, and the ultimate efforts taken to alleviate chronic and worsening congestion will have a huge impact on the quality of life in the area. Make your voice heard today while you still can, or forever hold your peace.

Read more of our community coverage here.

UPDATE: I guess it’s all part of the debacle that is 2020: I just learned that because of a paperwork SNAFU, I won’t be able to attend the VP debates after all. I have heard other local media have encountered problems as well, but that is just hearsay.

I’m once again feeling the futile, helpless anger that has been the main emotion of this awful year. 

I’ve never attended or covered a vice-presidential debate before. Have you? Honestly, I’ve not usually even watched them on TV and when asked this weekend who Hillary Clinton’s running mate was, I didn’t remember. (It was Tim Kaine)

(I can’t imagine a more boring political event than Tim Kaine debating Mike Pence.)

Anyway, I’m attending the 2020 Vice Presidential debate tomorrow evening at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus.

And tomorrow night’s event promises to keep me awake.

I’m not expecting another cluster, like the chaotic yelling match many of us watched nearly a week ago, when President Trump and Joe Biden made a mess out of the very idea of debate. Really, no one but Trump could instigate that kind of debacle.

But the Veep contest is, more than the usual political debate, inherently interesting. Because Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris personify the split in American society, the culture canyon that is dividing us so deeply and violently.

Pence is the classic American politician—an old, white, male conservative who is determined to keep his kind in power. He doesn’t shout out his positions on women’s rights, gay marriage, racial equality, income equality or universal healthcare but they’re there, a fundamental part of him and his history. A history Harris and others are trying to change. Harris’ parents are Black and Indian, she’s a woman—that goes without saying—and she comes from a state that, despite internal conflict, has the most progressive culture in the country. Her attitude is fierce; his is staid. He is protecting his kind’s hegemony; Harris’ life has been a series of “firsts.”

It’s almost ridiculous to sum up the attitudes of these two into simple “right” and “left,” Republican and Democrat.

Just like it’s ridiculous to sum up this country’s division so simply.

I’ll be interested to see how this pair characterize their positions, their beliefs, their hopes and plans for our future.

I’ll be trying to report the whole scene as it happens and I’ll certainly post my not-necessarily-unbiased observations on Thursday.

7pm-8:30 MDT (Salt Lake City, Utah)

9pm EST to 10:30 EST (New York, New York)

6pm-7:30 PDT (LA California)

All the major news channels, including NBC, ABC, C-SPAN, CBS and Fox News will show the debate without commercial interruption. YouTube, Apple TV and Amazon Prime are among the online services expected to stream the debate.