City Watch

I tried to think of another headline for this, I really did. But I couldn’t come up with anything so apt. I have never actually heard that phrase said in its intended setting, while boarding a train. But in 1896, it was a common phrase, called out when things were going to start moving. Back then, trains were the connective tissue of the world, the quickest way to get to Point A from Point B. And few events were as momentous in railroad history as the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Point in Utah, 150 years ago.

Utah is celebrating that event all year long with events in every county and in most towns.  For this issue of Salt Lake magazine, I read all about the Golden Spike and 19th-century railroads, interviewed historians, locomotive mechanics and event planners—the resulting story surprised me. Yes, railroads built this country, but history has gilded the story. The truth is something more interesting and heart-wrenching.

Our train nostalgia inspires another kind of Old West homage—with cowboy boots and flounces, fashion is also experiencing a Western revival.

Our state’s connection to its past is strong, but we are also pushing hard into the future. The rise of Silicon Slopes—in Utah—surprised the country. Writer Jeremy Pugh takes us into a tech culture that goes back as far as 1954 (really) and has evolved into a tech boom that, much like the railroad 150 years ago, is putting Utah at the center of the map. Only this time, instead of steel and iron it’s a network of data and ideas that don’t just connect the nation, they connect the world.

We are essentially a magazine devoted to a place, Utah, then, now and always. And like the railroad and the internet, our purpose is to connect. So in this issue, we bring together the Old West with the New West, with stories about new tech and old tech; the West as it was and the West as it is today. Call it our own Golden Spike.

Summit County is close to finalizing the purchase of a 461-acre parcel of land at the base of Silver Creek near the Interstate 80 and U.S. 40 interchange. County Councilors approved an administrative order on consent for a $10.4 million purchase to secure area for open space conservation, trail development and county government or civic uses. 112 acres, known as the Triangle Parcel, will be jointly owned by Park City and add to Summit County open space. $7.5 million of the purchase price will come from the 2014 voter-approved recreation district bond, and $2.8 million will come from other county funds.

The Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District has agreed to oversee the area. Plans include a trail system to connect Round Valley to the currently under construction Silver Creek Village Center, in addition to development that could include much-needed properties for affordable housing, a senior center, a Recycle Utah site or a public works facility. Trail expansion is always welcome in the area, and an infusion of resources to make the community more livable for a variety of residents is vital.

Negotiations surrounding the purchase have been ongoing for more than five years, complicated by the little-acknowledged environmental devastation wrought by Summit County’s mining history. Leftover mine tailings led the EPA to declare the land a Superfund site—the 125 acres slated for county projects is not considered part of the Superfund site. Beyond the more pressing issues like the ongoing watershed contamination that led to the infamous designation, the pollution has hindered both progressive development and long-term conservation. With Summit County’s rapidly-expanding community, balancing sprawl, development and conservation is no small task. If properly planned and managed, the mixed-use acquisition could prove a huge asset for Snyderville Basin.

The Gillmor estate, which currently owns the land, will contribute $1.5 million to federal and state agencies tasked with cleaning up the property. The recreation district will have to create a work plan and monitor the area as the EPA cleans it up, though they will be able to begin trail construction prior to that work being completed. The administrative order of consent still must go through a 30-day EPA public comment period, but the county hopes to close on the land in July or August and add more Summit County open space.

See all our community coverage here.

Magazine editors and writers are plagued by trends. Always questing for something new to give readers, we tend to create trends by writing about them. This is especially true when it comes to cuisine.

Most culinary trends come and go—the original flash in the pan. But some start as trends, then last for years, becoming part of the standard repertoire. When I started writing about food 35 years ago in Texas, the big trend was “southwest cuisine,” by which was meant a leakage of Mexican flavors, ingredients and techniques, usually learned from the restaurant’s line cooks, into fine cooking based on classic French techniques. Until then, chefs didn’t often use chilies or tortillas, or tomatillos or cumin. Now you can taste Southwest, i.e. Mexican, flavors in all kinds of restaurants and dishes.

It’s a trope that Utah is 10 years behind the rest of the country when it comes to trends. This may be true, but it’s not a bad thing. It means we didn’t have to endure silly things like broccoli coffee, activated charcoal, and “raw” water.  (Utahns know raw water can mean giardia.) Trends that are over now thank goodness.

Instead, Utah chefs have been constrained from over the top creativity by their customers. Utahns don’t want to pay a lot for food in a restaurant. Utahns, historically, have had timid palates. (“What is that octopus doing on my plate?” “The backstroke.”) Not a joke.

Nevertheless, as our list of Dining Award winners shows, Utah chefs are up to the challenge. Menus here get more exciting every year, without necessarily following the national trends.

Of course, some trends we succumb to with enthusiasm. Like selfies. During Sundance last month, our man Stuart Graves amassed and shared with readers a huge number of star selfies. And in this issue, Jeremy Pugh gives pointers on where and how to take the best selfies of yourself with Utah’s beautiful landscape as a backdrop. Tony Gill looks at the problems caused by the latest transportation trends and in a fit of frivolity, Val Rasmussen tips us off to the new trends in nail colors.

Oh well. Some things are important.

Mary Brown Malouf

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“You cannot give up just because you think someone is against you, because it is difficult to face them.”
― Francisco Cantú, The Line Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border

All eyes are on the border. Politicians, humanitarians, civil rights activists, farmers and ranchers are all focused on the imaginary line between the United States and Mexico. It’s an area that most of those raising their fists and voices about have never seen and do not understand.

The border area in the United States consists of 48 counties in four states. Approximately 300,000 people live in 1,300 colonias in Texas and New Mexico. The population of the U.S. is 326,972,772. More of us need to understand the culture of this volatile area, but few of us are likely to actually go there.

To help shine some light on this area and foster understanding, the University of Utah’s Creative Writing Program and the Center for Latin American Studies are hosting a Borderlands Conference , featuring four Latino and Mexican authors—Francisco Cantú, Yuri Herrera, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, and Natalie Scenters-Zapico— whose creative work focuses on the border. Cantú’s recent book, The Line Becomes a River reflects on his work as a Border Patrol agent from 2008-2012.

Here’s the schedule of readings, discussions, lectures and Q & A sessions. It’s all free, making it easy for you to increase your knowledge about this flashpoint in American policy and philosophy.

Thursday, April 4th, 7 PM, SLCPL Auditorium
Readings by Francisco Cantú and Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, followed by a Q&A and book signing

Friday, April 5th, 1 PM, SLCPL 4th Floor
Readings by Yuri Herrera and Natalie Scenters-Zapico, followed by a Q&A and book signing

Friday, April 5th, 2 PM, SLCPL 4th Floor
Roundtable Discussion, including Francisco Cantú, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, Yuri Herrera, and Natalie Scenters-Zapico

All events are free and open to the public
Books will be available for purchase on site from The King’s English

See all of our community coverage here.

Snyderville Basin’s “Green Heart” will be spared from development. The Summit Land Conservancy completed its fundraising campaign over the past weekend by raising the final $375,000 to secure a conservation easement for the 158-acre Osguthorpe Farm on Old Ranch Road. The farm represents the last major tract of undeveloped land in the center of the basin and ensures views of the surrounding mountain peaks will be preserved into the future.

The final fundraising push was the culmination of a two-year effort to save one of Park City’s last working farms ahead of the March 31 deadline to leverage federal funding towards the conservation effort. In 2017, the land trust entered into an agreement with the Osguthorpe family to purchase a conservation easement for $17,856,000. $8.8 million came from a federal grant as part of a Farm Bill program, $500,000 came from a Summit County grant, and the Osguthorpe family contributed $3.9 million towards the cause, which lets them retain rights to the house currently on the property. The easement prevents any future development on the property and allows the farm to remain operational.

Summit Land Conservancy, a non-profit dedicated to saving land in Summit County, spearheaded the effort to preserve the farm.

The final $4.5 million came from more than 1,100 individual donors, which included many Park City residents and second home owners. As with the recent approval of a $48 million bond to preserve Treasure Hill and the $38 million bond to acquire Bonanza Flats in 2017, Parkites have shown quite the appetite for footing the bill when it comes to preserving open space and public land.

As the deal came down to the wire, the community rallied in the name of conservation. A group of Old Ranch Road residents calling themselves “Defenders of the Ranch” helped raise awareness about the land deal, and a large donation from the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation in addition to a challenge grant from the Willow Creek homeowners’ association helped drive fundraising efforts across the finish line.

Another slice of Park City is protected from the endless march of development, and once again it’s largely thanks to the efforts and contributions of residents.

See all our community coverage here.

When Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz took the stage for the 25^th annual Park City Community Leadership Lecture, more than 400 Parkites were packed in the Public Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium to hear what he would say. As the chief of publicly traded ski industry behemoth valued at more than $8 billion, Katz seemed an obvious choice to deliver some innocuous remarks about corporate leadership, but most in attendance on Monday evening were substantively interested in the public question and answer session that followed.

Vail Resorts’ takeover of Park City hasn’t been without its controversies, and Katz’s public appearance provided area residents a welcome opportunity to engage in a discussion about the intersection of the company, the town and how the two will be indelibly linked into the future. It’s easy to pick allegiances forged by personal biases—see the dueling opinion pieces from Outside Magazine vacillating on whether corporate ski resort consolidation is saving or killing skiing and mountain communities—and the evening’s forum would provide fodder for either side.

Parkites packed the Jim Santy Auditorium to engage with Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz on Monday, March 18.

After Leadership Park City director Myles Rademan mildly implored the assembled crowd to “avoid diatribes” and be “gentle” with their questions, Katz emerged to deliver his prepared speech. The 40-minute presentation consisted largely of harmless but perhaps uninspired lessons on leadership—like empowering everyone within an organization to be a leader and the difference between being a leader and a friend—along with a few anecdotes about Katz’s path to becoming CEO of Vail Resorts that may not have landed with the degree of relatability he had hoped. Nevertheless, the remarks highlighted some of the benefits and drawbacks Vail Resorts has brought Park City.

Virtues Katz highlighted include Vail’s career-oriented employment aimed at internal promotion—a rarity among seasonal workforces—lower season pass prices and the organization’s history of charitable giving and environmental advocacy. Shortcomings Katz discussed included the admission everything Vail Resorts does—regardless of how it will be perceived—must be good for business, so community needs are going to be overlooked from time to time.

This was reinforced during the Q&A when he repeatedly declined to engage on local-centric topics like the elimination of night skiing and the mountain host program by saying those decisions are made at the local level, though each resort is likely dictated to adhere to a bottom line set at the company’s highest level. Katz deserves credit for acknowledging the need to address interrelated issues of high-housing costs, sub-adequate wages—though Vail Resorts did recently raise the minimum wage for entry-level jobs—and the inability to operate Park City Mountain at full staffing levels, though he offered no viable solutions beyond being more prepared to secure additional affordable housing for staff in the wake of the next recession. Still, fair play to Katz for willingly taking questions from an opinionated crowd.

Most people’s takeaway from the evening will likely informed by the opinions they came with: either Vail Resorts and their CEO are out of touch with local needs and are in the industry solely for their financial gain, or the company is merely breaking a few eggs to democratize skiing while running a profitable business for their shareholders. Parkites are wrapping up one of the snowiest winters in recent memory, but they remain conflicted about the town’s future and the corporation to which it is tied. Meanwhile on the Vail Resorts website, season passes for next year are already on sale.

See all our outdoors coverage here.