Is Treasure more important than school bond?

Editor:

The tax payers in this town will have 2 big bonds to consider in the coming years. The schools and Treasure Hill. If you have to choose 1, do you choose education for the children of our community or greenmail (greenmail is money that is paid to an entity to make it stop an aggressive behavior)?

---

---

I don’t want 1,000,000 sq ft built up on Treasure Hill, but could live with the original 500,000 sq ft plan. Seems ridiculous to me that we pay them the profit to go away when they changed the terms. So if they want to change the terms, why doesn’t the town do so too? Many ski towns have transfer taxes. Park City should impose a transfer tax of 50% on all new construction. Since PC is at least 98% built already this would not affect too many of us. Of course we could remove the transfer tax when they agree to their original terms of 500,000 sq ft.

Before Park city spends money on greenmail they should think about what’s more important — schools or making a few rich people richer. If the town proceeds to buy the land (but not at that price), this would make a great location for a locals only parking lot and ski lift!

---

---

Stuart Goldner

Park City

Park City’s bag ban is important

Editor:

Sen. David Buxton, a Republican from Roy sponsored S.B. 218 to overturn Park City’s ban on large stores distributing Plastic Bags. It would be wonderful if everyone took their Plastic Bags back to the store for recycling, however, most people throw them in the trash. It takes 20 years for one plastic bag to break down in the environment. One Park City store commented that they were distributing 1,300 Plastic Bags per day before the ban. The State of California banned Plastic Bags a couple of years ago. Guess What? Everyone got used to it. It works very well. It’s easy to save bags that you get in other places and reuse them. My husband and I have been doing that for years and it’s not difficult. If Park City is serious about going GREEN we cannot let this State Senator make changes to our “Good for the Environment” policies.

Marleen Hood

Park City

Students say bag ban should be expanded

Did you know that Park City has passed a plastic bag ban? We would like to spread the ban throughout Summit County because plastic bags are very bad for the environment. For example, in California about 3 tons of plastic gets dumped into the ocean every day. All of that plastic can harm animals, can lead to diseases, and cannot be recycled.

First off, when people put plastic bags in the recycling. Plastic bags interrupt the recycling machines from working properly and then to fix them, it costs a lot of money! The people who work there have to be fast or else it clogs up the machines.

Also, plastic bags are bad for all of the wildlife. Some animals might think it’s food, choke on it, and then die. About 100,000 marine animals die from all of the garbage patches in the ocean each year! We need to stop these plastic monsters from destroying our community, our country, and our planet.

In addition, plastic is also dangerous to humans. Toxic chemicals are found in plastic which can affect the human body causing cancer, birth defects, and many more horrible diseases.

Some may say that plastic bags are great for picking up dog poop or for mini trash cans, but can you guess where it ends up? Back in the landfill which eventually can end up in the ocean!

In conclusion, those are only some of the reasons why we should ban plastic bags in Summit County and eventually all over the United States. If we keep using plastic bags we will eventually destroy parts of the planet and nobody wants that, right? We all want a healthy planet to live on.

Clarissa Fleming, Dylan Fleig, Katie Olson

Jeremy Ranch Elementary School, fifth grade

Athenaeum Club gives back

Editor:

Park City Athenaeum Club spent Tuesday morning, February 20th at the offices of Hope Alliance. Nine members of the club were assisting the Hope Alliance Vision Program by cleaning and sanitizing collected used eye wear. This has become an annual February tradition for the Athenaeum Club. Club members helped to wash, sanitize and sort used eye ware that will make its way to Guatemala, Peru and Haiti.

Hope Alliance Vision Program uses recycled and used eyeglasses to help those with a need experience corrected vision. The Vision Program uses lay workers and volunteer professionals. Guatemala and Peru have been served by this program since 2001. A program in Haiti was implemented in 2016. A domestic program of one day clinics also has been implemented in Park City, Goshute Native Reservation, Salt Lake City and Moab. The domestic clinics provide frames and help for discounted lens prescriptions.

The next meeting of the Park City Athenaeum Club will be March 20th at 2:00 pm in the Community Room of the Park City Library. Guests are always welcome.

Toni Gannon

Park City Athenaeum Club