During his regular visit to KPCW, we asked Snyderville Recreation District Director Brian Hanton about a couple of topics stirring comment.
One concerns the spending, from both the District and Park City, going into the city ice arena. The other is about the restrictions placed on a popular trail in the Sun Peak area.
As we’ve reported, there have been protests since the District put out a notice that Bob’s Trail is just allowed for hiking, not snowbiking.
Hanton said they’re trying to work with Sun Peak’s HOA on the issue. He said the prohibition was done for safety reasons.
“Last year, we had a few people come up to our staff when they’re out there on the trail and had some concerns about the downhill traffic. It wasn’t just bikes, it was the sledders and the skiers as well. With that trail, a typical four-foot trail in the winter goes to two feet. So, there’s not a whole lot of area to move left and right to avoid those altercations. The reason why we put that up there was to increase the safety aspect of that trail. We currently are trying to work with the HOA’s. Our hope is next year we can come up with an alternative solution to the downhill. In the summer it’s uphill only but there’s access points through Vail property or the UOP and in the winter we can’t access those trails. Hopefully we will come up with an (alternative) method out, so bikes can access that up next winter.”
He clarified what is allowed on the trail.
“Well they’ll be hikers and snowshoers, basically foot-traffic is what we’re looking for. Anything else that has wheels, or sled’s a hard surface. We understood that on that sign where we put no bikes, we probably should have added sled and skis as well. So, we just covered up that bottom of that sign and just has hiking only. “
On another topic, the Park City Council this week is scheduled to re-visit a Letter of Consent for the Interlocal city-District agreement on the ice rink.
Previously, both entities have put $50,000 annually into the rink for capital use and maintenance. As Hanton noted, the city has asked that both sides put in another $30,000. Hanton said the Recreation District has some difficulties making an additional contribution.
“They had asked us to increase our $50,000 contribution to $80,000. We’ve faced a few different financial things on our part, as far as some contributions we were receiving had stopped. We had some increases in some legal and some human resources. We just didn’t have those funds right away to put towards that. Although we are keeping up with that $50,000. This also allows us, two years ago they had a condenser problem so we outside of the $50,000 we contributed to that as well which was up to $60,000. Keeping it at $50,000 helps allows us to have that opportunity if they have a ‘oh no’ moment we can help with that a little bit easier with those funds.”
He said there’s a chance another ice rink may be available in the area.
“The city has been working with a private rink going up in the Black Rock community. It’s only a mile away from the existing rink. The hope is that they can do some programming with that facility and not have to build a rink. As we know with the now potential Olympics that might present a whole new twist of what could happen. We’ve set aside some money from our 2014 bond to go towards that additional rink or sheet. We’re just waiting for them to figure out what’s going on with Black Rock and then what direction they want to go from there.”
