The Summit County Council discussed several different items at their August 26th meetin. But a number of the topics show the county still is affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
As we have reported, the County Council voted last Wednesday to extend the county’s Emergency Declarations and Health Orders through the end of the year. That includes the Mandatory Mask Order.
That comes while it’s been reported that a recent Park City party, where the participants were not masked, is suspected of causing a spike in COVID-19 cases.
County Council Member Chris Robinson told us that he doesn’t have a good answer about how to enforce against the so-called “super spreader parties.”
“I think that despite our best efforts, there will be exceptions. And I think we’ll deal with em. I don’t think they’re the end of the world. We have a momentary spike, and we get past it. How we prevent and mitigate for em—it’s pretty clear that when you throw caution to the wind and have an event that leads to super-spread, that it has consequences. People say it doesn’t matter, it’s not real. Well, it does. It does happen.”
COVID is also a question affecting the Joint Transportation Advisory Board, run by the county and Park City. Robinson attended a recent JTAB meeting, where they discussed the winter transit schedule. But how do they plan for that, when they don’t know what kind of tourist season we will see?
“It’s a work in progress, but I think we’re operating at about 35 percent capacity now. And I think that in broad strokes, the current proposal on the table is to ratchet that up to 50 percent capacity, compared to what might have been 100 percent, I guess, pre-Covid. It’s a moving target, but we’re using the best assumptions that we can and they will be refined as we get closer to game time in the winter.”
Also on the Council’s agenda, they approved budget cuts by the Snyderville Recreation District, given the decline in the District’s activities and revenues due to COVID.
Robinson said the District acted wisely.
“I thought it was wise that they came forth, rather than waiting til the end of the year, y’know, with the Fieldhouse closed and just a lot of things not normal, they’re planning to stay on top of it and did a nice job.”
At the same time, he said the District needs to finance their newly-launched program to monitor parking and visitation around the Basin’s trailheads.
“The trails are—and all outdoor recreation—are experiencing a tremendous uptick in utilization. And it’s exacerbating problems that we just can’t ignore, including situations where HOAs have given Basin Rec or others easements for trails and trailheads, with conditions, and when it just becomes a complete nuisance to those neighborhoods and they have legal recourse to take the trails back or those easements back, it’s just not something they can ignore.”
Summit County Council Member Chris Robinson.
