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0000017b-652b-d50a-a3ff-f7efb02e0000KPCW's COVID-19 news coverage for Summit County and Wasatch County, Utah. 0000017b-652b-d50a-a3ff-f7efb02f0000You can also visit the Utah Department of Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization websites for additional information.

Park City Leadership Raises Funds For COVID-19 Needs; Its Own Traditions May Be Impacted Too

Park City Leadership

Park City’s Leadership Program—both current members and alumni—are contributing funds to deal with the urgent needs left from the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown.

Leadership founder Myles Rademan says that the Urgent phase of dealing with the virus could extend longer than people anticipate.

Rademan told KPCW that recently the Leadership group raised nearly $45,000 for the Park City Community Foundation’s Response Fund.

Leadership’s alumni group donated $10,000—the bulk of what they had saved in reserve.  Class 20 matched that with another $10,000.    And a subsequent campaign had 30 donors giving nearly $24,500.

This comes at a time when Utah’s state government and the Trump White House are expressing interest in re-opening the economy.   But Rademan said people have to be careful about jumping too quickly from the Urgent phase of the virus response.

“Once we get past this initial thing, everyone’s saying, ‘Let’s stabilize and let’s re-open” and like that, and get into recovery.  We are still in the Urgent phase, and we might be in the Urgent phase right through this summer.”

The current Leadership class is meeting via Zoom and Rademan said they have three different class projects going on.    One is dealing with urgent needs during the COVID-19 situation.

“So they’re being kind of a flexible and tactical task force, a strike team, to see where they can be helpful, especially in the form of communications and, again, raising additional money, because, we’re all fearful that the amount of money that’s being raised, even though it’s significant, the vulnerability in our community is alive.”

Another project is encouraging citizens to sign up with the 2020 Census count.

And finally, a group in Leadership is working on a Kindness program.

“They’ve come out with this idea, we could become a Kindness City.  And it’s a world-wide effort, actually.   They’re joining in with other communities around the world, trying to use this as an opportunity to remind ourselves that being kind is not exactly a foreign subject.   We should all be kind.”

Another major event in the Leadership calendar—the annual Road Tour in early September—is facing an uncertain future.  Rademan said they’re just waiting for developments.

“Our greatest strength as a resort community is also our Achilles heel.   Because, what have we done, we have said, we welcome the world.  And of course, now we’re talking about social distancing.  These are like total opposites.  So the places we go on the City Tours are other resort towns.  All of them are facing a similar situation.  They’ve been hot-beds of some of the spread because we do have people from all over the world who visit us.”

He said the plan was to visit Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona, and the Tour usually involves 60 to 70 people on a bus.   Rademan said that raises a two-fold question.

“One, is it going to be safe for us to go?   Number Two, are the people that we would go to planning to welcome us?   We work in the hospitality industry.    But hospitality is being a sense of welcoming.   And if they’re fearful for any reason that we would be importing to them a disease, then they’re gonna want us to come.  So we’re in discussions with them.  We’re all going to be flexible.  Everyone has to be flexible at this time.”

Park City Leadership founder Myles Rademan.

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
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