I’ve been a big fan of Daniel Pink since 2009, when his presentation “The Puzzle of Motivation” took the internet by storm. TED had been around for a quarter-century before it began publishing videos online. When Pink’s talk was posted, it became one of the first to truly go viral, racking up tens of millions of views.

I know that as a conservative, being a fan of a speechwriter and policy expert in the Clinton White House will be shocking to some, but Dan has a knack for combining detailed research with stories that make his arguments compelling.

I’m addicted to his work, including “A Whole New Mind” (2005), “Drive” (2009), “To Sell Is Human” (2012), and “When” (2018). 

“Drive” is especially compelling because Dan demonstrates that people perform their best when they are motivated. Based on his research, he makes the case that deep motivation is driven by three factors: autonomy (ability to direct our own lives); mastery (getting better at what you do); and purpose (service to something larger than ourselves).

One thing that caught me by surprise was Dan’s premise that if-then rewards backfire. One example he gave argued that tying an allowance to household chores transforms a familial responsibility into a commercial transaction. Compensating for chores undermines the responsibility of contributing to the household and creates transactional conditioning so that when the reward is not enough or stops, the behavior will stop. 

Pink argued that separating money from chores was the key to keeping family responsibility intact without killing motivation.

I had just finished “Drive” when my daughters’ mother suggested giving the girls an allowance so they could learn about managing money. Make no mistake, instilling financial literacy in young women is essential. But the idea of giving them money for nothing was, to me anyway, crazy. After all, unearned money isn’t something they will encounter in the real world.

Dan’s book had completely quashed the next alternative, paying for chores. 

If we really wanted to teach financial literacy, why not compensate the girls for saving? I got the idea from David Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, who came up with the idea of a “Daddy bank.” 

Each time the girls came into any money — birthday cash, babysitting, lemonade stands, or, as they got older, jobs — they could deposit cash into the Daddy bank. I would keep a ledger of any deposits and pay an inflated interest of 8% per month. For you math experts, money left untouched in the bank would double every year. 

Some of you would say the premise of the Daddy bank with super-high interest is just semantics. You are still giving your kids money. You would be correct, but the why had changed. 

As adults, both are successful, hardworking, and more importantly, avid savers and investors. While their political beliefs are left of mine, I’ve never heard either espouse the virtues of socialism. 

I can’t help but wonder that with a couple of generations of children raised by parents who provide their children with free food, free laundry service, a free place to stay, free cars, free cell phones, free tuition, free gas, free health insurance and free vacations, if we are raising generations that expect to be cared for.

It is no surprise then that socialist policies feel so natural to them — from free healthcare and subsidized housing to the belief that the government should take care of their every need.

A successful campaign by one of our most popular presidents was based on the idea of “a hand up, not a handout.” Another in his 2012 State of the Union address said, “Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same. … No bailouts, no handouts and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.”

Who were those radical free-market presidents? Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively. That does not sound like socialism to me — anything but! 

Reflecting on Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform reveals a bipartisan idea: True human dignity, purpose, and motivation stem from autonomy, effort and mastery, not unearned subsidies. When parents provide everything for free, children naturally grow into adults expecting the world to operate like their childhood homes.

Could the modern surge in socialist ideals be the direct result of severing the link between personal input and reward? Just like the Daddy bank, society functions best when offering a ladder of opportunity rather than a guaranteed outcome. As Presidents Clinton and Obama said, the ultimate lesson of drive remains: The most valuable things aren’t handed to you. They are earned.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: The best things in life are earned appeared first on Park Record.

I wish my dad was around to see “The Odyssey.” He passed a little over a year ago, and my brother and I both miss him terribly. An immigrant from Greece, he oozed pride in our heritage and would tell the entire family how we were descended from Alexander the Great.

In the final years of his life, he would go on and on about his cherished copy of “The Odyssey.” For years he told me, “Aristides, I have a copy of ‘The Odyssey’ in both languages, right across from each other!” He was so excited about this book that on a visit to Atlanta, I finally asked to see this marvel of poetic literature.

He brought it out with reverence, presenting his jewel to me with both hands. I was so excited to see the original Greek alongside the English translation. Cracking the book open, on the left side was Greek … and on the right, Greek.

I looked at my dad, puzzled. “I thought you said it was in both languages?”

“Yes, yes!” He beamed. “Ancient Greek and modern Greek!”

I saw why he was excited because learning ancient Greek was mandatory when he went to school in Greece. My ability to read modern Greek is at a third-grade level at best, and no way am I reading ancient Greek written with no spaces between words or punctuation.

Honestly, I don’t know how Dad would respond to Christopher Nolan’s telling of “The Odyssey.” He was a stickler for authenticity. I’m not talking about those of us in the diaspora complaining about no Greeks in the cast, the missing beauty of Calypso’s garden, the absent grand feasts, or how Nolan’s characters did not live among the gods.

I do think he would like that Nolan focused on something my dad practiced his entire life. Nolan called it “Zeus’s Law.” The ancients called it Ξενία (Xenia), welcoming any stranger as if they might be a god in disguise. Modern Greeks call it Φιλοξενία (Philoxenia), which roughly translates to “love of strangers.”

Back in the Bronze Age, this wasn’t just etiquette. It was a critical to one’s survival. Traveling great distances on foot or by sea, being able to rely on a stranger for shelter, food, and water was literally life-saving.

Any time my dad came across a Greek immigrant, he would invite them over for dinner. In some cases, he offered them room and board. There were many characters. My favorite was Niko.

Niko is from Corfu, where he was known as “Nick the Greek.” He ran a charter service in the summer, taking tourists on day cruises aboard a boat he built with his own hands. There was music, homemade wine, and swimming in sea caves. Toward the end of the trip, he would charm all the ladies on board into taking off their tops so he could hoist them up the mast.

Nick spent his winters in Atlanta playing Greek music and taking odd jobs. He was tall, handsome, wrote poetry, played guitar, sang beautifully, and was an absolute chick magnet. Nick taught me how to play drums, overdub harmonies, frame a house, and — most importantly — how to talk to girls.

To this day he returns to the home he built in the middle of his family’s centuries-old olive grove each summer. Surrounding the home are plants grown from cuttings of his favorite American plants: avocados, peaches, plums, and gardenias. He still makes his own wine, aging it in the basement to serve alongside fresh fish bought from his friend at the docks every morning and grilled over open wood.

To say my life is richer for having spent those winters with Niko, and now visiting him in Corfu, is an understatement. None of that would have happened without the deep-rooted practice of Philoxenia passed down by our ancestors.

It’s a spirit that has a way of taking root in the people around us, too. My wife, Ember, isn’t Greek, but here in Park City she insists on opening our home to strangers with that very same open-armed warmth. When my dad met her, he took one look at her and said, “She is one of us.” Maybe he saw that welcoming spirit in her right away, recognizing that Philoxenia isn’t about being Greek, but how you treat people.

Christopher Nolan claims Zeus’s law died with the ancient world. But he never met my dad, and he certainly hasn’t been to our home. That sacred duty didn’t vanish. It was sanctified by our Orthodox faith and lives on in everyone who opens their heart to a stranger.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: Oh no, Zeus’s Law never died appeared first on Park Record.

Local elections are important, especially so in Utah. Unlike most other states, Utah does not allow recall elections for local offices. Once an official is elected, voters cannot recall them because of bad policy decisions, poor conduct, or giving themselves a big raise.

Knowing this, it is critical that the public take time to get it right from the start. 

In Maine, Marine veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner was poised to challenge Susan Collins for her long-held Senate seat. Progressives were literally lining up behind him because of the prospect of taking control of the upper house in Congress.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), the Maine AFL-CIO, Teamsters Local 340, and the United Auto Workers all publicly endorsed Platner. 

And while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries never endorsed Mr. Platner, given the opportunity on “Meet the Press” in June 2026 to weigh in on his character to serve as U.S. senator, Jeffries dodged the question by joking about the Knicks winning the NBA championship. 

They all missed the warning signs. And worst of all, the public also missed or simply chose to overlook them when they selected Platner as the Democratic candidate in the primary.

The signs were there before the June 9 election. Reports had exposed Platner’s volatile past, including accusations from an ex-girlfriend of physical intimidation, shoulder-grabbing, and being forcibly trapped in a room. Then there was a sexting scandal brought to light by his wife, deeply offensive Reddit history filled with anti-gay slurs and comments blaming sexual assault survivors, and even a Nazi SS chest tattoo. 

Thanks to everything good in this world, he has reluctantly and definitely removed himself from the race.

There are lessons for the voters of Summit County. What warning signs should we look for to make sure we get good representation? Indicators that candidates will put the needs of the public ahead of their own. That they have the character to serve. That they will not use their positions to enrich themselves.

One indicator is how an official handles their compensation and benefits package. According to data published by the state auditor on the Transparent Utah, 2024 Summit County Council members Canice Harte and Roger Armstrong recorded $0.00 in nontaxable reimbursements. It also appears that Harte opted for a lower-tier benefits package that cost the county just $16,022.63 — meaning his entire compensation package was lowest among his peers.

By absorbing expenses out of their own pockets and selecting lower-cost healthcare plans, Harte and Armstrong demonstrate the public-first mindset that voters should hunt for on the ballot.

On the flip side, the data proves how officials treat a part-time council seat like an executive compensation package. During the same calendar year, Council Chair Malena Stevens ran up a total cost to taxpayers of over $105,971, driven by a maximum-tier benefits package of $36,608 and thousands in reimbursements, most likely for travel. While a council chair is compensated more, the difference between her $105,000 total package and Harte’s $78,000 should be a warning sign for voters. 

All of this is before the Summit County Council voted for a significant increase in their base pay this year. As part of the $100.5 million county budget passed in December 2025, the council voted unanimously to increase their base salaries to $70,000 per year. If we look at the average base of $60,274 in 2024, that increase represents a 16.1% jump in compensation.

While that pales in comparison to what Park City Council tried to quickly approve, we do see a pattern in which our elected officials are moving from servants of the people to high-paid executive managers.

While compensation, benefits,and reimbursable expenses are not the only warning sign, voters would be smart to avoid following the political insiders who line up behind a candidate to maintain their power base or because of party affiliation.

Voters should look to elect servant leaders who will work for the people who elected them and not enrich themselves because in Utah, voters cannot recall officials for bad policy decisions, poor conduct or giving themselves a big raise.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: Raised stakes in state where recalls are outlawed appeared first on Park Record.

July 4 marked 250 years of American independence, and I spent the anniversary working on the tech crew for Forum Fest at Canyons Village.

Spending 12 hours each of the three days provides a wonderful opportunity to people-watch. The mix of locals, tourists and valley refugees escaping the basin’s midsummer simmer forms a tapestry of diversity unique to Utah. Hyper-prepared families, vintage bohemians, high-end hipsters, and the high school collective all gather on the slope-side meadow.

This tapestry, unlike my childhood home of Atlanta, where diversity was defined primarily by color, is monochromatic.

As monotone as our mountainside revelers are, they are nonetheless diverse in their life paths, core beliefs, faith and the specific promises they see in our nation.

Regardless of what the pundits tell us, I believe they all love America. 

It grates on me to hear pundits paint our neighbors as anti-American or intent on dismantling our country. I will concede that those in the political arena often advocate for starkly different visions of our future, but that is a far cry from intentional malice.

My own perspective is inherited. My family’s story is rooted in the early 20th century in what my parents called Asia Minor. My dad never referred to his ancestral homeland as Türkiye. He called it what it was, the place where his parents were pushed out and forced to leave everything behind. If he spoke of the Turkos, it was always with a scowl and a quick, sharp spit to the floor.

Growing up on stories of Ottoman oppression spanning four centuries does something to a kid. It anchors a deep, reflexive animosity in your bones. I didn’t just learn the history. I inherited the bitterness. It was a tangible, daily presence, passed down through the stories of my father and grandparents — a collective grudge that defined the entire Greek Pontic community.

I’ve spent most of my life building walls from the brick and mortar of my ancestors, but I’ve also always been a man who likes a bargain. So, when I stumbled upon a screaming deal at a five-star hotel in Constantinople, a city my family would never call Istanbul, my curiosity finally outweighed my animosity.

I’m cheap, and I’m curious, so I dragged my family, including two young daughters, into the heart of what I’d been told was enemy territory.

This was a year after 9/11, and the loudest warnings came from other Americans, not my Greek relatives. Because I love a screaming deal, I ignored the noise and went anyway.

What I found on the ground was a place that felt like home. Once the locals realized we were Greek, their faces instantly lit up. We weren’t treated like foreigners. We were treated like long-lost, distant relatives.

Despite the governments still at odds over political issues like Cyprus, and the centuries of religious friction, the people were welcoming. We bonded over the food, the music, and that shared reality of living at the intersection of East and West, Asia and Europe.

I went there expecting the Turkos my father warned me about, but I walked away realizing that politics and faith are a hell of a lot noisier than the shared experiences of our two nations.

Looking over the tapestry at Canyons Village, I can’t help but wonder about the differences represented in the crowd. While the 7,000 in attendance could share in the experience of singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” together as one, what do they really think of the future of America?

Is our future one that leans toward socialism, or do we double down on free markets? Do we shut off the immigrant engine that fuels our exceptionalism, or do we throw the borders wide open?

I’d bet that if people found a reason to break through their self-imposed resistance to actually talk, and more importantly, listen to the person on the other side, we’d all realize we want the same thing: a better America, a better Utah, and a better Park City.

Talking will inevitably lead to discovering shared values and finding a way forward. Yes, we will continue to disagree, but let’s not let those disagreements build the same walls my family helped me erect.

If we want George Washington’s Grand Experiment to make it to 500 years, those walls, regardless of the mortar and brick they were built from, have to come down.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: America, a tapestry that weaves together appeared first on Park Record.

If you could go back in time, what is the one thing you would change? For me, the answer is easy.

This very premise is explored by Stephen King in his novel 11/22/63. I’ve been a Stephen King fan since being introduced to his short stories by my boss when I was a computer operator in the late ’70s. Until then, my dyslexia stood in the way of reading novels with any regularity. Something about King’s writing, especially the character development and his supernatural universe, was compelling enough for me to push through and become a lifelong reader.

In his book, King explores the idea of what would happen if someone were to travel back in time and prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Stopping Oswald before his evil takes out a beloved leader seems a quest worthy of Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from, you guessed it: Maine. But being a Stephen King story, let’s just say things did not turn out so well.

Back to what I would change. The answer is easy. I would stop whoever it was in the 1600s who decided to import a certain medieval cash crop to the United States. The same one that made entire towns like Toulouse, France, fabulously wealthy. Sure, fermenting the leaves resulted in an indigo blue dye used in everything from Viking war paint to Scottish clothing, but today, it has become the bane of my existence.

If you have not guessed yet, I’m referring to Dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria). While it was first imported to the East Coast as a cash crop in the 1600s, many believe the real western incursion to Utah and California occurred in 1910, when woad seeds hitched a ride in a bag of alfalfa seeds.

This plant is straight out of a King novel. I’m sure Randall Flagg himself carries a sack of them from his evil garden. The Walkin’ Dude spreads them throughout the West like a demented Johnny Appleseed. There they grow, fertilized by the very herbicide provided by the county’s weed department. At first, it is a cute little medallion, biding its time until year two when it produces its nasty yellow flowers, the color of Flagg’s teeth.

That’s when the noxious weed enlists an army of ants and mosquitoes to chase off would-be human weed pullers. Then, the tens of thousands of seeds produced by each plant are consumed by elk, deer, and birds, fertilized in their digestive systems, and distributed far and wide.

Killing the plant is not enough. Once those tiny, evil black seeds are released into the wild, they can lie dormant for eight to 10 years before germinating.

Whether a quarter-acre or 200, landowners in our community spend countless days and untold amounts of money attempting to control and eradicate this noxious invader. Our county government passes laws and funds an entire department dedicated to weed control. And while there are many noxious weeds in our community, none is more hated than the Russian mustard cousin we call Dyer’s woad.

So to save our hillsides, I’m going to need to punch 1910 into Dr. Emmett Brown’s DeLorean to intercept that delivery to Brigham City. Of course, the DeLorean will need some off-road tires and a lift, because once that flux capacitor does its magic, the smooth modern asphalt will be replaced by the bone-jarring ruts, dust and gravel of the railroad town’s main street.

Once I land, I’ll need to be dressed for the part. I’ll ditch the Marty McFly puffy vest and go with Roland’s gunslinger outfit from King’s “Dark Tower” series. Blending into the community is the priority. The six-shooter will have to be replaced by a clipboard when I land a job at the depot as a freight clerk. I’ll spend months checking every single seed sack unloaded from the incoming boxcars, waiting for the exact shipment contaminated by those noxious black woad seeds.

And believe me, after years in the trenches, I know exactly what those evil little black seeds look like. Once found, I’ll pack them off to the outskirts of town, build a massive bonfire, and light the night sky with thousands of bright embers fueled by the burning woad seeds.

Then I’ll pull out my DeLorean time machine, head back to the future, and … wait, what?! I forgot to put stabilizer in the gas tank!

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: If I could change one thing … appeared first on Park Record.

While the ski resorts bemoan the lack of substantial snowfall and warm weather, this past spring our East Side ranchers enjoyed “shirt-sleeve calving.”

Now that those calves are a few months old, the valley is in the middle of the most labor-intensive of the three seasonal windows of the ranching calendar: calving, branding, and the fall gather. Like most big brandings, the work actually starts indoors, with families putting clean sheets on the beds and dusting out the bunkhouses and guest cabins.

Then the crew arrives and heads out to the branding pens for a long day of roping, vaccinating and castrating. It’s an all-hands affair, drawing generations back home to lend a hand.

But thanks to the Summit County Council, those guest rooms are now required to remain dark for most of the year. By applying blanket, resort-town short-term rental restrictions to agricultural land, the county has effectively banned multigenerational families from using their own historic assets to fight the skyrocketing property taxes that price them out of their heritage.

In theory, the County’s STR crackdown makes perfect sense. Outlaw nightly rentals of accessory dwelling units, and you unlock a ton of workforce housing for the ski patrollers, lifties and kitchen staff who run the resorts while simultaneously cutting down on S.R. 224 traffic.

As well-intentioned as those rules are on paper, does anyone honestly think killing off a rural vacation rental in a place like Peoa solves the affordable housing crisis in Deer Valley? Not a chance. I can’t imagine a J-1 visa holder or a student taking a gap year to enjoy the ski-bum lifestyle while renting a basement room in Henefer for a job in Park City.

The real winners here are the consulting companies reaping mounds of taxpayer money to police local property owners, and the corporate hotels that can maximize revenue by locking guests into those in-house amenities.

While our resorts and bougie restaurants thrive, a growing demographic of vacationing families is looking to enjoy the tranquility and bright stars of a rural setting. Travelers are increasingly opting for historic cabins or homesteads rather than a couple of rooms at a resort hotel.

Ironically, these visitors want to experience the quiet, agricultural lifestyle our elected officials in Park City constantly claim they want to protect, or do they?

The financial trickle down of those rural nightly rentals directly hits our local businesses, too. When guests grab breakfast at the Oakley Diner or the Mirror Lake Diner, buy artwork at Artique, grab ice cream at Mix’s Place, and pick up new boots from the Bolt Ranch Store, they financially support our local families. If you are wondering how many folks staying at the Pendry skip the shops at Canyons Village to drive out and visit any of those East Side diners, let me help you out: None.

The economic impact doesn’t stop with retail and diners. Dozens of independent contractors rely on this boutique market. Small property managers, local cleaning crews, carpenters and handymen all benefit. Even the local hardware store wins because a competitive vacation market forces owners to constantly maintain and upgrade their spaces.

Clean, modern spaces with new appliances rent for more, which means these historic bunkhouses and guest cabins are ultimately better maintained and preserved for the next generation.

If we really care about open space, we should stop pricing out the large landowners who provide it. We should stop erecting barriers that keep locals from earning a little extra money with their land to hold onto their family homes. The cynic in me thinks the county wants to grow its own footprint by purchasing these properties under the guise of “managing open space” when locals can no longer afford the tax bill.

Or better yet, force families to sell out to mega-developers who will leverage teams of lawyers and friends in the Statehouse to build “little boxes made of ticky tacky … little boxes all the same.” But I suppose that is perfectly fine by the County Council. All those new “people in the houses, all went to the university, where they were put in boxes, and they came out all the same” — and they will all pay taxes to an ever-growing county government. Some might even step out of those boxes to become the next generation of lawyers and politicians working for those same developers.

Personally, I prefer the rancher who comes home to work the land with his teenage kids in tow. They’ll rope ’em, shoot ’em, brand ’em, cut ’em, and enjoy some Rocky Mountain oysters. All while those lawyers and politicians pop out of their boxes to enjoy fresh-shucked oysters washed down with High West Double Rye at the Montage Deer Valley.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: Rounding up all those short-term rentals appeared first on Park Record.

We have a saying in our family that applies to participating in competitive activities, and make no mistake, we can make anything competitive. “It isn’t a competition. Until IT IS!”

One of the strangest competitions is who can spend the least going out to dinner. We take pride in our frugality, handed down from our immigrant roots. Thanks Dad! Our eldest has managed to be the reigning champion of the least expensive tally at dinner. 

With a ski town that is packed full of former and current Olympic athletes, it is no surprise that the competitive spirit runs deep. Parades, high school sports, ski outfits, the colleges our kids attend, best dog off leash, fastest down the hill, and more. Even nonprofits get in on the action, turning our annual day of giving, Live PC Give PC, into a high-stakes, 24-hour fundraising sprint complete with online leaderboards. Everyone is a winner, right? Remember, It isn’t a competition, until IT IS.

The world of ski town rankings is just as competitive as our night out. For decades, our Park City hasn’t just participated in SKI Magazine’s annual guides or Condé Nast’s Reader’s Choice lists. We have dominated. Yeah, but it isn’t a competition, until IT IS.

Deer Valley has spent a generation hoarding No. 1 trophies for grooming and service, while Park City Mountain routinely locks down top honors for terrain and historic access. Heck, look at Stein Eriksen Lodge, which has a flawless Forbes Five-Star rating for 19 consecutive years. We are a town entirely conditioned to being No. 1.

So that is why I’m so happy that our City Council and mayor are now the highest paid of any of our peer ski towns. According to this paper’s reporting on the latest budget hearing, our elected officials decided it was time for a “market correction.” By voting to more than double their own compensation, they have secured the ultimate podium finish: nearly $150,000 for the mayor and over $88,000 for councilors.

Talk about competitive spirit! Why settle for being a top-ranked destination when our politicians can out earn the leadership in Vail, Aspen, and Jackson Hole? I’m sure our council and the administrators who recommended the increase will be quick to point out, “It isn’t a competition.” Well, yeah, until IT IS. 

But unlike my daughter, who wins virtually every time by being frugal, our council wins by being spendy and lining their own pockets!

But they did not start this race to the top, No! They got the idea from the equally competitive Summit County Council. When defending the pay increase, city staff actually pointed to Coalville to show who started the race. It turns out our municipal leaders were suffering from a severe case of payroll envy.

The cynic in me thinks they saw the county officials taking home their own padded packages and realized they were losing the local compensation competition — sorry, it is not a competition. Naturally, in a town used to winning, letting the county hold the record for “most expensive public servants” simply wouldn’t do.

But the real losers of this particular competition are the local taxpayers. We are already getting squeezed by a combined sales tax rate of 9.55%, which ironically, means it’s more expensive to buy things in Park City than it is in parts of Southern California. That’s right, California!

The candidate who lost the mayor’s race by a mere seven votes was bold enough to stand up at the meeting and point out the fiscal hypocrisy. Looking at these massive pay raises, I bet there are a lot more than seven voters in this town who are now experiencing some serious buyer’s remorse.

Next time my family sits down for dinner, I’m going to make sure our reigning champion of frugality gets an extra round of applause. In our house, saving a buck and keeping costs down makes you a winner. 

Maybe the folks at City Hall should pull up a chair and take some notes. But until they learn that true leadership means protecting the taxpayers’ wallets rather than padding their own, I suppose we’ll just have to keep footing the bill for their version of success. After all, fiscal responsibility isn’t a competition in Park City anymore.

Well, yeah. Until IT IS.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: Always out to beat the competition appeared first on Park Record.

Whenever my wife has a stressful day at work, I like to meet her at the door with a glass of red wine. It always brings a smile to her face and reinforces that sense of belonging that comes with being home.

This magic is possible because, like many families, we share our locations. My ability to perfectly time the dinner or have her beverage ready the moment she walks through the door is powered by technology: global positioning satellites, Google Maps, mobile data.

When our friends look at photos taken on trips to iconic locations like the Parthenon or the Pyramids of Giza, they comment on the lack of crowds. The sites weren’t empty. We just used the magic on our phones to identify and erase the people in the background.

When we walk up to our home at night, the porch lights illuminate on arrival. Cameras track the elk and turkeys near the barn. When someone enters the bathroom, a circulation pump kicks in to ensure the shower is hot before the handle is turned.

I can ask our smart home to play virtually any song ever recorded, or speak into a remote to summon my selection from a seemingly unlimited library of entertainment.

We’ve become accustomed to this “Star Trek” lifestyle. But every bit of this magic relies on hidden apparatus in a data center.

Before the recent explosion of large language models, what most of us refer to as artificial intelligence, the infrastructure was already there. It dates back to the earliest days of the phone company, when nondescript, windowless “central offices” were the brains behind the wired phones in our houses. As communication evolved, those buildings morphed into the modern data center.

Online shopping, live streaming, payroll systems, tax filing, dating apps and video streaming all require massive amounts of compute, the industry term for raw processing power and storage. And make no mistake, our country’s ability to compete and defend itself depends on us maintaining our lead in this digital arms race.

The catch? Data centers are the ultimate introverted neighbors. They require what Utah has: vast, flat, inexpensive land and access to water. More importantly, they need affordable energy to power the rows of servers and the massive air conditioners required to keep them from melting.

Elected officials need to get ahead of this. They need to realize that while building these monolithic structures creates jobs during a the construction boom, running them does not.

In my former life providing cloud services, I spent plenty of time in these facilities. I’d park next to a jet-engine-powered backup generator, swipe my card for access, and walk down long, cool, halls humming with servers. The overhead lights would illuminate as I moved, the only sign of life in a building filled with thousands of spinning fans.

I don’t remember ever seeing another human during those visits. Our friends in Box Elder County are trading thousands of acres of land for very few permanent jobs.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do know we need these centers for more than just AI. We need them for almost every facet of modern life. Yet, the thing that scares me most isn’t the power, the land or the water.

It’s the e-waste.

While the public debates the view of the building, nobody is talking about what happens every three to five years when those miles of racks are gutted and upgraded. We are building massive monuments to convenience, but we haven’t yet figured out where the old magic goes when it dies.

Maybe there’s a diplomatic solution in the offing: We strike a deal to send our 5-year-old servers to China. It would solve our mounting e-waste crisis while ensuring our global adversaries remain comfortably and permanently five years behind the curve.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: Less than meets the eye in benefit from Box Elder data center appeared first on Park Record.

Team Red and Team Blue are both talking about affordability a lot lately. For local politicians, the conversation has shifted from the general cost of living to the specific, crushing weight of housing. No wonder the cost of purchasing a home in the United States has grown at roughly 2.3 times the rate of the Consumer Price Index over the past decade.

But that is just the admission fee. When you factor in the mandatory carry costs like property taxes, insurance and utilities, the cost of maintaining a home has outpaced inflation by an even wider margin. While the price index rose by roughly 38% over the past 10 years, homeowners’ insurance jumped 92%, property taxes 65%, and utilities 52% in the United States.

If those numbers feel high, things are even more dire here in Summit County, where the decoupling of housing costs from the rest of the economy is turbo-charged. While the national market grew at twice the rate of inflation, Summit County has been lapping the field. Since 2016, our median sale price has surged from approximately $730,000 to over $1.8 million. For those who are good at math, that is a staggering 146% increase.

Experts point to a complex web of factors driving this crisis, and they aren’t wrong. But while we can’t put the inflation genie back in the bottle, our elected officials could start by doing one thing: They could fix time.

Wait, what? Change time?

Our lawmakers have already proven they can manipulate the clock. What proof? At 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1, they’ll command most of the nation to fall back. I’ve always wondered why we manage to be late for work when we spring forward, yet nobody ever seems to show up early when we fall back.

In the world of development, Standard Time doesn’t exist, only borrowed time. Ask any builder, and they will tell you that every day added to a project’s end is reflected on the future resident’s mortgage. When the county takes two weeks to review a traffic control plan, it costs money. When it takes 14 days for a fire inspector to approve the slope of a driveway, it costs money. When a clerk sends back a plan for a misspelled word and requires another three weeks to approve the correction? Mo money.

The reason is simple: Developers aren’t usually sitting on millions in cash. They are juggling architects, engineers, labor and materials fueled by construction financing. Between government-required bonding, insurance extensions, and interest on the construction loan, the daily burn can exceed $3,000 per day.

That month and a half of administrative friction adds up to nearly $150,000. And that is for a relatively clean 28-day delay.

Most builders in this county would welcome a month-long delay. In reality, typical multi-family projects run over by six months to a year. A six-month delay can add over half a million dollars to the budget, and if that friction drags on for a year, that $10 million project just turned into an $11 million project before the ink is dry on the certificate of occupancy.

Our elected officials have shown us they have the power to stop this clock, if only for an hour. They can help by limiting redundant bonding requirements, easing outdated regulations, and mandating “shot clock” time limits on utility providers and plan reviews.

Most importantly, we need a return to common sense. If a minor issue like a misspelled word crops up on an application, a simple phone call for a quick revision should replace the current practice of sending a developer to the back of a three-week line.

We don’t need our officials to turn back the clock this November. We just need them to stop it from running out on the people who want to live and work here. If we can mandate a change to the sunrise, we can certainly mandate a 24-hour turnaround on a clerical correction and next-day inspections. Every day saved is a dollar kept in the pocket of a local family.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

The post The Porcupine Quill: There’s a simple way to cut costs in building appeared first on Park Record.

I was wrong. The short story is this: Taking a road trip in an EV is no big deal.

I’m an avid car collector. Whenever people find out I collect cars, the inevitable question is: “How many do you have?” My answer is the same I give for how many horses and employees at my tech company: “Not enough and too many.”

All collectors have a theme — well, except Jay Leno. He just collects everything. For me, I have a weakness for iconic power plants, engines with real souls. I’m talking about the bulletproof Mercedes OM 617A diesel, the high-revving M110, and the brute force of the hand-built AMG M113 Kompressor. I’ve loved the American muscle of the Chevrolet LS3 and the Roush Supercharged V8, the Italian opera of the Ferrari Tipo F113, the British elegance of the Jaguar inline-six, and even the quirky, four-bearing BMC B-Series.

Most cars in my collection were thoughtful, well-researched additions, but a couple were purely impulsive choices made at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale. A piece of advice for those afflicted with car mania: Don’t go to Barrett-Jackson, and if you do, don’t accept any of the “free” drinks. They are the most expensive cocktails you’ll ever drink.

I’ve since come to my senses and culled the fleet considerably. One benefit of once owning a diverse fleet was the luxury of selecting a vehicle appropriate for the journey. I thought of my garage as accessory storage for our outings.

That was all about to change when circumstances required me to drive to our job site in Southern California. The obvious choice was the GMC 2500 HD pickup with the wonderful LMM Duramax engine. After all, it’s a company truck. I’d look the part — dressed in my Carhartts, hopping out of a big diesel rig at the site.

The thing is, diesel prices are crazy, and in California, they’re approaching $7.50 a gallon. Persona is important, but people who know me know that frugality wins out every time. I like to think of myself as economically disciplined, but my wife usually just goes with “he is cheap.”

I kept looking at that Ford Mustang Mach-E parked in the garage. Each time I did the math: 20 gallons of “go-go juice” for $150, or a 20 to 80% charge for $23. Range anxiety be damned, the oil burner was staying in the garage!

I mapped out charging stations, booked a room halfway, and set out for the Gold Coast.

The Mach-E is comfortable — huge screen, great sound system, quiet ride and semi-autonomous driving. On the highway, the car essentially drives itself. It even changes lanes with a flick of the turn signal.

On that first leg, my eyes were glued to the range meter. By the time I hit 40%, I started to worry if the fast charger in the car actually worked. Maybe I should have tested it closer to home? At 30%, I wondered if I’d even make it to my first stop in Scipio. At 20%, I was in a full-on sweat and turned off the climate control to save juice.

All that worry was silly. I pulled into the charger with over 50 miles to spare. While the lot was crowded with all kinds of EVs, there were plenty of stalls open at the ChargePoint station.

Charging is a breeze. With the Ford-supplied adapter, I can select any quick charger, including Tesla Superchargers. I never had to wait, they always worked, and by the time I took a bio-break, grabbed a snack, and answered a few texts, the car was back at 80%.

Yes, I had to stop for “fuel” more often than with my 26-gallon truck tank, but at my age, the Mach-E doesn’t dictate my stops. My prostate does. Nature stops calling and starts screaming around the 200-mile mark.

I’m sure that at oil wells of Montana, the EV a very expensive paperweight, but in Oceanside, it turned out to be a fashion statement with the crew. I went along and let them think I was being green rather than just being cheap. 

We purchased our first EV five years ago, but we mistakenly overlooked it for road trips, assuming it was only for local errands. After this 11-hour, 750-mile journey, I’ll be taking the EV on almost every trip — unless I’m hauling a trailer, that is.

If you’ve been keeping your EV on a short leash for local errands while you let the gasser handle the miles, stop. Don’t be wrong for five years like I was. Between the autonomous driving and the charging stops, it’s the most relaxing 750 miles I’ve ever driven. Besides, trust me — your own internal “low battery” light will definitely start yelling before the car’s does.

Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at aristides.ioannides@gmail.com

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