It was a true celebration when Patty García was called to the stage, the backing and admiration of her peers evident in the cheerful roar of support that filled the room of Park City Community Foundation’s Grant Celebration at Snow Park Lodge.

García had won the Trisha J. Worthington Community Service Award, which the foundation confers annually to an individual who has been generous with their time and talent to charitable and community endeavors. 

Currently serving as the patient access director for the People’s Health Clinic, Garcia is also a board member of PC Tots and a mother of four, and she is widely recognized for her dedication and advocacy in creating accessible and inclusive opportunities in health care and child care for the community. 

The foundation also said that García had been nominated multiple times for the award this year and last.

“Patty has a heart of gold and is a tireless champion for child care and health care,” said Sue Banerjee, executive director of PC Tots. “Despite working full time and raising her own children, she finds time to support the community through formal and informal ways. She is there to connect people to services and give advice. … She has been a voice for many who otherwise would not be heard.”

“I feel so happy,” said García, “I am surprised, but I feel very happy to have been recognized, and for my work to have been recognized.”

It’s an honor, she said, and she appreciates the recognition for doing something she loves.

García said she loves to go to work and interact with the people she is there to serve. She spoke about the close-knit types of relationships she has built over the years and how fortunate she feels to be in a position where patients trust that she will help them. 

“I love that people come to me because they know I will do my best to help them with whatever they need,” said García, “I feel that sometimes you can get tired of what you do or say that, but whenever you look at something and think, if we weren’t here, if the clinicians weren’t here, this man would have never known his diagnosis, or this woman would have never known this was happening to her — knowing that I can help them is the best feeling I could have.”

The People’s Health Clinic is a volunteer-driven organization that summarizes its mission in three words: “Here, we care.”

García said she strives to be a person of trust, one who is available to help those without support systems or who otherwise might be alone, unseen, untreated and unheard.

García said that especially in a situation in which not everyone qualifies for health care, and particularly when helping the undocumented community — because they are often the ones who don’t qualify for any programs — knowing that she is helping them and that they can trust her just as she trusts them fills her heart.

She likened this type of trust to what she she aims to provide for her parents.

“More than anything, I know that if I don’t do things for (my parents), no one else is going to do it for them. So I want them to know that I am the person who will be there for them.”

In the same way, García’s goal is to provide that care to those in the community who need it, every step of the way, no matter the magnitude or difficulty of what someone may be facing.

“I’ll hold your hand until you get what you need,” said García.

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A bill broadening the taxation powers and other abilities of the Utah Military Installation and Development Bill now only needs Gov. Cox’s signature before it becomes state law.

Senate Bill 169 — sponsored by Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton and Rep. Orem Rep. Val Peterson, R-Orem — passed in the state Senate on Feb. 26 before being sent to the House Business and Labor Committee, where it received a unanimous vote for a favorable recommendation. See https://le.utah.gov/~2024/bills/static/SB0169.html

Along with allowing MIDA’s board to impose an accommodations tax of up to 15% for certain accommodations and services sold within MIDA areas — a tax that doesn’t come with an expiration date — the bill also allows MIDA to make agreements with school districts to let them keep some of their tax-revenue increases that would otherwise go to MIDA.

The bill also exempts MIDA from needing to post physical notices of meetings.

According to MIDA chief legal officer Nicole Cottle, MIDA will still give online notices but some project areas are not in convenient places for the land-use authority to physically post notices.

Senators and representatives who opposed the bill expressed worries about its allowance for MIDA to bypass physical notice requirements and the increased power it gives the land-use authority.

Sen. Heidi Balderree, R-Salt Lake, said it was the lines exempting the physical notices of meetings that lost her votes.

Other representatives worried the bill would empower land-use authorities further, something they see as an overstep from state government.

“MIDA already lacks transparency in many ways, and is emblematic with many of the state land authorities exceeding what they were originally intended,” Brett Garner, D-West Valley City, told The Park Record. “I don’t believe this is a proper role of the state government in the end.”

Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake, expressed worry as to whether groups like MIDA are entirely focused on the public interest. 

“I’m concerned with the continued expansion of authorities generally in Utah and the potential for these groups to make significant decisions and spend significant money without proper oversight or accountability,” he said. “It remains an open question whether these bodies are constitutional or not, because they stretch the bounds of separation of powers. There is too great an opportunity for malfeasance or undue influence, and I always think carefully about my votes on entities that have the potential to misuse funds or contribute to personal gain at public expense.”

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Dave Stewart did not go into depth about the controversies and disagreements that have followed local discussions about possible routes in a transportation corridor that would cut through the west side of the Heber Valley, but he did warn the Heber City Council on Tuesday that local governments need to find their way to agreement on corridor plans.

The state’s legislative session will begin Jan. 16. Stewart — a lobbyist for a group of governments including Heber City — said that while federal funding has resulted in a large surplus of state funds over the past two years, this year likely will be different.

“There’s certainly a slowdown now,” he said. “The good news is it’s not nearly as severe as was anticipated.”

Still, budgets will be tighter and that tightness could translate to an even longer wait for those worried about heavy traffic congestion through Heber City.

“Inflation’s gone crazy. Transportation infrastructure projects are all 20%, 30% and 40% overruns,” he said. “Every project at UDOT is seeing that.”

Though Department of Transportation’s draft environmental impact statement regarding the project and four route possibilities is supposed to be released early this year, it has already been pushed from its initial expected release in fall 2023, and Stewart predicted it will again be delayed until this summer.

Stewart said he believes the less state funding available this legislative session and a stretched project time frame for the corridor might be a good thing, as it provides more time for UDOT and the community to finalize bypass plans before trying to fund them. 

Still, he noted UDOT has a lot more projects than resources, and if the department sees local governments are unable to agree on projects or their details, that could make those less likely to win state funding.

“One of the key things will be that the local governments, local entities are all on the same page. Obviously, there’s different alignments and I know people are nervous about some of those and where it’s going to go,” Stewart said. “If the city or the county or others are pushing back, then that just gives UDOT a very easy excuse to shelve it and just leave it there for until people get on the same page.”

Stewart said if there are other communities in need of UDOT’s resources and the department doesn’t need to sit in the middle of disagreements over road placements, it will likely prioritize those.

“They’re not here to steamroll local governments. They largely want to see those as partners,” he said.

Pedestrian accidents with automobiles, growing traffic times on Heber City’s Main Street and concerns over semis traveling through the center of the city as they lack other options have resulted in public consensus that some type of corridor is needed, but that consensus has not extended into conversations about where exactly the corridor should go.

After developing possible alternatives to address the situations, UDOT discarded about 20 of them “because they were not reasonable and practicable, they did not support local or regional traffic mobility, they did not support Heber City’s vision for its historic town center, or the impacts were too great.”

Some of these disqualified alternatives involved widening or otherwise altering U.S. 40 or creating an eastern bypass.

Three of the five remaining alternative routes plan to build local roads along U.S. 40 until it intersects with 800 North, where an intersection would allow traffic to take a road around the west side of Heber City. The other two have through routes that begin diverting traffic from the north much earlier at U.S. 40’s intersection with River Road.

Though some argue the quicker diversion of southbound traffic will lead to a longer-lasting solution, others worry about the paths’ impacts to the fields north of Heber City and areas that have been beautified by the Provo River Restoration Project, an effort that began in 1999 to take the diked and channeled river and make it resemble what it was before it was altered.

While Heber City has not officially endorsed any of the five routes over others. According to City Manager Matt Brower, the city has taken the position “to support UDOT and the EIS process while not taking any official position the proposed alternatives.” But invdividual city councilors have sent their opinions to UDOT.

Mayor Heidi Franco has used her “The Mayor’s Report” blog to speak against councilors who determined the routes that would cut into the north fields would be better, and Wasatch County as an entity submitted a comment to UDOT stating it didn’t believe the department had adequately considered the value the community places in the north fields.

“Not everybody may love every part of it, but hopefully there’ll be a broad support and consensus,” Stewart said.

The post Lobbyist warns Heber City Council that without alignment, state could pass them over with transportation corridor appeared first on Park Record.

Watch out, Heber City deer, the City Council has your number.

In the last few minutes of Tuesday evening’s regular meeting, the body discussed an issue they’ve seen become more and more problematic over the past few years: Deer that don’t just visit Heber City in the winter during their search for food, but call the city their year-round home as much as any human resident.

The conversation was on the agenda at the request of Councilor Scott Phillips, who suggested the city use a Utah Department of Natural Resources program in which the problematic hoofed creatures could be captured, euthanized and processed into meat donated to local food banks.

Though council members were broadly open to learning more about the program and its possible implementation in Heber City, their support did not come without reservation.

“I don’t want to kill Bambi’s mom,” Councilor Yvonne Barney lamented.

Phillips suggested one way such guilt could be mitigated.

“I’ll put out a memo to all the deer and say go home if you don’t want to be hamburger,” he said.

Councilor Rachel Kahler noted that the program could potentially provide solutions to two issues in the community — it could help protect gardens that are annually destroyed by hungry cervids as well as secure a protein source for food banks.

“I don’t know if we’re meeting the demands when it comes to protein,” she said. “I’m in favor of it.”

Councilor Mike Johnston noted that every evening he notices at least 20 deer or so pass through his neighborhood, and scores of the animals seem to die in the winter, leaving their carcasses wherever they last failed to find food or along the sides of roads where they were killed.

“It’s just worse and worse every year,” he said.

Mayor Heidi Franco said she expected people would dislike the program if it led to deer being euthanized in their yards for them to see.

“We need to know where DNR would do their work,” she said. “We’ve had this come to the city before where I think DNR had archers. … That didn’t go over.”

She was also concerned what the program could cost the city.

While Phillips had few details ready to share, he said he mainly brought the idea up to gauge interest and will look further into the possibility.

“It’s an August program, so it’s only taking care of the deer that are here during the summer,” Phillips said. “The other deer that go back up in the mountains in the summer are not the ones we’re concerned about.”

While areas bordering Heber City were once hunted, Phillips said annexations and developments have removed that check on the deer population, leaving it to expand more rapidly than before.

“The deer in our neighborhood are very smart,” Barney said. “They know where to hide.”

“We can see how smart they are with the DNR,” Phillips responded.

The council determined to contact DNR to learn more about the option.

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Park City Institute and the Park City Beethoven Festival have compared musical notes and announced their first chamber music concert of 2022 will be on Sunday, Feb. 6, at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.

The concert, scheduled tol start at 3 p.m., will feature pianist John Novacek, and include Beethoven’s Trio Op. 1 No. 1 for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, and Jean Francaix’s 1990 Trio of Clarinet, Viola and Piano, before wrapping with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 110.

“It’s going to be a great performance that will include some great classical music, and a piece from the 20th century,” said Ari Ioannides, Park City Institute executive director. “So it’s going to be really neat.”

The concert will also feature Park City Beethoven Festival resident artists, violist Leslie Harlow and her husband, clarinetist Russell Harlow.

“We are thrilled to be performing with John Novacek for this performance,” said Leslie Harlow, Park City Beethoven Festival founder. “He presented the Beethoven Sonata in New York City not too long ago, and this will be his (Beethoven) Festival debut of the Beethoven Op. 1 No. 1 Piano Trio and the Francaix Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano.”

Harlow said the program is filled with “contrast and color, melody and a bit of madness.”

“The program begins with one of Beethoven’s earliest chamber works, the first of three trios originally written for piano, violin and cello,” she said. “Until these works Beethoven was known primarily as a phenomenal concert pianist and improvisor, and these trios served as his introduction to Viennese classical music society as a wonderful composer.”

The program will then lead into the Trio by Francaix.

“It is filled with virtuoso flair and has a mad, cabaret style,” Harlow said.

After a short intermission, Novacek will perform Beethoven’s 31st Piano Sonata, the second to last sonata the composer wrote, Harlow said.

“The Sonatas are considered by many to be the finest collection of the greatest piano solo masterpieces ever composed,” she said. “Glorious nature aside, (this) Sonata brings us back to Beethoven’s earliest, most human and intimate style.”

Novacek has recorded 35 CDs, and regularly tours the globe as a solo artist, chamber musician and concerto soloist, Harlow said.

“He has performed in over 30 concerts with dozens of orchestras,” she said.

The pianist has worked with notable and award-winning musicians such as violinists Joshua Bell and Leila Josefowicz, and cellists Matt Haimovitz and Yo-Yo Ma, as well as the St. Lawrence, SuperNova and Ying string quartets.

Novacek also tours widely as a member of the Intersection Music Trio, which includes violinist Laura Frautschi and cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper, Harlow said.

Ioannides said the Park City Beethoven Festival’s concerts adds artistic variety to the Park City Institute lineup.

“In the next couple of months we have Kenny Loggins, Stephanie Land, Dance Theatre of Harlem and these classical performances,” he said. “And these all really excite me like never before.”

Ioannides also enjoys working with the Beethoven Festival, because it, like the Park City institute, is a local nonprofit.

“We are trying to work with other local nonprofits more and more,” he said. “Last year we worked with Mountain Town Music to present a free concert, and I think you will see us work with other nonprofits in town.”

The partnership with the Beethoven Festival is a “no brainer,” Ioannides said.

“The Harlows do all the booking, and we provide the space and we do all the tech,” he said.

“The theater is the ideal place for this, because there is plenty of room, and it’s rarely used on Sundays. Plus, these are shows you can bring the whole family to, and still have time to get dinner afterward.”

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Park City residents tuning in to “American Idol” Monday evening to see if their fellow Parkite Wyatt Pike made the top 12 in the singing competition were hit with a shock.

“Before we get to the results, I have to tell you that finalist Wyatt Pike will not be competing in the competition. He had to drop out, but we wish him the very best,” said host Ryan Seacrest.

No explanation was given as to why Pike, who made it into the top 16 the night before, had to drop out.

“American Idol” issued a statement Tuesday.

“Wyatt could not continue due to personal reasons, and we cannot comment further,” it said.

Pike broke his silence on his official Facebook page Wednesday afternoon and reiterated the “American Idol” statement.

“I had to leave the #AmericanIdol competition for personal reasons but am so thankful I get to play music for the rest of my life. Fellow contestants – miss you all, good luck! Thank you to everyone for your support… do stick around for more musical things soon!”

Other attempts to contact Pike have been unsuccessful.

After Monday’s announcement, Pike’s fans took to Twitter to show their support.

“Are they really going to say @WyattPike just dropped out and not a reason why!!!!! He was my fav Pensive faceI hope he is okay and hope someone will sign him soon,” said a user with the handle @RBShabad, while user @SethJerebek said: “The people need to know why you dropped out of @AmericanIdol!! Let us know you are okay!”

Pike came into the reality music competition show six years after Parkite Austin Wolfe, now known as OSTON, reached the top 30 of season 16.

Pike won the hearts of judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan when he performed an original tune, “Best for You,” a song he wrote for his sister and the lead single off his album “Brand New Boy,” during his November audition in Ojai, California.

The audition aired on March 14, and turned Pike into a household name, which was proven when fans voted him into the top 16.

Pike’s top-16 placement was announced during Sunday night’s airing of “American Idol,” which was taped a week ago.

After Seacrest announced the Park City-based singer-songwriter as the seventh contestant to move up on Sunday, Pike, armed with his guitar, took the stage and performed a spirited take on Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” to the praise of judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan.

“I think you do have a little bit of an angle in this competition (in) that you’re an authentic singer-songwriter,” Perry said. “I think whatever happens, you’re it.”

Bryan also gave his accolades with a more personal story.

“I remember one of the coolest things ever happened to me is the day I realized that I get to do music forever, under any circumstance,” he said. “I’m telling you, Wyatt, you are going to be able to do music for the rest of your life.”

Richie agreed with Bryan about Pike’s musical future.

“You have a style on stage that we like to watch,” Richie said. “And to watch you take that song and make it your song, you’re on your way to something big, my friend.”

Pike wasn’t the only one absent from Monday’s airing.

Judge Luke Bryan tested positive for COVID-19, and was resting at home, according to Seacrest.

Paula Abdul, one of the original “American Idol” judges, filled in for Bryan.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated with a statement from Wyatt Pike’s official Facebook account.

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