Leadership 101 is designed for people who want to learn about a broad range of issues in a condensed format. Three organizations – Leadership Park City, the Park City Chamber/Bureau and the Park City Community Foundation – present Leadership 101. The program marks 20 years in 2017.

Leadership 101 involves a lineup of speakers from the public and not-for-profit sectors, including a series of City Hall officials. The mayor of Park City typically delivers a de facto state of the city address annually during Leadership 101. Mayor Jack Thomas is scheduled to speak for 20 minutes early in the event. Diane Foster, the Park City manager, is also slated to talk to the crowd. The Park City School District will present as will officials from the County Courthouse.

City Hall managers will provide comments as well. A combined 45 minutes are set aside for Anne Laurent, the community development director, sustainability manager Luke Cartin and Alfred Knotts, who is the transportation manager. Police Chief Wade Carpenter and Sheriff Justin Martinez will also speak. Other presenters will discuss tourism and the legacy from the 2002 Winter Olympics. A panel of figures from not-for-profit organizations will talk for 30 minutes.

Leadership 101 is scheduled from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Park City – The Yarrow. There is a $35 registration fee with lunch and breaks included in the price.

More information and registration is available on the City Hall website, http://www.parkcity.org. Select ‘Leadership 101’ on the front page of the website. The direct link is: http://www.parkcity.org/departments/leadership-park-city. More information is also available by contacting Karen Anderson at City Hall, 615-5186 or karen.anderson@parkcity.org.

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Several lawmakers in recent weeks have indicated their support for doing away with the Zion Curtain, a slang term for the partition many restaurants are required by law to use to hide the preparation of alcoholic beverages from the sight of customers. Gov. Gary Herbert, too, has put his weight behind the effort, recently mentioning it in his annual “State of the State” address.

As of Friday, no bill that would do away with the Zion Curtain had been released, but Hans Fuegi, owner of Park City’s Grub Steak Restaurant and the head of the Utah Restaurant Association’s liquor task force, said he’s more hopeful than ever that the partitions are on their way out.

“I was very encouraged to see that the governor seems to be in favor of eliminating it, which wasn’t the case before,” he said. “… It seems like there’s a really good effort from some legislators who seem to be convinced that it’s time for the Zion Curtain to go.”

Bill Malone, president and CEO of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, said he’s also optimistic legislators will pass a bill to strike down the Zion curtain law. However, he is concerned the bill may include additional elements that could make it less of a triumph for restaurants or alcohol drinkers in Utah.

Salt Lake City media outlets have reported, for instance, that the legislation might be accompanied by an increase the price of products at state liquor stores by a percentage point or two to pay for more training for restaurant staff about the liquor laws.

“I think, like everyone, you have to look at that and go, ‘It’s progress,’” he said. “We’re making progress. It’s unfortunate that we feel sometimes like we can’t make progress for progress’s sake and you have to give up something to get the progress. That’s frustrating.”

Fuegi added that he and many others in the restaurant industry will remain somewhat skeptical until they see a draft of the bill.

“The devil is always in the details,” he said. “There’s always a trade for any time the liquor laws get changed. But I think we just need to find out exactly what the industry will have to give to make the curtain go away. That’s where the rubber meets the road.”

Regardless, tearing down the Zion Curtain would be cause for celebration for restaurants and Park City’s tourism industry, Malone said. He compared the impact to when Utah did away in 2009 with the law requiring patrons possess private club memberships to enter bars, which made it much more difficult for visitors to find a cocktail on Main Street.

“This may not have as much of a personal impact on someone because it’s not somebody out front asking you for your driver’s license and asking if you’re a member, but it’s going to change the look and the feel of a lot of places,” he said. “You can see somebody making a drink for you, and you’re not going, ‘Where did that person go? Why are they behind that wall?’”

Malone added that confusion about Utah’s liquor laws remains one of the things the Chamber/Bureau hears most often in focus groups with prospective visitors to Park City.

“The sad part about it is it’s more prevalent in conversations with people who have never been here than people who have been here,” he said. “People who haven’t been here can kind of cite to you by verse the bad things about the uncomfortable, awkward moments in terms of serving alcohol in Utah.”

Eliminating the Zion Curtain — and the confusion among out-of-state guests when they see their server retreating behind a barrier to pour their Moscow Mules — could go a long way toward changing the state’s reputation, Fuegi said.

“I think it has quite a big impact on that reputation,” he said. “It’s so unusual to go to something that looks like a bar, where you can display liquor and do everything but make the actual drink or pour the actual glass of wine at that bar. That’s the kind of thing that leads to articles making fun of the state, and none of us want to see that.”

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The uncertainty surrounding the national and global economy after the presidential election is concerning, and roadblocks may lie ahead, but for now Park City is chugging along as smoothly as ever.

That was the crux of the message Park City Chamber/Bureau officials delivered Wednesday at the organization’s annual Economic Forecast Luncheon, held at the Park City Marriott. Chris Eggleton, chairman of the Chamber/Bureau’s board of directors, and president and CEO Bill Malone took to the stage and lauded the business community for helping make it another successful ski season.

In an interview with The Park Record following the luncheon, Malone expounded on that message, saying visitation has been up over last year for much of the ski season so far. And the number of reservations on the books through mid-March — the farthest statistical outlook available to the Chamber/Bureau — indicates things are unlikely to slow down over the next month and a half.

“From our point now through mid-March, we’re golden,” he said. “We’re in great shape.”

The early signs are also pointing to a strong summer, Malone said. The Chamber/Bureau has generated “a ton” of leads for business convention travel — the primary demographic of summer visitors — for this year, as well as the summers of 2018 and 2019.

“Those are trending very positive,” he said. “That gives us a lot of optimism. We can say we’re strong on the leisure (travel) in the short-term, and we’re strong on the corporate and incentive business on the long-term.”

But things are less certain between mid-March and the summer. Malone said businesses can lose a lot of the gains they made in the winter during the early spring, a timeframe in which Park City’s often experiences a significant lull.

This year, the Chamber/Bureau is hoping to reverse the status quo.

For the first time, the organization is deploying a national marketing campaign aimed at luring more visitors during the spring. The television and digital ad effort, dubbed Spring It On, will be featured in several of the largest markets in the country and aims to showcase the unique things Park City offers during the spring.

“We need to focus some energy on that timeframe,” Malone said. “We held back on some of our marketing. We started earlier, took a break in the holiday period, then went for a couple weeks after the holidays and took another break. Now, we’re hitting a new message, and it’s all about sunshine, activities, skiing and concerts in the spring.”

As much effort as the Chamber/Bureau is spending, the business community’s support of the campaign is what could ultimately make the difference, Malone said. Businesses throughout the area are banding together to offer specials during that period in an effort to drum up more interest. It’s a similar strategy to one that has yielded increased visitation during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend in recent years.

“We can go out there and talk about it, but if they can put the muscle behind it that says, ‘Hey, here’s what you get extra, here’s the added value,’ that’s the type of thing that makes people pull out their credit card,” he said. “That’s what we’re seeing on the spring campaign. We’re seeing lodging, restaurants, activities, retail coming together and putting things out there that hopefully are motivating to people.”

Another factor playing in Park City’s favor is this winter’s plentiful snowfall. It’s likely there will be enough snow to keep conditions at Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain Resort good well into the spring, an element Eggleton highlighted as he described the marketing campaign to those attending the luncheon.

“That can be some of the best time to ski Park City,” he.

Amid the optimism, officials also described the challenges the Park City economy faces. Chief among them, Malone said, is that employers are finding it increasingly difficult to hire enough employees, and they often rely on people who commute from the Wasatch County or the Salt Lake Valley.

The Park City and Summit County governments have identified affordable housing and transportation as key issues, and solving them would provide a larger local workforce Malone said he’s confident they can find solutions, but he worries it may take longer than employers would like. And in the meantime, it could put a throttle on the local economy at a time when it’s flourishing.

“Unfortunately, these things don’t happen fast,” he said. “It takes years to build and make the progress. But I think we’re light-years ahead of a lot of places because we’re addressing the issues.”

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