Rob Bishop Comes To Park City – Weds 3/14 7:00pm
Rob Bishop, the Summit County Republican Congressman who underwrote the SkiLink bill and introduced it, will be making an appearance on Wednesday evening at Wasatch Bagel – 1300 Snow Creek Drive in Park City. This is your chance to see Rob up close and express your opinion on SkiLink (signs would be helpful), which may be all of the public input this project gets.
The bagels are brought to you by the Summit County Republican Party, so any discussion of why they have a hole in them and what it can be used for will be struck from the record. Abstinence is the best policy, except when giving away public lands to foreign developers, when you should just bend over.
Category: Announcements
Thanks for keeping everyone up to date on the developments and opportunities to fight this madness. It really needs to be said that this isn’t just an issue for back country skiers. It is an issue of the public losing public land to a private company without support from the public. It is an issue that every resident near the Wasatch or anyone who may travel here should be highly concerned about.
As a Republican running against Rob Bishop, I am also very concerned about the SkiLink Project. I live in Summit County, and this piece of legislation circumvents the State of Utah and the County in making decisions on land. The Federal government should not own our land, but to simply sell it to a foreign corporation is the wrong way to handle things. Our land has had multiple uses for hundreds of years. The Federal government should not be making the deicisions for Utah.
We welcome you to come to Caucus night on Thursday, 6:30 in all three locations (Park City High School, North Summit High School, and South Summit Middle School) to attend. Find your precinct location at http://www.utgop.org UTAH has a real choice this time around. Send Mrs. Smith to Washington! http://www.MrsSmithGoesToWashington.com
What should be looked at is that there is a viable and strong Republican challenger to Bishop who I think many Republicans and Democrats a like would as a replacement to Bishop. Her name is Jacqueline Smith and her website is http://www.jacquelinesmith2012.com.
Why don’t the counties just open Guardsman Pass Road in the winter and forget about SkiLink? I’m sure that has its own issues, but I like the idea of that better than Talisker having a role in Big Cottonwood.
Matt- because that does not create a “European” atmosphere and the ski link does.
I got there late but, let Rob Bishop know that we don’t want our public lands sold off to a private company!
How’d the meet and greet and bagel toss go? I’d love to hear about it!
I attended Bishop’s campaign meeting. I asked him why he decided to support this bill and he would not answer. His answer to every question was “I’m not going to rail road this through Congress.” (In other words, “I’m going to make sure everything is done properly to cover my tracks”. But for sure, he is going to track it through to get it passed,) He was non-committal about public comment.
When someone asked why we don’t lease the land to Talisker he seemed surprised, like he had not thought of leasing. When another person brought up Guardsman’s pass, again he was surprised. His only goal is to please Talisker. He tried to deflect responsibility by saying it is also Lee, Hatch and Chavetz in on the deal.
He said “present alternative solutions” and that retracting the bill is not an option.
Why should we create an alternative solution to a problem that does not exist?
If Talisker has enough money to buy the Park City Resort, we should not have to invent a way for them to fill up their Canyons Resort lodging, because no one wants to ski at The Canyons. This is a bail out for Talisker.
If you want a European experience, go Ski Europe. If you want a unique Rocky Mountain experience, with the best snow in the country, then ski Utah.
I’s also like to know how the event turned out.
FYI – Just wrote Jason Chaffetz expressing opposition today and received a kind reply thanking me for my opinion but reiterating his support for this project. I recommend anyone else (everyone else) in this district contact him by email (he reads them all) and respectfully voice your opposition.
jason@chaffetz.com
Right on, Andrew! Am glad to know about this and that you are informing skiers and the general public. Pretty outrageous what these crooks are trying to pull off!
Pretty funny that ‘European atmosphere” is being promoted. Basically, what is going on over there in places such as Tirol is a travesty, as they’re building cable ways at a furious pace, each one taking more beautiful backcountry land that is frequently perfect for pristine ski touring.
Andrew, I hope you guys can somehow influence things in Utah so ski development is wiser.
Those of you who tout the ‘European model’ in your political views might want to take note (grin).
Thanks for the support Jacqueline! I would be more than happy to vote for you, or anyone who publicly opposes SkiLink.
Thanks Lou. Every time I hear the “make it like Europe” argument it reminds me that those European mountain towns had roads, trains, tunnels and PUBLIC infrastructure serving them long before any trams, let alone ski resorts showed up. If the Wasatch really wants to be like Europe, they/we should start with that first, ie, parking, transit and a well thought out overall plan, not just plugging in lifts with $100 entry fee price tags. As a mode of “transportation,” which is how it is being billed, the SkiLink would cost $96 to go two miles, or $50 per mile.
Hi Grizzly – here’s my recap of it…
I braved a trip into the belly of the beast and attended this meeting last night. Bishop himself is a rotund little man with tasseled loafers and an annoying habit of answering everything but the question asked. When asked how he could be part and parcel to a public institution with a nine percent approval rating, Bishop agreed and said that the real problem was that the US was issuing “resolutions of force” instead of Declarations of War, and although he didn’t support resolutions of force, he would be happy to support a declaration of war. That’s nice, but still… how do you explain the crappy job you and your cronies are doing?
Bishop then went into a long-winded explanation of how he supported Federalism in the true sense of the word, ie, putting power back into the hands of the people who are best suited to make decisions – local government. This was painfully ironic in terms of the SkiLink project as he did just the opposite of that – circumvented local government agencies and the public input process to try to sell off 30 acres of public US land to a privately held multinational foreign corporation.
One of the first questions of the evening had to do with SkiLink, to which Bishop said he was going to hold off talking about until the very end. About 12 people in the room of 60 or so indicated they were there specifically to talk about SkiLink.
When the topic of SkiLink finally came around, I asked him point blank what his rationale for the project was, if he planned on offering the same deal to Solitude, Snowbird and Alta, and what his vision, if any for the future of the Wasatch Mountains were. He nodded at me, then asked for the next question.
Eventually he conceded that something had to be done aside from more studies, which is why he introduced the bill. Exactly what the problem is to his solution remains unclear, but I’m sure the $6,000 contribution he received from Talisker was part of his personal solution.
He claimed that he wanted to hear from everybody on this topic, especially those comments which provided alternative solutions. Someone mentioned the Guardsman’s Pass road, which seemed like a major revelation to him (and Ted Wilson as well). Really? There’s already a road between the two resorts..?! Gosh. OK.
He then went on to claim that he was “slow walking” this bill to make sure that it was the right thing. A minute later he admitted that yes, the bill was now out of his hands and on its way to the Senate, but he was keeping an eye on it. It reminded me of a portly Commander saying he was keeping an eye on a torpedo that he had just fired and promising to do everything he could to make sure it didn’t hurt any innocent people.
In the end, he urged people to write his office with opinions and alternative solutions. After the meeting I approached him one-on-one and told him that my efforts at contacting him had just been met with a formal rejection letter stating the usual drivel – reduced pollution, economic benefit, etc.. I then asked him if he knew that the SkiLink was going to cost over $100 per person for a day pass. He said he didn’t. I then asked him why there had been ZERO public input or meetings regarding this project, to which he said there had been LOTS of meetings before he submitted the bill, but, uhmmm, yes, they had not really been open to the public. But please, send me a letter with alternative suggestions.
Meeting adjourned and on to cookies.
At this point I think you have to take him at his word – continue to write him and make sure to offer alternative solutions, ie, plowing Guardsman’s Pass, transit systems up BCC and LCC, etc.. Bishop is just another human in a neatly pressed suit. Don’t be intimidated by writing, calling or pestering him. He is obviously aware of the controversial nature of this project.
Thanks Andrew!