City Watch

The Park City Council took on a range of e-bike use issues this week, voting against a proposed year-long pilot program that would have allowed e-bikes to be used on trails in Round Valley and voting to approve the inclusion of seniors over 65 into the current ordinance that permits riders with mobility issues to use e-bikes on all Park City trails. The Council’s ruling come on the heels of passionate pleas from the public both for and against the use of e-bikes. Though settled for the moment, the issue of e-bike use on trails is far from decided, and the final ruling will likely come from outside local boundaries.

E-bikes are not true motor bikes. They lack a throttle and instead use battery-powered pedal assist motors to help riders with additional power, particularly when going uphill. They are common and well-accepted commuter tools—Park City is home to the country’s first all e-bike ride share program—but their use on non-motorized off-road trails has been the subject of much debate.

Many vociferously opposed the pilot program to allow e-bikes on Round Valley trails, and those opinions won out. The biggest complications from e-bike use come on the kind of multi-use, bi-directional trails like the ones in Round Valley. Balancing a population of bikers, hikers and dog walkers on the same trails already leads to a non-negligible number trail conflict and right-of-way arguments, which would likely worsen with the added traffic and faster uphill travel. Adding riders over 65 to the current ordinance that already included people with mobility issues should be less controversial, as use focused on access rather than convenience is more commonly accepted.

Even so, the larger issue is far from settled. The Trump Administration recently signed into law a rule allowing e-bikes on every federally-managed trail where regular bikes are already permitted, which includes some paths in National Parks and federally-managed back country areas. The stated goal of the move was to provide more options to people for whom physical fitness, age and disability were impediments to biking in addition to added convenience for all users. They failed to mention the modern Republican propensity to deregulate everything under the sun, which can’t be ignored.

State legislators in Utah have signaled they plan to do the same in the Beehive State, and Park City will serve as a focal point of debate thanks to its status as a center of mountain-bike related tourism in the region. Park City Mayor Andy Beerman expressed his desire to oppose such legislation—which would essentially deregulate all e-bikes and render them no different under the law from traditional bicycles—while acknowledging local governance would likely be powerless to stop it.

Though a coalition of outdoor groups oppose the move to deregulate e-bikes nationally, many—including locals to Park City—would support the change. Local bicycle retailers make a substantial amount of their revenue from e-bike rentals and sales, so changing the rules would be a boon to their business. Many visitors who lack bike experience and fitness would also appreciate the expanded terrain at their disposal. For all the hand wringing and good-faith debate, the fate of e-bikes on our trails will ultimately be decided by the powers that be in the Utah State House. It will be more essential than ever for trail users of all types to do their best to spread education on etiquette and to focus on being better neighbors on the trails.

See all our outdoors coverage here.

Among the casual cycling crowd in Salt Lake City, there’s a lot of talk about “the flat.” Our city, ringed with mountains, has a lot of hills that make an enjoyable cruise to the farmers market a challenge. “Living on the flat” is one reason bike-minded folks are shopping for homes in Liberty Wells and why more than one “hard-core” bike commuter we’ve known suddenly starts shopping for a Subaru when they move in with their girlfriend who lives above 1100 East.

The folks at GREENbike, (yes, the one you have to pedal and doesn’t muck up our sidewalks like those garbage scooters) knows that Salt Lake is a hilly place. When the non-profit rolled out its tidy station system around the valley, it did so with a mind to “the flat” easily biked portions of the valley. Now, however, the non-profit has added 50 pedal-assist e-bikes to its system to help us get off “the flat.”

GREENbike’s new e-bikes are pedal assist, which means the electric assist motor will only engage when riders pedal. The more “pedal power” the rider puts out, the more electric assistance the bike will provide, with up to 250 percent assistance. Basically, you still have to pedal and stuff but you won’t show up for your Tinder date at The Pie sweating like you have a glandular problem.

The new pedal-assist e-bikes started popping up amid the classic Trek-built GREENbikes at stations around “the flat” last week. They cost the same to use: $7 for a 24-Hour Access Pass or $75 for an annual pass.

To find a GREENbike station give the new pedal-assist e-bikes (or a classic) a try download the Bcycle app or visit GREENbikeslc.org.

See all of our community coverage here.

What, exactly, is Mayflower Mountain Resort? It’s a difficult question to answer even as details have begun to emerge about Park City’s impending, new ski resort. Mayflower will have a comprehensively developed base area along U.S. 40 and slopes overlooking the Jordanelle Reservoir, but how the mountain will ultimately operate remains uncertain.

The long-held belief was that Mayflower would eventually serve as another base area for Deer Valley, but as of now there is no agreement between Mayflower’s developer, Extell Development Company, and Deer Valley’s owner, Alterra Mountain Company, which would allow the two resorts to operate as one. The two ownership entities recently signed a 199-year lease which, at a minimum, enables skiers to access terrain at Deer Valley the same way they always have from U.S. 40 and enables a connection between the two resorts should the parties come to a future agreement.

Mayflower’s 400 skiable acres are enough to operate an independent ski area, though it pales in comparison to the 2,000 plus acres of terrain on tap at Deer Valley. From a skier’s perspective, the limited area makes far more sense as an addition to Deer Valley than it does as a standalone destination. Clearly Extell and Alterra don’t view joint operation as a certainty, as no funding from Deer Valley is being used to finance any of the infrastructure at Mayflower.

With lifts still a couple seasons away from turning, however, we’ll wager the two areas will operate as a de facto singular entity. The layout makes far too much sense to ignore, and the overwhelming trend in the ski industry is towards consolidation of mountain operations. How Deer Valley’s archaic prohibition of snowboarders will factor into the decision is unknown as well.

We’ll have to wait and see just how the corporate negotiations play out, but plans for the base area of Mayflower Mountain Resort are beginning to take shape. Extell is planning a massive development that includes three hotels, a convention center and the world’s largest ski beach along with a 68,000-square foot public recreation center, and an array of shops, restaurants and bars. Mayflower’s financing in part comes from the Military Installation Development Authority’s (MIDA) participation. The financing structure allows more money to be spent during the initial stages of development which will ultimately be paid by leveraging future tax growth. Thanks to MIDA funding, the first hotel built at Mayflower will feature 100 rooms exclusively available for military personnel at subsidized rates. Extell also plans to construct 95,000 square feet of sorely-needed workforce housing, which is a welcome bit of investment aimed at addressing Park City’s affordable housing woes.

Development of the mountains along U.S. 40 has been a possibility for decades, and undoubtedly the plans for Mayflower Mountain Resort will enliven charged opinions on all sides. When combined with large-scale development of the parking lots at Park City Mountain and the parking lots at Deer Valley’s Snow Park Lodge, the area is staring down the barrel of some construction and transit issues that will need to be efficiently addressed. Without some foresight, a lucrative era of growth in Park City will be threatened under the weight of its own excesses.

See all of our community coverage here.

In the late 1850s a man named Jean Baptiste drifted into Salt Lake City. The immigrant found a job as the city’s gravedigger. In 1862, a flap over the body of a local troublemaker named Moroni Clawson, led investigators to the grave digger. They discovered Baptiste had been stealing clothes and jewelry from the bodies he was charged with burying. In all, Baptiste was thought to have desecrated more than 300 graves. Grave-robbing is a loathsome crime, made even more so by the Mormon belief that buried loved ones will be resurrected on judgement day in the clothes they are buried in. Stealing the clothes and treasures of believing Mormons was an unthinkable act and Baptiste’s crime fed the flames of public outrage.

Although his offense was grave (pun intended), it wasn’t a call for hanging or life imprisonment, so territorial authorities devised an especially cruel punishment—exile. Baptiste was rowed out to Fremont Island, a small cay used intermittently for sheep ranching, and deposited on the shore, essentially left to die on the harsh, exposed island. Weeks later authorities checked the island to find Baptiste had escaped. A small shack on the island had been torn down, leading to theories that he’d build himself a raft to flee. Years later, in the 1890s, hunters found a skeleton with leg irons and some say these are Baptiste’s (although it’s not known if he was shackled when he was left alone on Fremont Island).

Island Life with ‘Heavy D’

Diesel Brother, David “Heavy D” Sparks of the famous or infamous (depending on your take) Discovery Channel Series The Diesel Brothers, purchased Fremont Island in May of last year. The Monster Truck enthusiast has some vaguely stated plans about developing some sort of recreation park (or something) on the island. If only Jean Baptiste had had access to a monster truck during his exile…

Antelope Island

It is possible to visit Fremont island by boat but much easier to view it from the western shore of Antelope Island State Park. Looking around that grim, dead sea, take a moment and consider the fate of the notorious grave robber John Baptiste. Despite the dark nature of your errand, spring is an excellent time to visit Antelope State Park with cooler temps.

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It’s the disposable diapers that keep her up at night. Stay-at-home mom Crystal Bruner Harris has achieved Salt Lake City’s Master Recycler status and hosts an Instagram feed called “wearegreenertogether” with weekly sustainable living challenges and advice. But still, her 11-month-old daughter’s daily Pampers load is a tickle of guilt at the back of her mind.

“In so many ways, I’ve been able to give up convenience for the good of the Earth,” Harris says. She uses quart-sized yogurt containers instead of Rubbermaid. Chops up clothing for rags. Covers her microwaveables with a glass dome or silicone splatter guard. Ordered a custom-made dining table from a local woodsmith. Fills her dog beds with bits of denim and cloth. Posted her garden plant tubs on KSL Classifieds as “free for the taking” and some anonymous taker took them. She’s researching how to dispose of the polyethylene foam blobs that came as packing material for some mail-order bike parts a few weeks ago because she still refuses to just put them in the garbage.

And yet—the diapers. (It’s a true dilemma—most research indicates both cloth and disposable diapers have equally negative environmental impact.)

Part of what torments Harris is the aspirational concept of “zero waste.” Facebook and Instagram are filled with guilt-inducing feeds like Living Zero Waste in a Non Zero Waste Home, Zero-Waste Student Living, Going Zero Waste, Zero Waste Home and Zero Waste Nerd. These feeds are followed by thousands of aspiring waste-not-want-nots. The Washington Post story featuring an aluminum trash can the size of a Mason jar is posted on Salt Lake City’s recycling website. It’s meant to inspire but is sort of, like, hey, more of a guilt trip.

Jennifer Farrell, director of education and outreach for Salt Lake City’s Waste and Recycling Division, knows the pressure of the “zero waste” obsession that can drive a well-intentioned citizen to lose enthusiasm.

Is Recycling Ruined?

What happens when a greasy pizza box gets put in a blue bin? Is that whole load of recycling just waste? Yep. To try and mitigate inevitable human error (first, blame the teenagers) SLC runs a recycling education team to spot check blue bins for errant pizza boxes and other straight up garbage. But with 40,000 blue bins in SLC the team is only able to tag about 150 cans a week. So they’re also asking residents to educate themselves. But still it’s confusing, right? So we asked Allen Lance from Salt Lake City’s Waste and Recycling Division a few of our burning questions:

Plastics? Does the # really matter? Resin codes (#1 – #7) are used to identify the type of resin used in making the product, not necessarily whether the product is recyclable or not. A better qualifier is just that the product is made from plastic. Any containers with a screw on top, typically used for soap, beverages, etc. are recyclable in any program.

Are beer and soda cans recyclable?  Yes! Aluminum is one of the most recyclable materials on the market today. Nearly 75 percent of all aluminum produced in the U.S. is still in use today.

What about glass? The city has an agreement with Momentum Recycling to collect glass curbside ($9 a month) or at drop off locations. The glass is used for insulation by Owens Corning in Nephi, filtration systems, aggregate in concrete, road base and counter tops and industrial abrasives right here in Utah.

Where does it all actually go? Waste Management in West Jordan processes SLC’s single stream material (stuff in the blue bins). The company is building a new $16 million materials recovery facility (MRF) in SLC. An MRF separates the various commodities into marketable grades. Typically: Aluminum stays in the U.S. to make new aluminum cans; steel (i.e. tin cans) is sold locally to Metro Steel; plastic containers stay in the U.S. and various resins are used for new containers, carpet, carpet pads, etc.; paper stays in the U.S. depending on the grade and some goes to foreign buyers to make tissue paper, paper towels, etc; cardboard mainly stays in the U.S. and used for new cardboard or fiber board.

And there are growing rationalizations for slowing our culture’s nascent green habit. New reports that say 91 percent of the world’s plastic isn’t being recycled anyway. There are giant floating islands of plastic garbage circling the oceans and plastic microparticles suffocating whales. And what’s this? Chinese waste management companies are starting to refuse America’s plastic, cardboard and electronic waste?

It’s a bummer. For years our communities have gotten savvier about recycling. We’ve all dutifully filled our blue bins with everything we figure could be recycled, which it turns out, often can’t be. Paper towels and plastic grocery bags aren’t recyclable, used pizza boxes and un-rinsed milk bottles aren’t recyclable, cloth and styrofoam clamshells aren’t recyclable.

Everything in your blue bin ends up at waste management companies where workers use magnets, screens, gravity and optical sorters to separate streams of recyclables which are packed into bales and sold to whatever buyer can be found, which is getting harder.

“People are getting discouraged,” Farrell says. “We need to think further upstream.”

Farrell says the renewed priority list for environmental stewardship starts with reducing and reusing plastic packaging and non-recyclables and, adding one new “R” word to that trope: “Refuse.” Don’t take plastic lids. Ask your server not to bring you a straw when you order. Refuse plastic forks and spoons when you order take out. Don’t buy bottled water (like really, ever) and so on and so on. After that, way down the line, priority wise, comes recycling.

And it doesn’t have to be nuts. Do just one new thing, take baby steps, be practical. No need to cut up children’s pajamas to make washcloths, or swear off that new outfit. Wear out or repair what you have. Find places to donate. Complete the green commerce circle by buying local and shopping for vintage items.

“Zero waste can be very intimidating,” says Jamaica Trinnaman, owner of HelloBulk Markets, a one-year-old bulk food store recently relocated from Square Kitchen’s incubator warehouse to a new store right by the Union Pacific tracks at 355 N. 500 West.

“We’re always pushing progress over perfection. It’s really just about finding a couple of changes.”

To that end, Trinnaman encourages her customers to re-use the packaging they already have—brown sugar ziplock bags, mayonnaise and jam jars, shampoo bottles, bread bags—to pack up the beans, nuts, detergent and other bulk items she sells at HelloBulk.

“We’ve all been forced to buy excess packaging,” she says. “You can bring all of that. Just use it up until it’s dead.”

Mom Harris compensates for her disposable diaper guilt by using a spray bottle and toilet paper on her toddler’s bottom, cutting up avocados and sweet potatoes instead of buying baby food in jars, and using bar soap instead of pump bottles. She and her husband Josh installed solar panels on their mid-century Holladay home and just bought a Nissan Leaf. She stores foil and paper bags in a big kitchen drawer until they can be used. There isn’t a paper towel or ziplock baggie to be found in her house.

See all of our community coverage here.

 

 

The yellow election mail-in ballots are in the hands of (or should be) registered voters throughout Utah and can either be placed in the mailbox today, November 4, 2019 (postage paid), or at a ballot drop off location by November 5, 2019.

Follow the steps below to vote:

1. Follow the instructions provided with the ballot.
2. Make sure your ballot is counted by dropping your ballot off at your local election official’s office, a polling location, or a drop box by 8 pm on Election Day.

Find out how and where to vote here.

We care about our city, it’s basically our name. We’re concerned about issues surrounding growth, air and quality of life, just like you are. So consider this:

• Those who are in office, won their positions as such because they received the most votes.
• The elected officials who most directly affect your day-to-day life are up for election right now. City elections are often decided by small margins because folks don’t take the time to vote.
• Don’t be these folks.

Author and researcher Brené Brown frequently quotes a famous speech that Teddy Roosevelt gave in 1910. In it, he said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”

Basically, don’t sit on the sidelines, the most vocal critics of officials, laws or “what’s wrong” didn’t vote or take the time to think about their votes. If you don’t know anything about those listed on your current ballot, it may serve us all better if you did. This helpful article in the Salt Lake Tribune is a good start. Don’t leave that ballot un-cast.

To scroll through the list of our community coverage, go here.

 

Why does he want us to be lazy? My husband and I were diving into the same argument we’d had every Saturday afternoon for the last few weeks. He says: “You need to take a break! You work 40-plus hours during the week and then you come home and work these other jobs in the evenings and on the weekend.”

I say: “Well. I need to. I can’t be lazy.” My husband is in school full-time and my one full-time job wasn’t paying enough for me to feel okay about unwinding on the weekends. I had fallen into the attractive clutches of the “gig economy.” The promise is “if you just work a little more, you can have the money you need to feel secure.” With all of the companies today that need a part-time, build-your-own-schedule labor force, the options to bring in a little extra income are seemingly limitless. With little effort, I found myself with a full-time writing job and hours scheduled as a worker on DoorDash, Shipt, Instacart, Upwork and Rev Transcription.

My situation is hardly uncommon. For Utahns across the state, side hustles and “gigs” are becoming a new norm. It seems few people have just one full-time job anymore. What is going on? And how did conversations about work/life balance turn into a never-ending mobius strip?

The Side Hustle

The gig economy has always existed but in the past decade the recently coined phrase for what used to be called freelance work has gained a new status. And stigma.

Adding to the traditional mix of seasonal workers, independent contractors, temps and firms that provide services to other firms, disruptive enterprises like Uber and Lyft and the increasing use of independent contractors in Web development and digital startups have created a way of working that’s significantly different from your typical 9-to-5, W-2 standard-withholding experience. The new 1099 lifestyle means you get to set your own hours, work wherever and however you please and put together a mix of income streams. It seems perfect for the stereotypical, don’t-box-me-in mentality of the millennial generation whom we all imagine working in their pajamas.

But it’s not all free-wheeling make-it-up as you go along, describing your work with hyphenated vocabulary and nouns that used to be verbs. You are also responsible for negotiating your own terms, managing your own contracts, sending out your own invoices and withholding your own taxes. Not to mention maintaining your own computer, printer, phone system and coffee-maker.

For some, particularly students, the life less-scheduled works well. Derek Jennings is a full-time bank employee who attends Weber State University full-time while working as a delivery driver for Postmates, a popular food delivery app. “I really enjoy the convenience of the hours,” says Jennings. “I complete a lot of my deliveries while traveling home from school.” But for those who are trying to make a full-time job out of gigs, things can get tricky.

The 1099 Gap

The agencies that study, control and keep tabs on American workers still don’t know that much about our burgeoning gig economy. In 2017, Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan Krueger of Princeton estimated that the share of U.S. workers in “alternative work arrangements” rose from 10.7 percent of total employment in 2005 to 15.8 percent in 2015. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that these workers made up just 10.1 percent of total employment, almost exactly what it was in 2005 (10.7 percent). Meanwhile, a 2016 Pew Research Center survey found that 1 in 4 Americans now earn money from a side hustle.

And though we may think of gigs as a young person’s solution, a Salt Lake Tribune article quoted Steve King, a partner at Emergent Research, a California-based organization that studies the future of work, to the contrary. According to King, many gig workers are Americans 55 and up, an age group that is growing “quite rapidly” as those people go into retirement “ill-prepared financially,” he said. People of color are also more likely to participate in the side-gig economy, King said.

Actually, the BLS doesn’t even have a precise definition for a gig worker, or a way of tracking them. Elisabeth Buchwald, a reporter for MarketWatch, concluded that “gig workers are essentially invisible to the government. Though the agency is a key source of information about the labor market, it doesn’t keep tabs on how much people make in what the government calls “non-primary work.” Not only does the BLS lack an explicit definition, it has no formal way of tracking gig workers. It comes closest in a survey called the Contingent Worker Supplement, which studies “contingent workers” in temporary working arrangements that they don’t expect to last more than a year.

GREENbike’s Executive Director Ben Bolte doesn’t think much of the gig economy. He works out of the Impact Hub, an established co-working space that serves as, well, a hub for full-time independent contractors, entrepreneurs building businesses and non-profits, like GREENbike. Bolte has deliberately built the 501(c)(3) Bike Share program to offer full time, w-2 employment with benefits to keep the GREENBike program and, literally, the bikes on the road.

“Every study I read says over and over again that the gig economy is great for companies and bad for workers,” Bolte says. “Most people that work in the gig economy have other jobs. I think it’s a bad sign when people need to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet.”

GREENbike’s non-profit model means that he doesn’t have to please VC investors or focus on the market. The goal is reliability, customer safety and longevity, not showing maximum profit for investors. If he can provide a decent wage and stability for employees, that helps the community too.

“I work in transportation,” Bolte says. “And unfortunately, nearly all of the for-profit transit sharing services (Uber, Lyft and scooter companies) use the gig economy for their workforce. In transportation, these people aren’t saving for retirement, they’re trying to pay their bills. They don’t get healthcare, a 401k, paid time off or sick leave. Massive companies are more than happy to not pay benefits to employees.”

Bolte is right, many 1099 workers fall between the cracks. With few exceptions, they do not receive any kind of medical or life insurance benefits. In fact, many are not even protected or eligible for worker’s compensation if they are injured or assaulted on the job—a very real risk for Uber or Lyft drivers. And many gig workers find themselves doing nothing but work—slaves to their own freedom.

“Being a better employer and building a model that includes worker benefits is about long-term thinking, not quarterly returns,” Bolte says. “Most of our employees have been with us since we started back in 2013. Doing the right thing increases retention which increases productivity.”

Lest you think, however, that 1099 jobs are limited to driving drunks around after last call or picking up someone’s take out, you’re wrong. Lots of jobs are adaptable to working at out-of-home offices, or posted up at the Coffee Garden poaching wi-fi or co-working at for-rent office spaces (see below) designed for high-level giggers, who move from project to project.

Salt Laker Jennifer Bigler, for example, hasn’t received more than a few W-2s for over a decade. She got her start producing automotive events in California and then moved to New York where she started getting gigs in event production. These events aren’t weddings or kid birthday parties, they’re massive multi-million dollar sales and marketing events—like national sales meetings for InBev (Heineken), shareholder meetings for Wal-Mart, the Google Next conference or film launch parties at Sundance.

“When I say I work in events, people always ask me if I know any caterers,” Bigler says. “If you’ve hired me to coordinate catering, you’re paying way too much.”

Not being tied to an office meant she could cut her expenses with a move to Utah and still work all over the world, taking client calls in her pajamas from her home office. And there’s plenty of work for a qualified producer like Bigler—agencies on both coasts land events and then staff up with contractors for design, content (we used to call that writing but it also includes video and graphics these days), technical direction, sound, lights and everything it takes (yes, caterers too).

And none of this even mentions the lingering social stigma of being a full-time freelancer. Bigler’s parents still ask her when she’s going to get a job.

“I’m like, ‘Mom, I have dozens of jobs. Sheesh.’”

Workspace For Rent

Work Hive was the first of its kind in Utah, opening its doors six years ago—it’s 100 percent locally owned. According to one of its founders, Mark Morris, who was a landscape architect, saw the growing need and benefits for himself and others that can be gained through a shared, open co-working space. Since then, dozens of co-working spaces have opened, many catering to special fields or professions. For example, 8 x 8 is great but what if you need something larger?

Appealing to the artsy crowd—what we now call “creatives”—Impact Hub offers affordable and rent-by-the-hour live performance space, and it’s all hip with state-of-the-art sound equipment. Other spaces are set up to help culinarians develop recipes or food business ideas. But the behemoth of all workspaces is probably WeWork.

“Typically when WeWork enters a new market, we start with one or two locations to build the foundation and then scale it up,” said Nathan Lenahan, WeWork VP and General Manager for the Mountain West and Texas. “When it came to Utah, however, we saw an epicenter of growth and innovation and knew we had to enter in a big way.”

Lenahan isn’t kidding. WeWork is not only the current leader of the shared workspace movement but is also crafting what they call “The Future of Work” where workers meld these two pieces of their life until they are seemingly indistinguishable. (Everyone has read The Circle, right? That dystopia sounds like it’s coming next week.)

And WeWork isn’t the only player getting in on the ground floor of Utah’s rentable workspace game. Farmington-based Venture X has tongues wagging with their state-of-the-art rentable offices and desks located in Station Park.

“We don’t do contracts,” says Jace Welk, VP of Sales for Venture X Utah. “It’s all month to month and you get everything included.”

What does everything mean? 24/7 access to the building which comes complete with high-end furnishings, conference rooms teched out to the hilt with televisions and tables with built-in microphones and floor to ceiling windows throughout that point right at the picturesque Wasatch mountains all by design.

“The number one thing requested by employees according to Harvard Business Review is natural light,” Welk says. “And that’s one of the bright spots of our location here. This building gives so much natural light and really showcases the mountains.”

One of my central questions when talking to Welk was why a freelancer or small business owner would shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars a month on a rented office space when they could just as easily work from their home or the local coffee shop. His answer: credibility.

“We have virtual offices available. This way, someone working out of their home can use our address for their business address to appear more professional. They can call us their office, and we’ll hold and organize their mail.”

For those who want a physical office space of their own, be prepared to shell out a whopping $850/month or more in rent. The sticker shock is fairly palpable, says Welk, but once you look at the true all-inclusivity of Venture X’s location, it seems much more reasonable. Your membership comes with reception services, full kitchen access, complimentary coffee and sparkling water, printing services, internet access, patio access, a covered bike rack, and even showers—yes, showers.

“We even have an IT support team on staff in case you have any problems. You have them on call to help, even if it’s with your personal computer,” Welk says.

But before you go thinking you can just work there and go home, these workspaces for rent have some big plans—particularly WeWork: “Expectations from both employers and employees have changed with regard to the workplace experience. WeWork builds an environment that empowers workers to bring their whole selves to work. Purpose is as important as a paycheck.”

For WeWork, this means branching out to create WeGrow schools for member’s children, WeLive apartments above the communal rented workspaces, and complete WeEcosystems for a future that looks much more vertical and integrated than we are accustomed to today. We work to live but maybe in a few years work will be life.

Grind Culture

The work/life balance of our parents is no longer a viable option for those with even the most traditional means of employment. WeWork has an excellent point that technological innovations have made work a more constant presence in our lives than in years past.

“The future of work means, in many ways, a blurring of personal and professional life to a scale never seen before. We text our bosses back at 10 p.m. at night while brushing our teeth; we’re ordering socks from Amazon at 10 a.m. from our desks at work,” says WeWork.

Our work emails come right to our personal phones and our phones are always with us,  we respond to those emails or text messages at any time of the day or night. This constant connectedness and work before and after work hours has become pervasive enough to warrant its own name: grind culture. The idea that the harder and more frequently you grind the more successful you become is so deeply American it should appear in the Constitution.

In 2017, France passed legislation that required companies with more than 50 employees to establish hours when staff are not allowed to send or answer work emails, texts or calls. The goal is to push back against the rise of grind culture—making sure employees are fairly compensated for any time they are doing work and attempting to prevent the inevitable burnout of the grind by protecting private time; essentially, requiring a work/life balance by law.

And it’s not a difficult leap to understand how grind culture gets facilitated by a lot of the perks offered by workspaces for rent like WeWork and Venture X. WeWork actually leans into the grind culture in their own on-site atmospheres. One image included in a WeWork profile done by The New York Times featured phrases around their office like “Hustle Harder,” “T.G.I.M. (Thank God It’s Monday),” and “Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you are done;” all mantras of grind culture arguing true success can only be achieved when you work harder—and more often—than anyone else. Venture X, like WeWork, offers perks that allow workers to grind all day and all night: 24/7 building access, meditation rooms for naps or rejuvenation time, kitchen access and, again, showers. It’s unnecessary to even leave work; everything is already there.

Meanwhile, there is something deeply inspirational about being immersed in a culture that encourages you to love your work so much you don’t want to leave it. Grind culture is mostly facilitated by a deep desire for individuals to connect to their work on a personal level. Their work is the defining factor in their identity. And it’s going over well, at least for WeWork, which has become a global company with more than 400,000 members in 27 countries across the world.

But while these workspace for rent communities offer everything you need to work impossibly long, life-consuming hours, they also understand that the choice to work the grind culture lifestyle is ultimately up to their members.

“[The space] is available if someone wants it. It’s up to our members to decide how much they want to grind,” says Welk. “We’re gonna give you the proper things to make your business successful and give you the tools necessary to grow. But how you use them is your choice.”

He’s absolutely right. The choice is up to the worker. For better or for worse it’s all on you. 

YOUR OWN PRIVATE 8X8

WeWork – And yes, they do. WeWork supplies individual desks, offices and space for the entire HQ and a color printer—you really can have it all. But maybe what’s most impressive is their beverage selection: craft on draft, micro-roasted coffee and fresh fruit water. With 24/7 access—why would you ever leave? 90 S. 400 West, (and two other locations), 646-491-9060, wework.com

Impact Hub – An office space is cool, but what if you need something larger? How about enough room to host an event? Appealing to a more sustainable crowd, Impact Hub offers affordable and rent-by-the-hour live performance space, it’s hip with state of the art sound equipment. Director Heidi Gress explained that Impact Hub offers both open co-working and private office spaces, and extends discounts to 501(c)3 non-profits as well. As part of a global network, your membership opens you up to access to over 100+ Impact Hubs around the world. 150 State St #1, SLC, 385-202-6008, hubsaltlake.com

Church and State – Separate but not divided. What wasn’t included in the Constitution is that both would come together in a renovated downtown church building. It’s a non-profit with a clever name, their academy and mentorship program is also clever and, it’s all in a chapel—beat that. Pray for success. 370 S. 300 East, SLC, 801-901-0459, cs1893.com

VentureX – If your venture is north of SLC, this open office space in Farmington provides tons of natural light (it sure beats an office cube). To keep it cheap you can share a desk, and no-worries, pay is month-to-month. Beyond free coffee, tea or filtered water, VentureX is one-upping by offering a weekly power-networking breakfast/lunch—or what we term, “brunch.” 262 N. University Avenue Drive, Farmington, 385-209-0227, venturex.com

Spice Kitchen Incubator – The way for our newest Americans to pursue an entrepreneurial food venture as well. The Spice Kitchen Incubator has a proven track record for offering clients with the support, kitchen space and marketing resources needed for success. With its impact, several small businesses have sprung up from this bustling and creative workspace. 751 W. 800 South, SLC, 385-229-4484, spicekitchenincubator.org

Work Hive – In the heart of downtown SLC, Work Hive offers loads of open and beautiful office space, coffee and— shut up!—they’ve got showers. For those hosting clients, parking space is available and free for an hour. Only need a desk for a day? Plunk down a Jackson ($20) for a day-pass, and it’s yours. 307 W. 200 South #5002, 801-923-4589, workhiveslc.com

Square Kitchen – For businesses who cook, bake or cater, a “certified” health-inspected kitchen space is not always doable as a start-up. You’re not alone. Grease traps are expensive. On the west side of SLC, the Square Kitchen offers a top-tier culinary space and assistance for food-based entrepreneurial development. 751 W. 800 South, SLC, squarekitchenslc@gmail.com, squarekitchenslc.com

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Not to make you nervous or anything, but more than 7,000 children in the United States fall victim to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest every year, often with nobody around who knows CPR, and if it ever happens to your kid, God forbid, Kathy Olson wants you to be prepared. You can learn exactly what to do in a local CPR class.

“We teach parents, grandparents and babysitters life-saving CPR skills and how to relieve foreign body obstructions,” says Olson, Intermountain Healthcare clinical education coordinator. Intermountain Healthcare’s classes, held at McKay Dee Hospital, Logan Regional Hospital and Primary Children’s Hospital, include Heart Saver CPR, which leads to CPR certification, and Family and Friends CPR, open to anyone who wants to learn.

In a CPR class, you’ll learn how to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (what CPR actually stands for) on infants, children and adults through instructional videos and hands-on practice with trained instructors (using dummies, of course).

“It’s critical to learn CPR from trained professionals, because you can get severe injuries from incorrect hand placement or depth of chest compression,” says Olson, a registered nurse who has taught CPR courses over the past 17 years.

CPR class also covers how to recognize when someone goes into respiratory arrest (breathing is ineffective and rescue breathing is needed) and cardiac arrest (heart stops functioning properly and CPR is necessary), administering CPR solo or with a partner, breathing techniques and differences in administering CPR for different ages. “With infants, you’re just using two fingers; for children, you’re typically using one hand; and for adults, two hands to perform the chest compressions,” says Olson.

Common causes for respiratory and cardiac arrest among children include poisoning, smoke inhalation, head trauma, electrical shock, severe asthma and allergic reactions.

“A respiratory or cardiac arrest can occur anywhere, anytime,” Olson says. “If it was your child it happened to, wouldn’t it be nice to know they lived out the rest of their life because you had the lifesaving skills to save them?” Again, not to scare you.

Visit intermountainhealthcare.org/classes to sign up (search for keyword CPR).

Read more of our family content in our Kid-friendly blog roll.

The bulldozers are lining up and belching diesel fumes. Local factions are at the Home Depot gathering pitchforks. Shadowy figures laugh maniacally while counting stacks of money in clandestine boardrooms. It’s a development showdown in the heart of Park City. Here we go again.

“Wait. What’s being developed this time?” some are asking. “Is there even open space remaining upon which to build?” If that sounds like you, you’re probably feeling the effects of Development Opinion Fatigue, in which the deluge of development-related opinions have muddied your working knowledge of what’s actually going on in Park City. Earlier this spring, Vail Resorts agreed to sell the parking lots at the base of Park City Mountain to the Provo-based firm Peg Companies, opening the door for imminent development at the base of the resort.

Both PEG Companies and Vail Resorts declined to disclose the purchase price for the 10-acre plot, which includes the upper parking lot and both lower parking lots at Park City Mountain. Because the development will encompass a significant area of where Park City the town and Park City the resort intersect, it will undeniably have an impact on the character of each. As such, immediate public reactions ranged from, “This welcome development shall keep Park City on par with other world-class destinations,” to, “These ruthless corporate entities will stop at nothing to gut what remains of our once-quaint mountain paradise.”

Naturally, some ire was directed towards Vail Resorts for their role, though the seeds of the deal were sown back in the 1990s when the resort’s previous owner, Pwdr Corp., secured an approval of the area’s development rights. It was only a matter of time before one entity or another would ultimately look to capitalize on the immense value attached to those rights, and Vail Resorts did so after acquiring those rights when they purchased Park City Mountain in 2014 following a lawsuit with Pwdr Corp. If or when Pwdr Corp. would have ultimately done the same is anyone’s guess.

The ultimate impact of large-scale development in the Park City Mountain lots will take on a different quality depending on one’s point of reference, but it should be easier to stomach than other recent proposals—such as the scratched development of Treasure Mountain—because unspoiled open space—a non-renewable, diminishing resource—is not under threat. The lots themselves are nothing more than an expanse of slackly-maintained, fractured asphalt. They serve little purpose in the summer apart from overflow parking space for the town’s most popular events. During winter, the lots provide free parking for the resort, which is lackadaisically managed and falls short of requisite capacity. Though the lots were the site of some epic closing day parties over the years, anxiety over their demise seems misguided.

The elimination of free parking at Park City Mountain’s base area will ruffle some feathers, but it’s probably a necessary step. Paid parking may finally compel skiers to change behavior rather than merely complain about increased traffic. If—and that’s a big if—the change is accompanied by infrastructure that turns the base area into a viable public transportation hub, skiers and the community at large could benefit from an area catered to maximizing quality of life rather than maximizing the number of vehicles that can pass through.

The planning process has just begun, but the proposed project includes a hotel and spa, restaurants, retailers, residences and workforce housing. The loss of the surface lots is said to be offset by improved access to public parking—which likely means parking garages and the end of free parking—as well as transit and traffic infrastructure. “PEG is the lead in addressing community concerns, and Vail Resorts will assist as needed,” Vail Resorts Corporate Hospitality Communications Manager Maggie Meisinger, said. “PEG is still in the early stages of planning, but traffic, transit, safety and pedestrian connectivity issues will be a primary focus. PEG understands an enhanced base area must reflect city and community priorities.”

Vail Resorts has eschewed directly developing land in recent years and has instead sought outside firms to take the lead, allowing Vail to focus on resort operations and improvements. PEG as lead developer will seek to balance the requirements of the resort and the town, which they should understand well from previous projects in Jackson and Sun Valley. The planning process is subject to community input and an approval process by the Park City Municipal Corp. We were unable to get a comment directly from PEG prior to publication, but vice president Robert Schmidt has said publicly PEG hoped to submit an application to City Hall by spring 2020 with groundbreaking following one to two years after. 

See all of our community coverage here.