By most accounts, the Zion Canyon Music Festival was a roaring success. Even the people who are not huge fans—and I’m one of those—admit that the most recent festival surprised everyone by attracting volunteers, making money, and giving people a memorable experience at a bargain price.
In fact, the worst thing that happened was that a gentleman—I think his actual identity is a closely guarded secret—fell into a cactus bed while trying to relieve himself. That story is becoming legend.
So why have the Zion Canyon Music Festival and the Tour of Utah both run into such problems in Springdale?
In the October 14 Town Council meeting, I made the point from the floor of the meeting that in January the council officially voted “to discontinue sponsoring the festival and shift sponsorship to an independent organization.” My point at the time was that a legal vote of the council shouldn’t just be ignored in the hope that nobody would notice. (I noticed!) To his credit, Mayor Stan Smith has now held a council meeting to deal with the issue. He wrote a long letter to Springdale filled with details about the festival. Good on ya, Stan! Brushing decisions under the rug is not the way to do business. You’re doing it right now. In the recent meeting, the council did formally reverse the January decision, and Springdale is back in the music festival business. (Message to Stan: See? Being “public and accountable” works!)
The earlier October 14 meeting to consider the relationship of Springdale to the music festival went on for three and a half hours with a lot of concerns expressed about things like Springdale staff time and the risk of selling alcohol at the festival.
This is a parallel case with the Tour of Utah. A month ago, the Springdale Town Council refused to be the official sponsor—which would’ve required that Springdale provide some support like parking, food, and hotel accommodations—and in the most recent meeting, Springdale even refused a toothless resolution to just extend the hand of welcome to the tour.
Mayor Stan Smith and Councilor Alltucker say they don’t understand the hostility. Stan pointed out that national and international papers have been asking the question, “Why do they hate us so much?” He didn’t say that he was able to give them an answer.
In my humble opinion, the Town Council as well as the people protesting against these events are all dancing around the elephant in the room. It’s not that the issues they have spent so much time on are not real. They are real. But these issues are not the compelling central point that is making Springdale suddenly start questioning every event that comes down the road. In a slightly earlier meeting, a Springdale citizen who is liked and respected by the whole community tried to get a zone change on a small parcel of land to build something that everyone agreed would be an attractive development and an asset to the community. Springdale turned him down anyway. If they are going to deny something like that, nobody is getting anything —even something like the music festival that has been celebrated for years.
The issue is that the people who live in Springdale are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.
The Zion Canyon Music Festival, the Tour of Utah, and the zone change just had the unfortunate luck to be in the way when Springdale finally boiled over.
“Mad at what?” you might be asking.
We’re mad because the town we love is being run right into the ground by too much commercialism, too little investment in the infrastructure needed for over three million visitors a year, and too little concern for preserving the good things about Springdale, like wildlife and the environment.
Many years ago, a far-sighted member of the Town Council put it exactly right: “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Our recent loss to Subway—which opens the door to McDonalds, Burger King, and who knows what else … a Texas Road House can’t be far behind—threatens to turn this town into another West Yellowstone or Gatlinburg. And we’re mad about it. Nobody is listening to us.
Any other city in Utah would have sacrificed a council member on a rock for the privilege of being the starting city for the Tour of Utah. But we told the Tour, “No!” People I have talked to couldn’t believe it: “The Tour would have been out of town about a half hour after the start! You’re not being reasonable!”
I agree. We’re not being reasonable. On a national level, our attitude is similar to the willingness of the Tea Party to shut down the government because they’re not being listened to. The two situations are different because we’re only inconveniencing the people who want to use and abuse our little town. We’re not trying to shut down the whole country. (If Lindsey Graham were only talking about shutting down the government of South Carolina, I would be more sympathetic to his cause.) What we’re doing is all we can do. The governments of Washington County, of Utah, and to an extent of the United States are hostile to us to the extent that all four representatives and both senators from Utah think we should just roll over.
But we do have a few million allies throughout the United States. We are the gateway to a National Park—not a Washington County park or a Utah state park. The reason Springdale lost to Subway was because the deck got stacked against us during the five years that the lawsuit dragged on. The country drifted into an environment where making money became more important than preserving our country. Really! There were some lawsuits decided in other jurisdictions during those five years that were used against us in the final act. When the lawsuit started, towns like ours were winning. Five years later, we lost.
I believe we could have won against Subway if we had reached out to our allies throughout the nation during those five years that we were in court. Instead, our Town Council made the entire struggle a top secret. Not even the people who live here, except for the council, had any idea what was going on. While I accept that it might have been necessary for some details of the proceedings to be kept confidential, our whole town should have reached out to the nation and explained what we were up against. I think people who care about Zion National Park would have responded. I think that could have made a huge difference. That’s why rejecting the Tour of Utah makes sense now. People are asking the question, “Why is Springdale so mad?” If we hadn’t rejected the tour, they wouldn’t have even asked the question.
Michael Plyler is a Springdale resident who has donated hundreds of hours of his very valuable time to the town. In his own “mad as hell” letter to the Town Council, he wrote, “We need more … growth of tourism like we need hotter days in July. Before we decide we need to encourage more people to come here, we need to create an infrastructure to deal with the overload that already exists.”
People who don’t live in Springdale but rather only use our town might think they can continue to roll over us like we’re not even here. They might be wrong. In the most recent meeting, Mayor Stan reported that the governor and Washington County officials had called him, and we’re getting international attention.
We’re not making waves yet, we’re just making little ripples. But even these little ripples are starting to work. Count me in on the side of people who think we ought to start making real waves until people start to listen to us.
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Great piece, Dan. So sorry that lovely Springdale is dealing with such wrenching issues. Growing pains are so difficult. It’s not even like Springdale has anywhere to really grow. One would think that with the physical limts of the town it would have been somewhat immune but with Zion next door, I guess that was not to be. Money always finds a way to pave over paradise.
I always find it curious when I read articles like this. Almost all of the “super mad as hell” folks live in subdivisions, in their large expensive homes while they drive their cars about everywhere in Town. They create their own events, like flute festivals, farmer markets, earth day fairs or book signing events (all of which I love and believe help bind our community together). However, they decry events not created by them. These same individuals oppose landowners developing their commercial land, which were zones set up by our Town founders at the same time that they set aside large residential zones. Where was this outrage when these subdivisions were created, especially the ones creeping up into the foothills defiling the scenic canyon. Where was the concern for the wildlife? The buildout for Springdale has been in the General Plan for a long time, unfortunately we are getting closer and closer to this point. Alas, it is very difficult to control certain types of commercial development. The one thing Springdale can do is stick to its General Plan, to uniformly apply the rules and restrain from picking winners and losers on who gets a zone change or which event gets the nod. We all live in glass houses, Dan, including myself and we should work on unifying our community, not tearing it apart.
Max !!!!
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It’s good to see your comment. (Even though the article you are replying to was written last year and so your comment is a bit … ummm … dated, it’s still good to see it.)
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I think that you and I agree more than you realize. As a member of Springdale’s Planning Commission for over six years, I voted in favor of nearly all of the proposals to implement the “build out” of Springdale according to the General Plan that came before the Commission. In fact, I voted in favor of YOUR market. As I recall, I might have been the “swing vote” that allowed it to pass. It was quite controversial at the time because the design has a round roof and the ordinances specifically prohibited that kind of roof unless there were other mitigating factors. I agreed with you that those other factors did, in fact, exist. (You ARE still providing a public restroom … ???)
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I have long realized that the eventual “build out” of Springdale is inevitable just as you point out. But that doesn’t mean that development should be done any way developers want to do it. Have you seen Gatlinburg, Tennessee? West Yellowstone? Hurricane, fercryinoutloud!!
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I quoted long time resident (who lives in a charming home in the middle of town, by the way) Mavis Madsen when she was on the council: “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Long time resident Louise Excel has been one of the most vocal critics in her public comments. It’s not just us short timer, HOA residents who are upset. There are a lot of upset people who remember how Springdale used to be and see more clearly what it is becoming. By the way, can someone open a new B&B in Rockville these days?
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The point I was trying to make was to explain why so many issues had run into a brick wall at the time I wrote my article. I pointed out that one zone change that would probably have passed with flying colors last year was denied because people were simply fed up. I recently had a conversation with the people requesting the zone change (I count them as good friends). I pointed out to them that they were innocent victims of a surge in public sentiment that they didn’t create.
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Some days you get the elevator. Some days you get the shaft. The day they were denied was a “shaft” day.
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The “Tour of Utah” decision is another great example. It was easy to see before any vote took place that the Tour would still happen – pretty much unchanged – whether Springdale approved it or not. And it will. So the votes against it were almost completely symbolic. The “Tour” was an innocent victim too.
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The point that you make — and that I agree with most — is that we should all work on unifying our community. I think that the thing that is missing most in that work is communication. I give Stan a lot of credit for taking several positive steps – such as his “Brown Bag Lunch” initiative. But it’s not enough.
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The thing that is missing is “public and accountable” dialog … like my article, your comment, and this reply. We can write letters – make statements at Public Hearings – and talk to the people who run the town but we can’t have a “public and accountable” dialog. (http://suindependent.com/public-accountable/) That makes all of us who DON’T run the town just spectators. That’s why people are “mad as hell”. Because there’s no community conversation, people don’t believe that their voice is ever actually heard.
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At a recent “Lunch” I was the only ordinary citizen who showed up and I got to debate my communication issue against (and I do mean “against”) two council members and Stan, and Rick, the Town Manager for over an hour. (I lost.) The question should be, “Why was I the only ordinary citizen to show up?”
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In any case, I have always had a positive opinion about your developments — even the ones you did in HOA’s back when you were a contractor. Do you see much of Joe since he moved to Oregon? I miss Joe. He’s one of the good ones.