Forty years ago, our city progressed, in part, due to the working relationship between city officials, the business community and the LDS Church. Today, the business community seems hesitant to step forward to lend its talents to improve downtown. It is as though many individuals and elected leaders have waited for the LDS Church to save downtown.

Things have changed in Salt Lake City when a major downtown landowner prefers to talk with two council members, but not the mayor; and when the administration had ideas to revitalize downtown but didn't seem to share them with the City Council. In the meantime, residents just want their leaders to work together to make the city work.

The recent publicity over the LDS Church's plans for their downtown property is a good example. In one corner you have the administration, in another the City Council, and in another, the business people, sitting as innocent spectators, waiting to see what happens.

Given the confidential nature of private transactions, has the LDS Church not been willing to brief the administration on its plans? Has the administration asked for a confidential briefing? Has the administration been briefed in private meetings by the LDS Church? The public should be given answers to those questions, at least, in order to maintain confidence in community leaders.

Over the past few years, it looks as if city officials have had difficulty working together to create a plan for downtown that has involved business and other leaders. In the meantime, the LDS Church had to move ahead with plans to protect their interest.

(And how come there is such a preoccupation with the north end of downtown, when there is so much that can be done on the south end? That used to be the center of activity for the city.)

During the last city election, the revitalization of downtown seemed like a fast and loose "shell game" with a stack of plans being shuffled around. After the elections, there was a lull. Recently, the mayor publicly asked the LDS Church, a major downtown property owner, to reveal its plans because of his concern that it might not embrace social and economic diversity, saying the "creative class" won't come downtown.

While with the National Urban Coalition, I saw cities where mayors struggled, alone, to solve urban problems. The business sector was often unaware of the complexity of the problems urban communities faced. It was on that premise, during the urban riots of the '60s, that John W. Gardner started the Urban Coalition — the problems of the cities could not be solved by government alone; rather, it was the leadership from the diverse segments of a city that needed to come together to help solve them. Gardner's message to the city's business leaders was simple: "It's a short-sighted chief executive that does not make an investment in his community. That's your marketplace." Business leaders in the cities responded to the challenge and began working with other segments of the community, such as unions, churches, and civil rights groups that included the Brown Berets and Black Panthers.