The Salt Lake City Council is worried Mayor Rocky Anderson is doing more harm than good.

By publicly lobbying for causes that will be unpopular with conservative lawmakers on Utah's Capitol Hill, Anderson could be undermining many of those causes and may bring unfavorable retaliation against Salt Lake City, some City Council members said at Tuesday night's meeting.

"At times, you can be a lightning rod in the community," Council Chairwoman Jill Remington Love told Anderson. "Maybe having you up there fighting for some of these causes would do more harm than good."

Love said she supports many of the nine issues Anderson wants the city to lobby for during next year's legislative session.

Those issues include use of "PhotoCop," living wage laws, smoking bans, health care access for all Utahns, less stringent rules on sex education in schools, tightening laws on bicycle safety, giving unmarried couples the right to adopt, tightening firearms laws and seeking hate crimes legislation.

Love said a better approach might be strategic planning with private groups that are championing the same causes rather than going on the offensive.

"I would like to see meaningful change happen, and maybe we're hurting the cause by being out there in front," Love said.

Anderson wasn't buying it and told Love he was not going to back away from causes just because they are unpopular.

"We can't be intimidated by those who have been fairly reactionary about this," Anderson said. "There are those who have wanted to seek retribution against Salt Lake City and me personally at the Legislature. . . . As soon as you start bowing down to that I think you are making a big mistake."

Councilwoman Nancy Saxton told the mayor many of his nine agenda items would make the Legislature so angry, lawmakers may feel inclined to drop the budget ax.

"Some of these will not only be very unpopular but they will raise the hackles of the Legislature and they will be out there with a machete," Saxton said.

But Anderson wasn't backing away from his nine-item list, saying it was his responsibility to raise the issues on behalf of Salt Lake residents who care about them.

Councilman Dale Lambert, who joined the conversation via speakerphone, said while some city residents might agree with Anderson's list, others wouldn't. He said the city shouldn't be spending city tax dollars to fight causes that aren't directly related to municipal government.

Council members agreed on a list of items they feel are the most important issues for Salt Lake City to pursue at the Legislature. Foremost on the list is gaining a funding source for Salt Palace Convention Center expansion. That didn't make the mayor's nine-item "issues" list but did make a list of lobbying issues developed by city department heads. That list and one from the Utah League of Cities and Towns were also forwarded to the council by Anderson's administration.

The council's recommendations, then, would determine the three or four items the city's yet-to-be-hired lobbyist could take up with the Legislature, with deputy city attorney Lynn Pace monitoring other issues for the city.

On the rest of the issues put forth by the mayor, council members said Anderson would be on his own. Anderson agreed that without the council's support he would have to take up the issues alone as mayor.

"I'm not going to be stepping aside from any of them," he said. "It will be a matter of working with whom I can to help advocate on behalf of these issues."

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