Se habla español in Salt Lake County.

Not content with having open-door sessions with English-speaking denizens of the county, Mayor Peter Corroon has scheduled an open-door session with Spanish-speaking residents. The open house will be Wednesday, March 9, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Corroon's office, room 2100 in the Salt Lake County Government Center north building, 2001 S. State. Call 468-3097 for more information.

"My Spanish language skills aren't perfect, but I certainly enjoy the language and feel comfortable in social settings," he said. "We'll see if those skills work in a political/social setting."

Corroon learned Spanish in school and practiced it while living in Spain for a time. While practicing law (Corroon did real-estate development and legal work before becoming mayor) he also did pro bono work for Spanish-speaking clients.

While it remains to be seen how residents will respond, members of the county's Hispanic-Latino Task Force, at least, are enthusiastic. They helped put the event together and will welcome residents to the mayor's office to help them feel comfortable before meeting with the "lider gringo."

Corroon isn't the first politician to curry favor with Hispanics by talking to them in their mother tongue. Erstwhile presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, for example, often spoke to Hispanic groups in Spanish, a fact that helped him win voters within that ethnic group. The Boston-based son of Greek immigrants ran in the 1988 Texas Democratic primary, a place worlds away, culturally, from Dukakis' stomping grounds.

"Yes, Dukakis really did get more votes than anyone else in the Texas primary in 1988!" reported theleftcoaster.com. "Latinos make the difference."

Other candidates have tried similar tactics, with mixed results. In a speech leading up to his first presidential run, for example, then-Texas governor George W. Bush tried to reach out to Latinos by giving a speech on a stage festooned with posters saying "juntos podemos" — together we can do it. Unfortunately, in its report on the event the Houston Chronicle misspelled the expression, rendering it "juntos pedemos," which means something altogether different. (Let's just say that if you followed the poster's advice you would be unwelcome at social soirees, apart from "Blazing Saddles"-type fireside gatherings.)

The Salt Lake County event, while obviously intended to help draw local Hispanics into the social and political dialectic, is not altogether altruistic. Corroon is an inveterate learner who holds several college degrees, and part of his motivation, according to a news release, is "the opportunity to put his language skills to use."

Use it or lose it, as they say.

Whether Hispanics will respond to the overture remains to be seen, but the mayor should have at least a few people to say "buenas tardes" (good afternoon) to if they follow the pattern of his English-speaking open-door meetings, which have attracted a respectable, if not remarkable, number of people.