A paid lobbyist fighting both for and against Salt Lake County unexpectedly quit Monday.

The move came a day before the County Council was set to argue on whether to approve Mayor Peter Corroon's $50,000 request to extend The Tetris Group's contract.

"They resigned, we didn't fire them, and it did come as a surprise," Deputy Mayor Karen Suzuki-Okabe said.

The firm came under heavy criticism recently for working for cities and other interests that are fighting for the opposite side of issues the county is facing.

In a letter to the county, Tetris managing member Dan Hartman said his company "respectfully" declined the county's intent to hire the firm again for the upcoming session. The 2007 Legislative session will be the first in 15 years that Tetris won't be lobbying for Salt Lake County's interests.

The letter, however, didn't say why Tetris quit, and multiple members of the firm did not return phone calls Monday from the Deseret Morning News.

Tetris has endured intense media scrutiny in the past two years after accusations that it played both sides in multiple issues affecting county government. Those issues included the hot-button deal for soccer-stadium funding: Tetris not only worked for the county but also Sandy city and Real Salt Lake. When the county was negotiating a $10 million deal with Diebold Election Systems in 2005, Tetris also doubled as a lobbyist for Diebold.

Councilman Mark Crockett said the County Council should "put more teeth" into the lobbying laws already in place to avoid problems like this in the future.

Crockett, who had been leery of the Tetris deal from the start, said the county could end up hiring Tetris again next year, but only if the firm follows the county's lobbying rules, which say the county's lobbyists can't work on issues or for parties in direct conflict with the county's interests without first getting permission. Crockett said. Tetris never got permission on several issues, including Real Salt Lake and Diebold.

"I think this is reasonable," Crockett said. "Who knows, maybe next year it will make sense to hire them again, but in the meantime, I'm glad that the ethics rules meant something."

Councilman Joe Hatch said it might have looked bad having Tetris lobbying both sides of issues, but "they did not do anything to the detriment of the county." In fact, not having Tetris on the county's side will only hurt Salt Lake County residents this year, he said.

Without Tetris on the county's side, Hatch said nobody is lobbying legislators to make sure the taxpayers' priorities are kept in mind during negotiations on how to spend the nearly $1.2 billion the county will collect in sales taxes for transportation over the next 30 years.