The mayor downplayed the difference between using a loan to meet the debt payments or using sales-tax revenue. "It's not the big deal some people make it out to be," Billings said. "It really makes so little bottom-line difference at the end of day, it's not an issue I feel I have to go out and die for."

One council member who took Billings' side proposed a compromise on Thursday during a meeting of the Provo Telecommunications Board.

"Paying our bills as we go is probably a good idea," Midge Johnson said, "but what if we take this (sales-tax) money and put it in a different, interest-bearing account while we go ahead and make the loan? Then we have this money set aside in case we need it."

Bond attorneys and the city attorney have told the city it is legal for Provo to use sales-tax revenue to pay the bonds, because the bonds were backed by sales-tax funds when they were issued.

But Johnson echoed Billings' concern that doing so could draw a time-consuming, expensive legal challenge from Qwest Communications, which has complained about public entities competing in the telecommunications market.

"Why raise the sleeping giant?" Johnson said.

Qwest officials raised the possibility they might sue during a March 2006 City Council meeting after the council approved the first loan to iProvo from the energy department reserve fund. The company took no action after the council amended the loan to make it a market-rate, interest-bearing loan.

Company spokesman Gary Younger declined Thursday to discuss whether Qwest would sue if the city used sales-tax revenues, but said, "Qwest feels that using taxpayer dollars for projects such as this is risky."

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