Lawmakers take Salt Lake County tour

Lawmakers went on a $105,000 tour of Salt Lake County on Thursday, including a drive-through journey through downtown Salt Lake City and a stop at the Daybreak development.

Davis County officials spent $13,500 to show off their county to lawmakers on Wednesday.

"Let's put it this way: Davis County got a better bang for their buck," said Rep. Julie Fisher, R-Fruit Heights.

The high price tag for the Salt Lake County tour was the ongoing joke among legislators throughout the day.

While checking out a water bottle filled with goodies from Kennecott, one legislator joked, "This is what $100,000 will get you?"

However, the $105,000 budget did not include swag, according to Maura Carabello, a partner with the government-affairs group Exoro, which organized the event. Meals ran about $25,500. A video presented on touring buses cost another $20,000; $15,000 went toward "administration/coordination"; $10,000 was for the fund raising itself; and $11,000 was spent on briefing papers and other materials distributed to legislators.

Private companies donated $56,000 of the total budget, including EnergySolutions, a hazardous-waste storage firm, and Kennecott Land, which is developing Daybreak.

Salt Lake Area Chamber of Commerce President Lane Beattie defended the pricey tour during the opening session of Thursday's tour.

"We publicly regret some of the innuendo that was made with the cost of this publicly," said Beattie, a former Utah Senate president.

House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, said the visit to Salt Lake County was worthwhile. "There is value in getting out and seeing the local communities."

However, he said, it may be time for the state to take over control of the tours and not rely on the hospitality of the areas that the Legislature is visiting. He said the state could fund hard costs, such as meals and transportation.

Legislators on Thursday walked around the City Creek demolition sites and learned details on Saturday's scheduled implosion of the Key Bank tower. They also stopped at the Utah Theatre, a historic movie house that local officials want to renovate as part of a downtown cultural arts district.

Lawmakers also went on a driving tour of downtown and stopped at the Utah Transit Authority's intermodal hub for a tour of the new FrontRunner commuter-rail cars.

A tour of the county's west side gave legislators a first-hand look at where two-thirds of all growth in the county is expected to occur in the next 25 years.