Salt Lake County Dems take helm of council

Group wants to create independent redistricting panel

The new-look Salt Lake County Council convened for its first meeting of 2009 and, after electing longtime member and Democrat Joe Hatch to the chairman position, debated a proposal from the just-minted majority party to take the politics out of the decennial process of redrawing County Council districts.

Instead, the majority favors the creation of an independent redistricting commission.

An almost identical proposal was before the board in mid-2007 and went down in a party-line vote that, at that time, favored the Republicans.

According to minutes from that meeting, Republican Councilman Michael Jensen told the board that "one of the benefits of being the party in power is it gets to define the boundaries for council districts." Hatch, in re-introducing the proposed ordinance change, is sticking to promises he made before the new year that he would work to de-politicize the once-a-decade (after the federal census) process of establishing new district lines.

Councilman Randy Horiuchi offered this somewhat tongue-in-cheek assessment of his party's decision to push, again, for an independent body to perform redistricting, after taking voting-control of the board for the first time since the council was formed in 2000.

"It's amazing that the first time we have control, we farm it out," Horiuchi said. "That tells you how cool we are."

The new minority party leader, Republican Jeff Allen, said he was OK with the plan, but asked for a more detailed outline of the procedures the new commission would be required to follow. He also proposed referring the ordinance change to the council's legislative committee for review — an idea that garnered unanimous council support.

In other council business, a "last call" for proposals on new parks and open space projects was approved, as funds from a $48 million bond that was approved by voters in 2006 approach depletion. Currently, about $4 million remains available for park-related land purchases and $6 million for open space property.

In another first for the new year, council Democrats met Tuesday before the committee of the whole gathering for an open-to-the-public caucus meeting at the Millcreek Cafe in Salt Lake City. The party discussed items on the day's agenda and voted freshman Councilwoman Jani Iwamoto as the caucus chair. Mayor Peter Corroon, Sheriff Jim Winder, chief deputy county clerk Jason Yocum were in attendance as well as former Democratic Salt Lake Mayor Ted Wilson. Wilson took part in a discussion on Jordan River issues, and celebrated the party's open forum (which will be a regular event) with this comment: "I've never seen so much Democratic power in one place," Wilson said. "Outside of Chicago."

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E-mail: araymond@desnews.com

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