Rocky recommends that Salt Lake hire lobbyist

If council members go along with the mayor's recommendation, Salt Lake City might soon have a paid lobbyist to work on its behalf at the Legislature.

"To have a sustained presence with a full-time, professional lobbyist could really help," Mayor Rocky Anderson said. "Especially since a lot of the things we face don't just come up during the general session but also during interim sessions."

Even before Anderson took office, relationships between more liberal Salt Lake City and the conservative Legislature were not stellar.

Since Anderson took office in 1999, relationships have continued to be frosty as Anderson joined a lawsuit against the state's planned Legacy Highway — a pet project of many Davis and Weber County lawmakers — and has advocated for many liberal causes like gay marriage and environmental protection and against a unilateral war in Iraq.

Earlier in 2003 legislators even contemplated taking financial retribution on Salt Lake City because of Anderson. Lawmakers threatened to withhold almost $2 million of sales tax revenues due Salt Lake City because of Anderson's participation in the Legacy Highway suit and what some considered his neglect of west-side issues.

But in the end Anderson hammered out a deal with lawmakers to address west-side concerns and agreed not to join further litigation over the highway. In return Salt Lake City got its sales tax money.

While he agrees Salt Lake City could do more to mend its relationship with the Legislature, Councilman Dave Buhler said he would be "reluctant" to allocate funds for a lobbyist. Instead, Buhler said the city's

longtime system of having a lawyer from the City Attorney's Office represent the city at the Legislature works.

Veteran city attorney Steven Allred had represented the city at the Legislature for years, but he retired earlier this year. Anderson said deputy city attorney Lynn Pace might be able to take over some of Allred's duties but added that a lobbyist is needed.

But Buhler argues a city employee "has a whole different feel" than a paid lobbyist and could better advocate for city issues. Moreover, city attorneys work for both the mayor and the council. A paid lobbyist hired by Anderson might be more inclined to side with the mayor on controversial issues. If the council had a perspective different from the mayor, the council might be forced to hire its own lobbyist, thus sending mixed messages from City Hall to lawmakers, Buhler said.