More funds sought for conservation

In the wake of a defeated open space initiative, the Quality Growth Commission asked Utah legislators Wednesday to beef up its conservation funding.

The commission, a 13-member board appointed by the governor, would have been responsible for distributing the $150 million bond tied to Initiative 1 to clean water, build parks, construct city buildings and preserve open space.

But after the measure failed in the Nov. 2 election by 55 percent, commission vice chairwoman Shauna Kerr said the group now needs the Legislature to restore conservation funding to the $3 million level it was at in 1999.

Since then, the commission's LeRay McAllister Conservation Fund has dipped to about $500,000, an amount Kerr said is not enough to fund conservation projects statewide. Out of the 13 applications for funding in 2004, the commission had to turn away two and were able to only partially fund the rest.

"We have far more applications than we have money to spend. We have more interest than we have funds," she said.

But the failure of the open space initiative at the polls may complicate the request for more money, said John Bennett, project manager for the Quality Growth Commission.

The 45 percent support for Initiative 1 may encourage legislators to take open space more seriously, Bennett said. On the other hand, he cautioned, the defeat of the bond may also lead legislators to believe Utahns do not want to spend more government dollars on open space.

Either way, Commission Chairman Dan Lofgren said he hopes the Legislature can "take a deep breath" and look beyond the issues of Initiative 1 to focus on what can be done now.

"I'm hopeful that we can do the right thing on critical lands regardless of what happened or what didn't happen with Initiative 1," Lofgren said.

Kerr said she remains confident that the Legislature will see that open space is a top priority for Utahns and that the opposition to Initiative 1 centered more on concerns about bond limits and taxing via initiative.

"The open space initiative has raised the discussion level of preservation and open space in the state of Utah, and we think that will be an ongoing discussion," Kerr said.