Rocky denies church gives him orders

Officials of The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints don't tell him what to do, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said in a radio interview Sunday.

"They never tell me how to run the city," he said in an interview on the program "Mormon Miscellaneous With Van Hale," broadcast on station KTKK, AM 630.

Salt Lake City's status as the world headquarters for the church is "a great thing for our city," he said. "We have an amazing heritage and tradition here."

The LDS settlers aren't alone in that heritage, he said. It goes back prior to European settlement, and the involvement of American Indians continues to be important, he said.

He hears about religious discrimination, such as children of one religion picking on children who are different, "but it works both ways."

LDS officials have been great partners to work with, he said. "They have an important role. Of course, they've got a huge stake in our downtown."

Anderson said he works with developers, property owners and business owners, "and to the extent they have an interest in the downtown, we need to work with them."

Good communications with church representatives are important, he said.

"So I think that needs to be distinguished from the kinds of issues that we hear about where — it's usually on things like liquor laws — where, you know, the word comes down and the legislators all fall in line."

A lot less of that kind of thing happens than people suspect, he believes. When it does occur, it's on some highly publicized issue like liquor, he said.

Anderson said concerning liquor laws, Utahns who are not members of the church "feel imposed upon." He attacked Utah's liquor laws, saying they are "pretty ridiculous."

If the state were to start over and decide what laws should be put in place, Anderson added, "nobody would ever dream up the private club scheme, and I don't think anybody would ever dream up a one-ounce drink."

"You can't call that a drink," he added.

In the battle over the possible move of Nordstrom from Crossroads Mall, Anderson said, "As soon as the LDS Church bought Crossroads Mall, we had at least one of our (city) council members actually change his position on the Nordstrom move."

But other than highly publicized issues like liquor, Anderson said, "you don't see this heavy hand of the LDS Church in politics. And then actually, across the board, in my experiences, they've been great partners."

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