From Deseret News archives:
Salt Lake leaders feel betrayed by county
This time the ill will is all about cash, with Salt Lake City leaders feeling like they've been stabbed in the back by their counterparts at the county.
"You would be upset too, if you were in my shoes," City Council Chairman Dale Lambert said.
Like most of the recent city and county spats, this one has roots in the Salt Palace Convention Center expansion project. The $82 million project includes a $20 million parking garage for the South Town Expo Center in Sandy.
During its 2005 general session, the Utah Legislature raised the county's hotel taxes to pay for part of that $82 million bill. Still, a roughly $14 million fund gap remained even after Salt Lake County, which owns both the Salt Palace and the Expo Center, pitched in all the money it said it had.
Faced with the $14 million shortfall, city, county and state leaders cobbled together a plan in which Salt Lake City pitched in $8 million, the state added $4 million and expo center ticket prices were raised to generate another $2 million.
City leaders maintain county politicians then insisted the $20 million parking structure was non-negotiable. City leaders had argued that ditching the structure, or building less expensive surface-level parking, could cut down the $14 million gap without taxing city coffers for $8 million.
Now county leaders are saying they don't know if a parking structure is needed.
"It appears they are saying 'golly, we can build a less costly parking structure,' " Councilman Eric Jergensen said.
Surface level parking may be a viable alternative after all, county leaders say.
"It needs additional parking, whether it's a parking structure or additional surface parking," County Mayor Peter Corroon said.
That said, surface parking would still be pricey, since it would require the county to purchase more land than it currently owns near the Expo Center.
"If we do surface, we have to do a lot of surface parking," Corroon said. "It would certainly cost a lot of money, but maybe not as much as a parking garage."
Further angering city leaders, Corroon said Sandy officials have approached him about the possibility of using the potential parking lot/structure for both the Expo Center and a new Major League Soccer stadium for Real Salt Lake.
The stadium could be built on some nearby private land if the county were willing to move the parking lot/structure nearer to that private land, which abuts the Expo Center, Corroon said.
Salt Lake City has been competing with Murray for months in an effort to woo the stadium, which still needs some $30 million in public funding that no one has yet committed.
