The $20 million worth of free land and parking infrastructure for Real Salt Lake is a substantial boon to Sandy's sales pitch, which came late in the game after both Salt Lake City and Murray battled for the stadium for months.

Sandy's funding method is the second blow to Murray's Murray and Salt Lake City's City plans to woo the stadium after a bill banned the use of property tax diversions to fund part of the stadium construction.

"It makes Salt Lake City feel like they were duped on the deal," Murray Mayor Dan Snarr said. "They said we're going to slip some money for a parking structure and now they're saying, 'Parking structure, parking lot, what's the difference?' "

Although Snarr said he thought using the money as bait for the stadium was unfair, he added he couldn't help but admire the creativity of Sandy leaders and House Speaker Greg Curtis, who came up with the parking lot plan.

The idea to double dip in the $20 million parking lot funding first came up in a state sports commission meeting in April, Curtis said. Sandy did not have the stadium in mind when it pushed for the Expo Center parking money and was not disingenuous in asking for that funding, he said.

"What's wrong with government being efficient in the use of its money?" Curtis said. "Salt Lake is scared that somebody else is now in the running and they're saying that's not fair. It sounds like they're down to just name calling because they don't want to talk about the policy."

But Mike Jerman, vice president of the Utah Taxpayer's Association, said that policy is exactly why he is opposed to Sandy's plan.

In addition to the $20 million for land and parking, Jerman said he is against a proposal by Sandy leaders to create a sports enterprise enterprize zone to funnel sales tax dollars toward building the stadium.

"It's a terrible idea. It's one of the worst tax policy ideas," Jerman said.

The sports zone, he said, is just a way for Sandy leaders to skirt the issue of public funding and circumvent the ban on RDA dollars for soccer stadiums. The effect will be the same, Jerman said, with taxpayer dollars going toward the stadium with no public vote.

"This shows you how powerful Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan is at the state Legislature," legislature," he said. "I'm not sure of any other mayor that could get that amount of money going into his city for such an unnecessary project."

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Contributing: Brady Snyder

E-mail: estewart@desnews.com