S.L. takes less liberal road with Legislature

Last year about this time, Salt Lake City was contemplating Mayor Rocky Anderson's controversial 10-item legislative agenda.

From sex education to gay marriage to living wages to gun laws, Anderson wanted the city to push his liberal agenda at the conservative state Legislature.

But that was last year.

This year, the city's proposed legislative agenda is a bit more mellow — maybe by design.

Last legislative session, several city leaders complained about becoming criticism targets for lawmakers.

"We failed to see that we're very much a minority and we try to push through things that the majority doesn't want to hear," Councilman Van Turner said after last session. "When we have our discussion next year, we better get a reality check as to where we stand as a city. I'm not going to be in favor of spending a terrific amount of money with zero result."

Not only did the city lose out on most of Anderson's agenda, it also lost in ways it never expected to going in — Salt Palace expansion funding chief among them.

This year, the proposed legislative agenda the administration presented to the City Council is decidedly less controversial and more rooted in issues that directly relate to city government rather than the grandiose.

Additionally, city lobbyist Craig Peterson and deputy city attorney Lynn Pace, who also lobbies for the city, want better communication with city leaders — open lines they hope will give the city better results.

"All of us can learn lessons and hopefully improve our output performance and last year that (communication) was one of our challenges," Peterson said.

Council Chair Dale Lambert called Peterson, Pace and the city council together this month to hash out the city's lobbying efforts "so that we can arrive early rather than late at our legislative priorities."

This year the city wants legislation facilitating background checks of ground transportation drivers. It also wants to monitor funding proposals for construction of the new Real Salt Lake stadium in Sandy. If a special taxing district is created for Sandy to fund the soccer stadium, Salt Lake City wants a similar district to fund a new Broadway-style playhouse and other arts amenities downtown.

The city is pushing to "make sure that if a funding mechanism is created that would fund the soccer stadium that the same funding vehicle be made available to Salt Lake City for other worthwhile community purposes. For instance, an arts district," Pace said.