Voters backing all 3 initiatives

Forget ballot fatigue: Salt Lake County voters are willing to pay higher taxes for open space, recreational projects and transportation.

A recent Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows voters aren't bothered about being asked to support all three initiatives at once, despite county leaders' fears that the simultaneous appearance on November's ballot would doom some of the measures.

Tops on the voter priority list is a $48 million proposition to buy up open space in the county. Of the 366 county residents polled, 72 percent said they would support the initiative. Dan Jones & Associates conducted the poll Sept. 25-28. It has a 5.1 percent margin of error.

The open-space measure, titled Proposition 2 on the ballot, would raise the property taxes on a $250,000 home by $9 a year. For Salt Lake County Councilman Cort Ashton, who is championing the open-space effort in the county, $9 a year is worth it to protect the county's "precious open space."

"Land is not getting any more available, nor is it getting any less expensive," Ashton said. "Countywide, it's a worthwhile thing. People have an appetite for open space and green space."

The bond would pay to acquire and develop land for community and regional parks, trails and land to protect wildlife habitat and wetlands. Half of the money would be used to buy land for future parks, and the other $24 million would go for more open space, natural habitat and community trails.

By a 2-to-1 margin, voters also support a measure to allow the county to bond now to pay for recreation projects instead of slowly paying off the projects with Zoo, Arts and Parks taxes over the next 10 years.

Proposition 1 would allow the county to bond for $65 million to acquire, construct and renovate county recreational facilities. Taxes would not go up, however, as the ZAP tax is already being collected, said Vicki Bourns, program manager for the county's open-space trust fund, as well as the ZAP program. The county would then use that money to pay off the bond, she said.

Approximately 61 percent of those polled said they would support Proposition 1. Another 29 percent said they were against the measure, while 11 percent said they didn't know how they would vote.

And even with the first two ballot propositions, most of the voters surveyed said they support a sales-tax increase to fund transportation projects. The supporters outnumbered the critics 2-to-1, according to the poll.