From Deseret News archives:
Salt Lake County to review auto registration fee
A $10 fee imposed just months ago might be rescinded, after the Salt Lake County Council voted Tuesday to reconsider it.
The 2005 Legislature gave counties the option to levy the $10 fee to preserve highway corridors. With that, members of the County Council thought they had found a way to fund a planned west-side highway, the Mountain View Corridor.
But to date, the fee has funded minor road-widening projects in Sandy and Holladay. That is a "violation of trust" to county residents, Councilman Joe Hatch said.
"We should be sending it all to the Mountain View Corridor," Hatch added. "That's what we told the voters when we adopted it."
If the council approves any more minor road projects, "it's a betrayal to what we told the public when we adopted it," he said.
Transportation funding has changed dramatically since the Salt Lake County Council voted in March to levy the fee. Since then, voters approved Proposition 3, a $50-million-a-year sales tax increase to fund transportation projects. Of that increase, $12 million would be used to fund the Mountain View Corridor.
That put a kink in Salt Lake County's plans to use the $10 vehicle-registration fee for the Mountain View Corridor. Now, the council plans on waiting until the Legislature sets criteria and a priority list for funding for Proposition 3 before making a decision on rescinding the vehicle-registration fee.
A decision will be made no later than April, though, because if the council does get rid of the fee, Hatch said, it should be fair and end on July 1 — a year to the day after the fee first went into effect.
County commissions in Utah and Summit Counties also levied the fee. The Davis County Commission voted against the vehicle-registration fee because a handful of cities refused to support the increase.
Councilman Mark Crockett, who called the whole mess a "Ponzi scheme" earlier this month, said the council must seriously consider getting rid of the fee.
"I think its disingenuous for us to have a discussion, notice it up, invite people to come, and then say, 'Oh now we are going to use the money for something else,'" Crockett said.
The council will continue to work with the Salt Lake County Council of Governments to establish better criteria for what projects should be funded if the fee remains in place.
E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com
