A tough, but right, choice

Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon likely will pay a price for doing the right thing. But make no mistake, his decision Monday to not apply $30 million in county hotel taxes toward construction of a soccer stadium was the right thing.

Already, Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan has accused him of lacking vision. Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson told KSL-TV, "Everybody involved seemed to do everything they could to just screw it up royally." He said the decision would be "a black eye" unless others find a way to "bail it out." Others are bound to accuse the county of taking too long to make this decision, as if being careful, thorough and deliberate with taxpayer funds is a bad thing.

For Corroon, deciding to go ahead and buy the land for the stadium would have been a much easier choice, at least in official circles. It might even have been easier for his own soccer passions. Corroon is a season-ticket holder.

But it would not have been correct.

This wasn't about professional soccer. Real Salt Lake has provided good entertainment and is an asset to the community. Soccer may never challenge the other major sports in the United States, but it is gaining in popularity, and Major League Soccer seems to be building a strong foundation.

No, this was about the proper use of public funds.

Hotel room taxes are paid by visitors to area. Their purpose ought to be to boost tourism and to defray the costs of providing government services to tourists, who otherwise would pay only sales taxes during their stay. Professional soccer does not add any appreciable amount to tourism. And, while the county money would have gone only toward land and infrastructure for the stadium, it would have made possible the construction of a hotel as part of the stadium project.

In other words, hotels in other parts of the county would have been forced to tax their customers in order to help build a competing hotel in Sandy.

But the real reason to reject this plan was, as Corroon said, that the team hadn't demonstrated it was financially viable. That made the deal a gamble. Obviously, private investors have not come forward to take this gamble with their money. Why should the mayor of Salt Lake County gamble with taxpayer funds?

We wish Real Salt Lake could find a way to make the stadium work without the public treasury. We hope other politicians don't bail out the stadium without similar careful diligence.

And we will watch carefully to see whether there are any attempts, official or otherwise, to punish Corroon for taking his elected office seriously.