Real critic is seeking guidance on petition

A Salt Lake City resident who led the voter referendum against a public funding plan for Real Salt Lake is now calling on the lieutenant governor for clarification on what he calls the state's "unfair and perhaps unconstitutional" referendum law.

Brad Swedlund, who started the petition drive in March, said he thinks problems with referendum requirements "seriously compromised our ability to meet our goal of placing the funding of the Real soccer stadium on the ballot."

Swedlund and his group, Get Real Utah, formed shortly after the Legislature in February approved a $35 million funding deal for land and infrastructure at the stadium site in Sandy. Although that money only comes from Salt Lake County's hotel-tax dollars, the group had a little more than 30 days to collect nearly 92,000 signatures, 10 percent of the voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election, from at least 15 of Utah's counties.

Those numbers were tallied on Monday, and only 12,343 certified signatures were turned in — leaving the group short by 79,653 signatures.

On top of that, only one county — Daggett County, the least-populated county in the state — submitted enough petitions to meet one of the state requirements.

"The way the requirements are currently written, the Utah Legislature is more interested in 'absolute power' for themselves than empowering the people to occasionally challenge decisions made," Swedlund said in a statement.

In a letter to Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert dated Thursday, Swedlund pointed out the difficulties of gathering signatures from so many counties, which cover such a large geographic area. He also said that since the funding was targeted specifically at Salt Lake County, only Salt Lake County voters should have been required to sign the referendum petition.

"Although state legislators passed the bill, the issue is certainly not a statewide issue," Swedlund wrote. "That, in fact, was one of the reasons we initiated the referendum process. We believe a county's decisions about its tax base should be left to the county, unless it specifically conflicts with state or federal legislation."

His group now plans to continue its efforts in seeking reform of the state's referendum law and will post updates on its Web site, www.getrealutah.org.

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E-mail: astowell@desnews.com