Salt Lake County, City spar over public safety bond

A proposed $192 million bond for public safety facilities in Salt Lake City is meeting opposition from county elected officials.

Salt Lake County Council members Joe Hatch, Randy Horiuchi and Jim Bradley are speaking out against the bond, saying too many extra projects are attached to plans for a new public safety building and are unnecessarily driving up the bond's price tag.

The three county councilmen, all Democrats, agree the city needs to replace the nearly 50-year-old public safety building at 315 E. 200 South. But that can be done for about $100 million, which they say should be the bond's ceiling.

"They took an absolutely bad situation — a need for a new building — and dumped every single pet project onto it and think the voters would have no idea," Hatch said.

The $192 million bond, placed on the ballot by the Salt Lake City Council, would cover the cost of five public safety structures at three locations. A new public safety building, an emergency operations center and a combined parking/evidence storage structure would be grouped as a downtown public safety campus. The bond also would pay for a new west-side fire station and training center in Glendale and a combined east-side police/fire public safety facility in Sugar House.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said city public safety officials have been trying for the past five years to get facilities built to meet the needs of the police and fire departments. Competing bonds in past years have been partially responsible for keeping the public safety issue off the ballot until this year, he said.

Speaking to the Deseret Morning News editorial board this week, Burbank called a new public safety building with an emergency operations center the "No. 1 priority" because it has been neglected the longest, but he said the east- and west-side facilities also are necessary.

Burbank said the city is being fiscally responsible by combining police and fire facilities on the east side and building new west-side fire facilities around the existing training tower.

Hatch contends Salt Lake City could save even more taxpayer money by sharing a fire training facility with the county's Unified Fire Authority in Magna — a suggestion Burbank said contains "a lot of ignorance."