From Deseret News archives:
Salt Lake enjoys Capitol honeymoon
Salt Lake City's domestic partnership registry remained substantively intact following legislative scrutiny, a funding source was identified for a light-rail line to the airport, and Becker was able to get to bed at a decent hour Wednesday night.
It was a welcome change for Becker, Salt Lake City's first-year mayor who had spent the previous 11 years in the state House of Representatives.
Overall, it was a positive legislative session for Salt Lake City, Becker said, one in which the city was able to "lay the groundwork for future sessions and to build trust with the Legislature."
In many ways, he said, his new role is a continuation of his time on the Hill. Becker's relationships with lawmakers, particularly those in leadership positions, earned city officials an audience willing to listen and negotiate on issues important to Salt Lake City and its residents, the mayor said.
Two pieces of legislation in particular — one dealing with the city's ability to create a domestic partnership registry and the other filling the funding gap for the airport TRAX line — were the result of legislators being willing to sit down with Salt Lake City officials and take into consideration their concerns, Becker said.
"There is little doubt in my mind that had we not had the ability to have good conversations up there, we would have been big-time losers on those two bills," he said. "The city would have suffered, and in the case of light rail, the whole region would have suffered."
Salt Lake City didn't escape the session completely unscathed. The city's domestic partnership registry will need a new name, as some legislators felt the term, at least in spirit, violated Utah's constitutional Amendment No. 3, which bans same-sex marriage and substantially similar civil unions.
Becker already is referring to the city-run mechanism by which employers can extend heath care and other benefits to adult designees of their employees as "the registry." (He also jokingly referred to it as "the registry formerly known as the domestic partnership registry," uttering the disputed term in a barely audible whisper.)
And then there's the legislative effort to equalize capital funding for schools that resulted in the Salt Lake City, Murray and Granite school districts being forced to help pay for the financial consequences of the Jordan School District split.
Still, Becker and City Council Chairwoman Jill Remington Love agree that Salt Lake City fared better in this year's legislative session than it has in recent years.
