Becker determined to build Salt Lake public safety complex

Salt Lake City residents again will be asked to help pay for a new public safety complex.

During his State of the City report Tuesday night, Mayor Ralph Becker announced plans to place a bond initiative on the ballot in November to address the need for police and fire facilities.

The project will be "substantially streamlined" and have a reduced price tag from the $192 million bond proposal that was narrowly rejected by voters in 2007, Becker said.

"While the 2007 bond campaign was unsuccessful, the need for an efficient, modern public safety facility has only increased," he said.

Becker assembled a team last January — his first month in office — to explore options for a new public safety complex, he said. That team was able to reduce estimated costs by "defining essential services, using resources efficiently and taking advantage of the synergies of colocating the buildings near other city services such as the justice court and City Hall," the mayor said.

The new complex calls for a state-of-the-art emergency operations center for disaster management and an intelligence-gathering fusion center. Becker said he will seek partnerships with federal, state and local agencies to help with those facilities.

"There are many opportunities to be more efficient through mutually beneficial relationships with other jurisdictions," he said, "and we will realize significant savings from them."

In 2007, voters defeated the public safety bond by just 263 votes — 21,269 to 21,006. The bond would have paved the way for five new public safety buildings at three locations.

About $100 million of the bond would have gone to replace the 50-year-old building at 315 E. 200 South, which public safety officials have called "dilapidated" and "unsafe."

But the hefty price tag, and its accompanying property-tax increase of $175 per year on a $300,000 home, made the bond a tough sell. The proposal also had several high-profile opponents, including then-Mayor Rocky Anderson.

Becker said he'll be "working closely" with the City Council to move forward with a project worthy of support from residents in a time of economic decline.

"It absolutely is a time of belt-tightening and conserving, and it is absolutely a time for caution and common sense," Becker said. "... But that does not mean we stop, cancel or close down."

It's with that mentality that the city is moving forward with a downtown theater capable of hosting first-run touring Broadway shows.