Rocky hails differences year made in Salt Lake

In a nearly hourlong speech hailing cultural and physical change in Utah's capital, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson renamed the 2002 Olympics, reminded everyone to recycle and, while he was at it, touted his initiatives that are "bucking trends that have become a way of life for many Utahns."

Anderson's third annual "State of the City" speech held Salt Lake City — and the mayor's eclectic list of policy changes — as an example to the country. During and after the Olympics, Anderson proclaimed, the city will continue "learning from the past (and) exercising the courage to move in new directions."

During the Winter Games "we will show the world the compassion and caring of our community," by opening an overflow homeless shelter and by throwing a huge downtown party with live entertainment all day and most of each night. These will be "the People's Games," Anderson declared.

During the break following the speech, Councilman Carlton Christensen gave that idea a less than enthusiastic review. The People's Games moniker is "a stretch," Christensen said. "I'm not ready to call them that . . . They're really the athletes' Games."

But the mayor didn't linger long on the Olympics; he quickly moved on to tout two of his most dearly held causes: after-school programs for youths and a new park on Library Square.

That park "is his legacy," Christensen said, adding that if Salt Lake City has a showpiece of an urban commons around the Main Library by this time next year, Anderson will certainly parade it throughout his run for re-election.

As for the mayor's youth programs, "we support them, but we're not sure (the city) should be the provider of them," Christensen said. At last year's budget session, the City Council allocated $150,000 for youth programs, half what the mayor asked for. Programs director Janet Wolf has since brought in a $1.2 million federal grant, but says she needs much more to make after-school activities available to all young Salt Lakers who need them.

Other vintage Rocky Anderson proclamations came next: Salt Lake leaders must "change entrenched ways of doing things." Walkable neighborhoods, transit development before highway construction, locally owned shops instead of malls — there lies the path to a healthy city, the mayor said.