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Jay Evensen: Vision for Sandy shouldn't eclipse the rest of Utah

As a resident of Sandy, I have mixed feelings about anything that will bring additional traffic to our city. However, as I made the obligatory, annual trek downtown last night to see the Christmas lights on temple square, I realized how many ways the old downtown has blown it.

Parking is scarce and expensive, especially anytime there are major events at both ES Arena and near temple square; which is more and more of the time these days. The wide, wonderful streets have been strangled with lights synchronized to impede, rather than assist with the flow of traffic. And Trax running down the middle of major streets only adds to that problem. Even the HOV interchange at 400 South was obviously designed only to handle typical, token traffic loads; nothing like is seen when large numbers of people visit the old downtown.

After spending 15 minutes in city traffic (and that was WELL before the game or concert ended) just to make it to the freeway, I am grateful that the number of events requiring me to brave downtown continue to dwindle as I'm able to stay closer to home more often.

It was a solid

"This should be a no-brainer. Downtown Salt Lake City remains the state's showcase. If visionaries want to try to build their own versions of that, more power to them. Just don't make the rest of us pay for it."

Don't make the rest pay for it? "The rest" - everyone outside of Salt Lake City - already IS paying for it. OUR taxes pay for all those government offices and for the U of U. 85% of Salt Lake *County* ZAP taxes go to venues inside of Salt Lake City, home to less than 20% ofthe county's population.

And why should downtown SLC remain "the state's showcase?" Because businesses and poperty owners there have a vested financial interest in keeping all the money flowing to SLC.

Downtown Sandy? Where is this Downtown Sandy I hear of. I've lived in Sandy for over a decade and I don't understand how anyone can make a downtown comparison between Sandy and Salt Lake City. It's like a little brother trying to show his older sibling how big and strong he is.

Sandy is a nice place to live. You can get most anything you would want without leaving the city, but you can do this in West Valley, Ogden and elsewhere.

Sandy should focus on their own destiny and not try competing or comparing themselves with Salt Lake. There is not competition. Just be proud to be Sandy.

"Downtown Sandy? Where is this Downtown Sandy I hear of."

"Downtown Sandy" is what you would call an office park, if it weren't home to City Hall. Frankly I'm not all that impressed with it, and I'm not all that impressed with the "visionaries" like Tom Dolan who turned what could've been a very nice, centrally located park (the old quarry) into another WalMart-anchored strip mall with ugly townhouses nearby.

I look at those townhouses and think that Bryson Garbett must really hate Sandy, except that he lives in Sandy and wanted to be my state senator.

But the proposed offices/condos/theatre does sound like something more visionary, and we should support it - not just Sandy, but anyone in nearby towns, too. We need - no, DESERVE - cultural amenities at this end of the valley, and not just roads, schools, and shopping malls. WE pay the ZAP taxes to support all those theatres in Salt Lake.

The argument that anything and everything of taxpayer-supported cultural import should be located IN DOWNTOWN SALT LAKE isn't made with the best interests of everyone in mind. It's made out of pure financial greed and selfishness. If you buy it you're naive.

The epicenter of the State is still Downtown Salt Lake City and if people want to have a vibrant, thriving downtown then it follows that it needs the content of theaters, arts, and cultural institutions to make it so. There is no sense in trying to replicate the infrastructure of restaurants, hotels, parking, etc. in another community; it's already downtown! And it's even more insulting when the tax dollars that move organizations out of downtown come from downtown businesses. That's takes a lot of gall.