City, county in soccer feud

(by Erin Stewart and Brady Snyder desnews.com 5-26-05)

The race to land a major league soccer stadium has Salt Lake City Council members pointing an accusing finger at Salt Lake County, suggesting county officials lack political integrity.

In a letter sent Tuesday to County Mayor Peter Corroon, City Council members question whether county leaders were up-front in negotiating a deal for Salt Palace expansion funds. Twenty million dollars of that funding was slated for a parking structure at the South Towne Expo Center but may now be used to buy land and a parking lot for the Real Salt Lake stadium.

Salt Lake City pitched in $8 million on the expansion deal, but Sandy didn't pay any of the cost. Now, city council members say they may end up essentially subsidizing a stadium for Sandy that Salt Lake City has been trying to land for months.

"This is not so much about the location of a soccer stadium as it is about integrity among elected officials," the City Council said in the letter.

The letter suggests the city was misled when county officials said there were no cheaper options for an Expo Center parking lot and that Sandy would not reap any economic benefit from the parking lot funds.

But after the final funding arrangements were put together during last month's interim legislative session, House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, and Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan began kicking around a deal that could use the $20 million for a surface parking lot shared by the stadium and the Expo Center. There may even be some money left over to help with the stadium.

"The Salt Palace expansion funding was never about building a soccer stadium and should not now be used for that purpose," the letter says.

The council demanded that the county "provide a timely, clear and specific response" addressing the concerns the City Council outlined.

Salt Lake City officials seem especially perturbed with County Councilman Joe Hatch, who represents Salt Lake City on the County Council. Earlier this month Hatch was the sole county official at a meeting between Real Salt Lake leaders and Sandy officials.

City Council Chair Dale Lambert wondered how Hatch, who is supposed to represent Salt Lake City on the County Council, could think that brokering a meeting between RSL and Sandy was looking out for the city's interests. Lambert said the jury is still out on whether city officials will try to get Hatch voted off the County Council when he is up for re-election in 2006.

Hatch, however, said he still would prefer to have the stadium in downtown Salt Lake, but the Sandy proposal could save taxpayers from funding a $30 million bond to pay for a new soccer stadium. Such a bond would likely be required under proposals from Salt Lake City and Murray.

"I think what's happened here is that Salt Lake City has been so long ignored, so long put upon and beat up by the powers that be that every coincidence, every bit of slight bad luck all of a sudden becomes a grand conspiracy to get the city," Hatch said.

Salt Lake City's $8 million contribution was never going toward the Expo parking structure, Hatch added. That money was solely for the Salt Palace, he said, which would be in serious jeopardy if Salt Lake City now withdraws its promised funding.

City leaders, including Mayor Rocky Anderson and Lambert, have said they are not threatening to pull the city's $8 million contribution but do want a dialogue with the county. They say if county funds are available for the soccer stadium they shouldn't just be available for Sandy's proposal but for proposals by any city in the county.

Corroon said he is somewhat sympathetic that Salt Lake City may not have supported the Salt Palace deal if the Sandy stadium had been on the table.

"I can understand their feelings that somehow money for South Towne may now go to support soccer stadium which is in somebody else's city when they're vying for it themselves," he said. "They were supportive of the legislative bill as a whole and obviously they would have had different thoughts if they thought the money was going to go towards something else."

But Corroon is quick to add that county officials had not heard anything about a Sandy stadium proposal until long after the Salt Palace deal had been sealed.

"The county was involved in no back room deals that Salt Lake City was not involved in," he said.