Bait 'n' switch?: Legislators should keep Prop 3 promise to voters

(Utah Democratic Party)

Bait 'n' switch?:

Legislators should keep Prop 3 promise to voters

Tribune Editorial
Salt Lake Tribune

Salt Lake County voters went to the polls Nov. 7, it's a safe bet that most of them thought a vote for Proposition 3 was primarily a vote for commuter rail and four more TRAX lines. That's because political, business and environmental leaders told them so.

    So, if the Utah Legislature were to delay or otherwise manipulate the process of deciding which transit projects come first -- or to slight mass transit in favor of road-building -- it would be the mother of all bait-and-switch scams, right?

    Well, perhaps, but it's not clear if that is what is afoot. What is clear is that the Legislature has singled out Salt Lake County for heavy oversight of its transportation future and isn't coming clean on its plans or its motives.

    First came a business-friendly law in September that banned use of property taxes to fund transit projects, thus killing a ballot question that had been written by the Salt Lake County Council asking voters to approve an $895 million property-tax hike for more TRAX lines.

    The law also gave the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee the right to approve the county's ranking methods. Only then can the County Council and city mayors rank the rail and road projects that Prop 3 will fund with the quarter-cent sales tax increase that county voters overwhelmingly approved.

    Then, the appropriations committee thrice refused, twice before Election Day and again this past week, to move the process along by approving the county's science and methodology. That meant voters had no clue which transportation projects they were voting for. Due to this legislative foot-dragging, the ballot listed only "corridor preservation, congestion mitigation" and expanding "capacity for regionally significant transportation facilities."

    Then, on Tuesday, the committee called an abrupt halt to a presentation by the Council of Governments. The county and mayoral members were ordered to return in a month to present their criteria in narrative form, something the legislators had never mentioned in all this time.

    There is no apparent reason for this dillydallying by the appropriations committee, unless it wants to hold up, and ultimately influence, the final decision about which projects -- TRAX, commuter rail or roads -- will be built first. Some powerful legislators favor roads, and they know the county and its mayors are likely to put transit projects first, since that is what Salt Lake Valley residents have consistently indicated they want. Specifically, they want the Mid-Jordan and West Valley TRAX lines and another one to the airport.

    It is time for the Legislature to quit obfuscating and act expeditiously on its implied promise to give Salt Lake County voters what they want and what they will, after all, be paying for.

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