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No lobbying or emotional debate necessary.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson apparently can extend health benefits to unmarried partners of gay and straight city employees anytime he wants. And he said Tuesday that he will "absolutely" offer the benefits once the city finishes its research on the plan and he gets formal word he can do it without a City Council vote.

Still, Anderson hopes the council passes a symbolic resolution supporting the idea.

"As long as we're going to do this, we should demonstrate unity on this issue," he said. "Providing for equality should not create more division in our community."

Even a symbolic resolution is hardly a sure thing. The city's seven-member council leans conservative, and this is an election year for four of them.

If the council rejects a resolution, Anderson said he would go ahead and offer the benefits anyway. Barring quick action from another city, Salt Lake City would become Utah's first government to offer domestic-partner benefits.

Mike Picardi, chairman of the Utah Stonewall Democrats, was excited about the news and said it could spur more governments and companies to follow suit.

"It's about time that we have this," he said. "It gives recognition to a group of people in existence - you can't wish them away. They're a different type of family, but they are family."

Picardi stressed the benefits would aid heterosexual couples, too. "People like to spin this into a gay issue. . . . It's an evolution of the nuclear family."

On Tuesday, Anderson met with Councilwoman Jill Remington Love to talk about domestic-partner benefits. She was looking at extending benefits via a council vote, but research by council staff found the mayor can "pick up the phone and do it," she said.

"I encouraged him [Anderson] to move ahead," she recalled. "My main goal is that it gets done."

The City Attorney's Office has yet to issue an opinion.

Anderson said he wants the plan in place before November, when employees change their benefits package. "It's a matter of getting it drafted," he said.

Brenda Hancock, director of the city's Human Resources Department, said a task force is studying which benefits could be offered to employees' partners, how to implement the program and the legalities. Possible benefits include health, life and dental insurance. Just like employees' spouses, the domestic partners would have to pay about $2,200 a year to join the health plan.

The city might also offer partners the chance to buy auto insurance and legal assistance - benefits now offered to employees' spouses.

Other cities and employers offering domestic-partners benefits see 1 percent to 2 percent of the work force apply. If that holds true in Salt Lake City, it could cost the city up to $121,000 more a year to cover domestic partners and their children. That's a 0.6 percent increase in the city's $18.7 million benefits budget. And it's equivalent to what the city spends when employees get married.

Anderson predicted the price tag would be even less.

While at least one lawmaker believes that offering domestic-partner benefits runs afoul of state law - and Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, said he would be willing to sponsor legislation to stop the city from proceeding - Salt Lake County attorneys already have found it would be legal, according to County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson. After an emotional debate last month, the County Council rejected Wilson's plan to offer domestic-partner benefits to county employees.

While Love wants benefits extended to siblings and parents as well, the mayor is seeking benefits for only gay and heterosexual partners.

"I'm fine with that," Love said.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is continuing work on creating a domestic-partner registry, which would allow gay and heterosexual couples to register their relationships at City Hall.

Employees are researching if the registry could provide any legal rights, such as hospital-visitation rights. "I'd like to go as far as we can to provide for equal treatment regardless of sexual orientation," Anderson said Tuesday.

Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, has likened the registry to gay marriages. Supporters of such registries say they aren't the same.

If a registry confers legal rights, Anderson said he would need City Council support. If it doesn't, he thinks he can create the registry on his own.

- Heather May