This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
What happens to a politician who won't roll over on his back for a pro soccer team that wants it all and - even with the blessing of the governor, House speaker and a prominent suburban mayor - doesn't get it?
Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon will soon find out.
Will there be efforts at the Legislature to get the Democratic mayor for refusing to play nice with powerful suburban Republicans? Will Real Salt Lake pack up and leave for suburban Phoenix, as was heavily rumored on Wednesday?
True to Corroon's subdued nature, he paused briefly during a telephone interview, then chuckled.
"I have no idea," he said. "I made my decision and the chips fall where they fall."
One hour earlier, Corroon had put the kibosh on RSL's request for $35 million in public financing for its controversial Sandy soccer stadium. He was speaking in his usual halting way. Some call him dull. In this protracted mess, I'd call him astute.
"The responsibility for [the stadium funding] was on the shoulders of Salt Lake County government," Corroon said. "It's gone on for months. We must have tried 20 iterations of how to do this deal, what it would look like if we did this or did that. It always came back to the same thing. We couldn't find a fiscally responsible way to make it work."
Boom. Done. Those who work with Corroon thought he might act soon, but even they weren't sure when. "[Corroon] knew this didn't look good from the start," said Doug Willmore, the county's chief administrative officer. "The other thing is we were brought into this at the end, on the Friday before Christmas. The agreement had been made between Sandy, the Legislature and Real - not the best way to get this done."
"If the mayor were different, then maybe," he said.
What RSL owner Dave Checketts wanted amounted to the county "spending a half-million to buy a $350,000 home" Corroon told me. The county would have had to bond for $48.5 million and end up repaying $87.5 million over the life of the loan.
By way of review, Checketts and his people capped their inaugural season last fall by announcing the team's move to Sandy, with a dream venue to accommodate it. The plans were sweet. The day of that announcement RSL flags were rippling in the wind. Team boosters were bouncing around and barking out cheers. Checketts was flanked by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., House Speaker Greg Curtis, Senate President John Valentine and Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan.
It struck me that day as slightly tacky and even politically risky that Checketts et al pulled Corroon onto the dais almost as an afterthought. He was the man who, as it turned out, the rest of them really, really needed. And his name was last on the thank-you list.
Corroon, noted Checketts, "got into this as the bus left the station a little bit." Then Checketts waved him into the group and everyone smiled big.
Seven months later, Corroon yanked the plug after it grew exceedingly clear that all this steel and concrete would be going up on sand. The $35 million was to come from an extension of the 1.25 percent Transient Room Tax. And that plan passed the Legislature - led by those very guys who were smiling and back-slapping each other on the podium last October.
In the past two weeks the hotel industry was getting hotter over footing the bill for something for which their room tax was never intended. Taxpayers were growing more restless, with letters against the plan flowing into Salt Lake's daily newspapers. Add to that RSL's revenue projections to 2015, leaked last week to The Tribune. They reached as high as Earth to Pluto, and would probably take about as long to get there.
Corroon knew it. He acted. People tend to like that in a mayor.
hmullen@sltrib.com or (801) 257-8610