Yet, after demanding a role for itself in the design of much-demanded transit projects in Salt Lake County, the Utah Legislature apparently caught a serious case of stage fright. So what had been a likely voter approval of additional taxes to fund specific transit improvements is in serious danger of being lost in a political fog.
Particularly galling is the pitiful excuse given for the failure of the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee to tackle the issue in time for voters to learn just what they would get if they approve a proposed quarter-cent sales tax hike on Nov. 7.
House Speaker Greg Curtis will be on a trade junket to China.
This is crazy. There is absolutely no reason why Curtis, a personage who couldn't be named even by most Utahns, would be a significant asset to the mission properly headed by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
It was bad enough that the Legislature, acting hastily in a special session last month, insulted Salt Lake County's various local governments and their ability to wisely spend the money by insisting on a legislative sign-off of the project selection criteria.
It's far worse that, due to legislative dysfunction, that sign-off will be delayed and the county will not be able to put forward a list of project priorities. All voters will have is a ballot question asking for a tax hike to pay for "corridor preservation, congestion mitigation, or to expand capacity for regionally significant transportation facilities."
Huh?
Will the four new spurs of the TRAX light-rail system, which were to be the sole beneficiaries of an abandoned plan to issue $895 million in property tax-supported bonds, still be built? Will they be stuck behind the FrontRunner commuter rail service into Utah County? How much will be diverted to highways?
Because no one can say, even transit backers may be moved to say no to this pig in a poke, which also happens to be an undeserved poke in the eye to Salt Lake County.
If legislative leaders think they deserve a role in the county's transit-funding process, then Speaker Curtis can stay home and do his job.
So the voters can do theirs.
