Two west-side TRAX spurs in Salt Lake County and a Front-Runner rail line to Utah County face an unexpected vote that could put the projects in jeopardy.

Still stinging from a legislative audit, the head of the Salt Lake County Council of Governments (COG) agreed Wednesday to call a second vote on which road and rail projects should get funding through a quarter-cent sales tax.

The outcome could yank money from light-rail spurs to West Valley City and the Jordan burbs. Or it could stop heavy commuter rail from reaching Utah County.

"Any project could be jeopardized by this vote," said West Valley City Mayor and COG President Dennis Nordfelt.

The move comes a day after a legislative audit revealed that transit projects received an unfair edge last December in tapping a voter-approved sales tax.

Not only were transit projects bumped up on the priority list because of a mathematical error - FrontRunner ranked No. 2 last year, but now falls to No. 19 on the 34-project list - but decision-makers also appeared biased in favor of rail, the audit stated.

COG members don't deny that pro-transit slant.

"My vote represented the wishes of the citizens," said Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon. So while a "mistake was made," he said, voters overwhelmingly backed rails when they agreed to the tax.

The specter of a second COG vote appeared Wednesday as state lawmakers grilled Nordfelt about the priority list and chastised the Wasatch Front Regional Council for its faulty math.

Sen. Scott Jenkins, R-Plain City, challenged county and city leaders to vote again on their transportation priorities - this time with an audit that shows 80 percent of the county's quarter-cent sales tax steered to projects that should have ranked 18 and 19 on COG's list.

"If you took that vote of the COG today," he asked, "could you get enough votes to sustain this?"

Responded Nordfelt: "I would be willing to bet my firstborn child that we could."

He might be right. Transit - especially light rail - remained at the top Wednesday for many COG members, who said they wouldn't change their votes.

"The expansion of our mass-transit system is key to improving quality of life, air quality and curbing global-warming pollution," Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said through his spokesman.

The "overwhelmingly strong" support among Salt Lake County voters for TRAX and commuter rail, he said, should be honored.

That support echoed from the Salt Lake County Council, where Jim Bradley defended rails as a "forward-looking" investment that he will continue to champion.

It also came from South Jordan, where Mayor Kent Money said he doubted he would flip his vote.

"The way the COG voted," he said, "we were listening not only to the citizens, we were listening to the Legislature. . . . The emphasis needed to be on transit - and we did that."

But the second vote could derail a linchpin transit project: a commuter-rail line from Salt Lake City to Utah County.

FrontRunner trains from Ogden to Utah's capital are expected to be running by next spring. But the extension through the Salt Lake Valley did not win wide support in COG's initial vote - though it did get a funding nod.

Taylorsville Mayor Russ Wall wants to dump it, arguing it steals sales taxes from Salt Lake County for rails that primarily will benefit Utah County.

And Salt Lake County Councilman Mark Crockett favors a chance to thwart FrontRunner funding.

"If we could shift that money from commuter rail to roads," he said, "that would be a good idea."

The Utah Transit Authority's general manager, John Inglish, declined to comment on the threats facing its FrontRunner line, saying through a spokeswoman that there are too many variables to speculate.

Reversing course on commuter rail "would be painful," according to Wasatch Front Regional Council spokesman Sam Klemm. "Our plan certainly recognized the importance of commuter rail. It completes the system."

Even so, Klemm wasn't surprised Nordfelt agreed to a new COG vote, "given the pressure that was on him" from legislators.

"They put the screws down."

Klemm said an about-face seems unlikely since COG made commitments and since UTA already has finalized a letter of intent to secure federal funds for the FrontRunner and TRAX extensions.

But it could happen. The Salt Lake County Council hasn't signed an interlocal agreement to disperse UTA's share of the sales tax.

And if any project is in danger, it's commuter rail, Nordfelt said.

COG has set no meeting date, but Nordfelt said the vote will occur "as quickly as possible." While the do-over threatens up to $2.5 billion in projects, the mayor said it is needed to appease legislators.

"I can understand why there would be some suspicion with the obvious interest we had in transit," Nordfelt said. "The best thing we can do right now is to go back with the calculations done correctly and see if the rationale that we used to select the projects is still valid."

Go right ahead, said a critical Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse.

"They may very well decide to ignore the process and do whatever they want," he said. "But they need to do that publicly."

jstettler@sltrib.com

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* DEREK P. JENSEN and ROSEMARY WINTERS contributed to this story.