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A reopened Wingpointe Golf Course could be an "economic development driver" at a revamped Salt Lake City International Airport, Mayor Jackie Biskupski said in April.

That driver seems unlikely to be pulled from the bag anytime soon.

Biskupski sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration in late November, asking it to reconsider a 2012 decision that the Wingpointe course must be leased at a fair-market value — a far cry from the $1 per year the city had paid for decades, starting in 1988.

Opening Wingpointe doesn't pencil unless the FAA alters its tune, the city's administration says, and the FAA has yet to reply to the city's request.

The FAA said in an email to The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday: "The FAA is aware of Salt Lake City's interest in reopening the golf course and is currently preparing a response."

But the City Council expressed frustrations Tuesday that nearly a year has passed since it appropriated more than $60,000 for life-support maintenance of tees and greens, and that the administration has made no progress.

A proposed council straw poll on Tuesday would have directed the city's administration to cease all efforts to reopen the links-style course — closed since November 2015 — until council member Charlie Luke successfully argued that it be tabled.

"I think we need to have more proactive outreach to the FAA," he said.

While Wingpointe could be part of an invigorated Northwest Quadrant, Luke said, he doesn't support indefinite uncertainty about its future.

Salt Lake City International Airport bought Wingpointe in the 1970s with federal grants and transferred it to the city in 1988 on a 99-year lease at $1 per year.

Salt Lake City attorney Pat Shea chaired the airport board at the time and was included in the city's 15-member task force that met late last summer and eventually recommended "reasonable efforts" to reopen the course, which is built on wetlands that have no aeronautical use.

On Tuesday, Shea said Biskupski had broken a promise to the golfers who helped her unseat two-term Mayor Ralph Becker by a small margin in 2015.

"Mayors don't get mulligans. … It's all right to have a $300 million overrun on expansion at the airport," he said, referring to the recently increased $2.9 billion estimate for upgrades there, "but God help us if we were going to try to save a golf course that was historic in design."

Luke suggested that members of Utah's congressional delegation might be willing to advocate on Wingpointe's behalf.

City spokesman Matthew Rojas said he wasn't aware whether Biskupski — currently attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. — had spoken to the state's delegates about the course. Her November letter is "by no means our final effort to lobby for saving Wingpointe," he said.

A 2012 appraisal of the golf course pegged its value at $155,000 per year. The city says an FAA-required rezone from open space to aeronautical use would increase the land's assessed value to $2.4 million per year.

Should the city persuade the FAA to change course and drop the fair-market value requirement, Wingpointe would then need an estimated $1.1 million over three years to reopen.

While Wingpointe lost money in four of its final six years of operation — when its use had fallen by more than 40 percent since its late-1990s, early-2000s heyday — it might start to break even after five or more years, city officials said.

City Council members were skeptical of that claim.

Said member Lisa Adams: "I see pretty much nothing new."

James Rogers said he had voted for temporary funding to preserve high-end greens for eventual sale, not to revive the course.

Erin Mendenhall added that the city's delayed action illustrates that the council needs to tie appropriations to a desired result.

And Derek Kitchen proposed, before Luke's save, a straw poll of whether "the council as a body supports this effort for keeping Wingpointe open, or we ask them to redirect their energy toward something like a housing plan."

Biskupski has said the city will present its first affordable-housing plan since 2000 — called for by the council for months — within the next two weeks.

Should stopgap watering and upkeep not be continued by the spring's thaw, city officials say Salt Lake City would incur additional costs to restore greens, turf and irrigation systems.

Twitter: @matthew_piper