If you live in the county and have registered a vehicle recently, you have been tapped for an extra $10, thanks to the County Council, which approved the fee this year, ostensibly to preserve the Mountain View Corridor and other regional projects.
But during a budget hearing Tuesday, the same body that voted 8-1 to impose the fee learned that pet road projects in Holladay and Sandy - not the west side - may get some of the cash instead.
All of a sudden, “regionally significant projects” for transportation have become provincial, argued Councilman Mark Crockett.
“This has become a Ponzi scheme,” he said, suggesting such moves are why voters lose confidence with county politicians. “We need to start changing the way we talk about large sums of money in this county or else we all deserve to be fired just like large groups of people in D.C. were just fired.”
The irony: Crockett would stand to benefit by the deal since his district includes Holladay.
Several council members argued the city projects followed the application rules and deserve consideration. But most conceded they approved the car tax mainly for the Mountain View Corridor, a yet-to-be-built west-side highway stretching from Davis County to Utah County.
Before the money is disbursed, the criteria must be vetted by the Council of Governments, which includes mayors from across the Salt Lake Valley. As a solution, Crockett agreed to allow the city road requests as long as the council, not COG, selects the criteria from now on. The move passed 7-2.
Councilwoman Jenny Wilson, who voted for the measure, nonetheless worries such a stand is too strident. “It sends a message to those [COG] mayors that we are hardball and not flexible,'” she said. “It's not a good way to do business.”
Councilman Randy Horiuchi disagreed. The council should have a vigorous debate on how to dole out the transportation cash, he said, and "advance to COG like [Roman general] Pompey."
In the end, the only smile came from Councilman Joe Hatch, the lone dissenter in the initial 8-1 vote to hike the car-registration fee. “This is exactly what I said is going to happen,” he said. "Do you want to change your vote now?”
djensen@sltrib.com
