Mayor Rocky Anderson called an impromptu summit at the park with This Is the Place Foundation Chairman Ellis Ivory, the Governor's Office, county Mayor Peter Corroon and LDS Church Quorum of the Twelve member M. Russell Ballard.

"The mayor called them together because this is such an important issue to the community as a whole," said Sam Guevara, Anderson's chief of staff.

Ivory has been pushing a plan to lease a dozen acres of open space to the University of Utah's ARUP Laboratories for an administration building and parking lot in the state park that celebrates the arrival of Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley.

Earlier Monday, Ivory acknowledged he has responded to the increasing drumbeat of public opposition to the development by calling the board together Thursday to review the office building plan. Anderson's meeting indicates officials might be willing to increase the park's public funding as an alternative.

"We are reconsidering everything based on all the input we are getting," Ivory said. "There has been enough input that we want to make sure the board is fully apprised of all the facts."

The foundation's meeting is scheduled just hours before the state Parks and Recreation Board will hold a public hearing on the so-called land-lease. The private foundation operates the park for the state Department of Natural Resources.

The parks board was to have decided the issue this Friday at its regularly scheduled session - but the gatherings of foundation, state, county and city officials could result in the plan being withdrawn.

The activity comes less than a week after Ivory warned that he would be forced to ask for more state taxpayer support if the parks board rejected the office building lease.

The park already gets $800,000 in annual state funding, plus $50,000 in so-called county ZAP tax money. Last year, the Legislature gave the park a $2 million bailout to stave off financial collapse.

Utah Senate President John Valentine said Monday that additional state funding is a possibility.

"I wouldn't say no at this point, but we really have to see the whole business plan to see how the park is going to be able to survive long term," Valentine said. "We've been putting Band-Aids on it each session to keep it alive."

Kenyon Kennard, a former curator at the park who resigned in 2006 to protest the park's commercial direction, is leading a petition drive to return it to state control. The meetings show that the community's voice is being heard, he said, but "we still want the underlying issue of the direction of the park addressed."

Lease opponents were energized earlier this month when Utah Jazz owner and park patron Larry H. Miller spoke out against the direction Ivory is taking with the historic park, which he says has almost sacred meaning to many Utahns.