The Salt Lake City forester decided the trees - shade for shows and convenient camouflage for a cracked pool - had to come down. Strapped for cash, Aviary staff scraped together $500,000 in private donations and grants from the city and installed new solar panels, cedar fences, a drip system and shotcrete fountains for the eagle habitats.
"We didn't really intend to do that stuff. It just happened," says Tim Brown, aviary director.
Even with the partial face-lift, parts of the 70-year-old aviary look old. The abandoned pool still is there, behind the new fence, filled with a crumbling rock island and bird cages. The clock is ticking for the aviary's 40-year-old pavilion. And there still is just one public restroom.
This week, Salt Lake County Council members decided to let homeowners vote whether to raise their property taxes to generate another $19 million for aviary improvements and $65 million for Hogle Zoo.
"Let the guy who's earning the money and paying the taxes decide where he wants it to go," said Democratic Councilman Jim Bradley.
Salt Lake County voters are usually benevolent. And Salt Lake City voters are even more generous. We've signed off on virtually every property tax bond for libraries, parks and furry creatures put on the ballot in the past 20 years.
I'll probably vote for these, too. With a 5-year-old son, I love the polar bears as much as the next mom. I want the depressing habitats I remember from my childhood to be updated; I'd rather Jack doesn't share my memories of penguins stumbling around in a sweltering summertime stupor.
But I'm getting tired of paying twice - once with my annual property tax check and once at the gate.
Along with my neighbors, I'm financing Moshe Safdie's glorious downtown library, renovations at the Sprague and Anderson libraries, earlier zoo and aviary projects, parks and trails and open space - an extra $80 in city and county property taxes a year. Soon I'll be paying for the Leonardo, a soccer complex and more open space. And despite the $15 million bond that I pay my share of and the $8.50 I plunk down on the counter, children's museum managers are having trouble balancing the books.
Last year, the average resident in Salt Lake County paid $225 more in property taxes than in 2003. Republican members of the County Council blame "niceties" like the zoo and aviary - and Utah Transit Authority rails and Salt Palace expansions.
"It seems a small amount," said GOP Councilman Jeff Allen, "but it's the cumulative effect of all these small amounts that has a great impact."
Salt Lake County is keeping the zoo and the aviary and the children's museum and the planetarium and the Real Salt Lake soccer stadium afloat for the rest of the state by absorbing diverted hotel and restaurant taxes, general obligation bond payments or paying out of our own pockets.
"I just think we're putting too much on our taxpayers," said Councilman David Wilde, a Republican.
Some of the burden makes sense. Six out of 10 visitors to the aviary come from Salt Lake City, West Jordan and Riverton. And 65 percent of the zoo's 1 million annual visitors are county residents. The zoo offers monthly free days in the winter and discounts on memberships to county residents. The aviary just keeps admission cheap: $5 for adults and $3 for kids.
"We're pretty affordable," Brown said.
That may be true. But my goodwill will last longer if I get a break at the door.
walsh@sltrib.com
