It's an idea that, were it already in place, would have made Tuesday's Sandy City Council meeting a much more pleasant place to be.

Because cities now benefit primarily from sales taxes collected by retailers within their borders, they are constantly in a bidding war over where the next super big-box store might go. Local politicians are moved to do exactly what the Sandy City Council did Tuesday, overrule widespread and vehement objections and grant zoning approval for what many see as community-killing retail giants for one reason and one reason only:

The city needs the money.

The governor calls that “zoning for dollars,” and correctly argues that it should end.

She would do that by cutting the state's sales tax from 4.75 percent to 3.75 percent and absorbing various local sales taxes into a universal rate of, probably, 1.4 percent. Revenue from that part of the tax would be distributed to communities on the basis of their population rather than on point of sale.

That only works if Walker also gets her way on a controversial plan to start charging sales taxes on services as well as goods. And it would have to include a mechanism to make sure that no community is left with less money than it now has for general operations and for specified purposes such as zoos, parks, tourism and transportation.

If all that happens it could replace a total sales tax rate that varies from 5.75 percent (Emery and Millard counties) to 8.1 percent (Alta) - 6.6 percent in most of Salt Lake County - with a uniform 5.15 percent.

Such a plan would have eliminated the ugliness felt in Sandy in recent weeks over a developer's plan to use a 100-acre gravel pit site, a place many had long dreamed would be a wonderful new park, as a new home for a Wal-Mart superstore and a Lowe's home improvement center.

All common sense - and true economic development sense - would prefer the park over the traffic-generating, competition-killing, wage-depressing superstores. If, that is, it didn't mean losing the town's existing Wal-Mart and Lowe's, and the sales tax they generate, to some other burg that might be more welcoming.

If local sales tax income were based solely on population rather than the location of the individual businesses, cities could make land-use decisions on more sound criteria than the amount of money to be gained or lost.

This part of Walker's plan deserves serious attention from Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman and the Legislature. The numbers add up, and the peace would be priceless.