We're talking about a proposed $192 million bond issue to pay for a new police headquarters and fire stations in Salt Lake City. We believe there are too many unanswered questions for the City Council to place the matter before voters in November.

There's no doubt that the city's cops need safer, expanded facilities. They do. There's not enough room to store evidence and run the crime lab. There's no emergency operations center capable of withstanding an earthquake or other catastrophe so that vital communications and computers could be maintained. Existing buildings are old and substandard.

A couple of the city's fire stations built in the 1970s are not large enough to house the largest trucks, and the department needs a better training facility.

But $192 million is a huge chunk of change. And while the city's public safety services definitely have unmet needs, we are not convinced that they all must be met at once.

Of greatest concern, we don't see evidence that the City Council has pressed the Anderson administration hard enough to get answers about whether these projects could be built in phases.

The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce has raised these issues, and while we suspect that businesses may be most concerned about the commercial property tax hike that such a huge bond would require, the chamber has a point.

A new public safety administration building downtown would cost an estimated $74 million. The emergency operations center would cost another $26 million. Evidence storage and parking would cost another $38 million.

In addition, the administration wants to build an east-side public safety center which would both house police and replace an existing fire station for another $31 million. It would rebuild another fire station in the southwest city and include a new training center there for $23 million.

Residential property taxes would go up $177 a year on $300,000 valuation if the entire $192 million package were approved. Taxes on $1 million of commercial value would go up $1,072 a year.

Before the City Council takes a tax hike of this magnitude to the voters, it should be able to make the case that all of these facilities are critically necessary now, and that this is the most efficient way to fill the city's needs. We haven't heard that public debate yet.

We don't see evidence that the City Council has pressed the Anderson administration hard enough to get answers about whether these projects could be built in phases.