Sandy wants to help a private developer build a $51 million theater to host touring productions of Broadway shows. Salt Lake City also wants to build such a theater downtown.

So it looks to us like more than coincidence that Sandy Sen. Wayne Niederhauser is sponsoring a bill in the Legislature that would restructure county-option sales taxes that fund tourism and cultural facilities and send more of that money to Sandy.

Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan denies that is what's afoot. He claims Sandy can raise the curtain on its theater with tax-increment financing from a redevelopment area. He says his city doesn't need the county's cultural facilities money. We doubt that.

Given Sandy's raid last year, with the Legislature's help, on county hotel taxes to build the soccer stadium for Real Salt Lake, there is ample reason to be suspicious of Sandy leaders' motives.

For taxpayers, the bottom line in this contest should be whether the public would be better served by a theater in Salt Lake City or one in Sandy. That probably depends on where you live. What is certain is that the market can only support one such theater, and it will have to be subsidized by the public purse.

We believe the theater should be built in Salt Lake City. Experience in other U.S. cities shows that these playhouses are more likely to prosper when they are part of a larger cultural complex, such as Salt Lake County's Capitol Theatre, the Rose Wagner Center and Abravanel Hall, all located downtown near major hotels and restaurants.

Nor do we believe it would be a good idea to Balkanize county funding for tourism and cultural facilities. Yet that's what Senate Bill 218 would do. Beginning in 2009, the bill would replace the 1 percent restaurant food tax with a 0.07 percent general sales tax. Half of the revenues would continue to go to the county. The other half, however, would be divided among 16 cities and towns, half in proportion to population and half in proportion to revenues raised.

County Mayor Peter Corroon says this would mean county facilities would lose $200 million in revenues over 30 years, and some might have to be closed.

Plus, if you divide half the pie 16 different ways, the public will get less bang for its bucks.