"No matter how much you may claim your intent was aimed at only the Legacy Highway," said Alan Hansen in a letter sent to Anderson on Wednesday, "the fact remains you wrote what you wrote and said what you said and you still owe us an apology for those remarks."

Hansen's missive is a follow-up to Anderson's claim that sections of his speech were taken out of context, particularly the mayor's pointed comments against Legacy Highway.

Hansen says they were taken directly from the text, which is posted on the Internet for all to see.

"If I took them out of context, misunderstood and misquoted you, then I am under the assumption so did all the members of the Salt Lake City Council," Hansen wrote, along with reports in various news media outlets and comments by legislators and dozens of residents who wrote letters to newspapers.

Hansen also reminded Anderson that the cost of Legacy is rising because of the delay resulting from a lawsuit Anderson was once part of.

The suit halted construction on the 14-mile-long, south Davis County road until more environmental impact studies can be performed.

The $220 million additional cost that transit authorities recently placed on Legacy, Hansen says, could have been spent, for example, on hiring 8,000 new school teachers, purchasing 118 million school lunches or senior-center meals, and building 12 new junior high schools or five new high schools.

Anderson was in Wisconsin on Wednesday for a mayors conference and was not available for comment. His spokeswoman, Deeda Seed, said the city welcomes the discourse the speech has created.

"Building a highway is an expensive endeavor," she said. "We hope that it won't be built and that money can be spent on transit alternatives that will decrease our state's extraordinary dependence on automobiles."

lorib@sltrib.com