Salt Lake County voters have a chance to fund $128 million in parks and recreation projects and improvements scattered around the county without causing any increase in property taxes.
Well, without any property tax increases caused by the parks and recreation bond issue.
Due to other decisions made by the Salt Lake County Council, and the Salt Lake City Council, capital city property taxes are going up by a significant percentage. Not a lot in raw dollars, perhaps, but increases just the same.
Enough, perhaps, that voters may be poorly disposed to vote for this bond issue, if only because it is the only way they have of expressing their discontent with rising taxes.
The parks and rec projects won’t lead to higher taxes because the bonds for a similar list of projects approved 10 years ago are about to be paid off. Like the bond issue before that. And the one before that.
The payments on the new bond, if approved, would mean a property tax bite of $16.39 per year for the average Salt Lake County home. It would be a rollover of existing bonds, so taxes won’t go up. If the bond is rejected, they would go down roughly that much.
Either way, it’s not a lot. About the price of a movie ticket. And it would pay for a long list of new county recreation facilities, swimming pools, hiking trails, restrooms and lots and lots of trees. Things that a rapidly growing, rapidly urbanizing, county should have. Land and projects that won’t get any cheaper if we put them off. (Details are available at www.saltlakecounty.gov/)
It is an investment worth making. Voters would be wise to approve the measure that will be on the ballots due to arrive in their mailboxes starting next week.
If they don’t, it may be their way of objecting to the county’s other property tax hike, a 14.65% boost that works out to about $65 a year. And Salt Lake City’s 12.5% property tax increase, equaling $118 a year. And the Salt Lake City hike in utility fees, which is expected to cost the average customer $384 a year.
And the 0.5% increase in local sales taxes (paid by visitors as well as residents) to be devoted to the downtown sports and entertainment centered around the Delta Center.
Good ideas or bad, none of those tax hikes was presented to the voters for their consideration. That’s the way those things are routinely done, and all had to go through the elected city or county council, so they don’t technically qualify as taxation without representation.
Still, these things stack up, and for some may have already crossed an emotional, if not a financial, breaking point.
If the voters reject the parks and rec bonds — as they did the county’s proposed public safety bond in 2024 — they may be depriving themselves of some needed public services. Of facilities that — unlike, say, massive sports arenas or arts venues, which can carry big ticket prices — will be open and accessible to all county residents.
Or they may be saying to their local government officials they feel unheard and overburdened, and this is the only way they have to make that feeling known.
That’s something that mayors and council members should take seriously going forward.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.