Taking advantage of the Halloween spirit, anti-Olympic forces said Tuesday Utahns are being tricked - not treated - if they believe the state's plans to finance the 1998 Winter Olympics won't result in a tax increase.
But pro-Olympic forces, noting their plans for a tax diversion will result in a $2.60 per person yearly contribution to the Games, say Olympic skeptics' criticisms just don't add up.
"Our theme for today is: Who's getting tricked and who's getting the treats?" Utahns for Responsible Public Spending spokesman Steve Pace told reporters at a spider-web-bedecked press conference Tuesday.
The anti-Olympic group also displayed a jack-o'-lantern carved with the phrase "no taxes" for the Olympics and another carved pumpkin named Tom. Some speculated the "Tom" represented Utah Olympic boss Tom Welch.
Pace said Olympic backers' characterization of using 1/32nd cent in sales tax to finance $56 million in Olympic facilities as a tax "diversion" is erroneous.
"Clearly, if the state decides to put new money into a new activity, then taxes will have to be higher than they were in the absence of that activity," Pace said.
Salt Lake County, for example, has based its five-year budget on the assumption that the money set aside for the Olympics will actually be available for county services, Pace said.
"That's true," said County Chief Deputy Auditor Dave Beck. "We had built that diversion in 1983 into our revenue stream for county services for the next five years."
Loss of that money, if Utahns pass the Nov. 7 non-binding Olympic referendum approving use of the sales tax money, would mean "either a reduction in services or an increase in revenue sources," Beck said.
"In general, we have always said we want to hold taxes at the level they are," said County Commissioner Tom Shimizu of what the county would do to address loss of the sales tax revenue.
But the Olympics, according to Shimizu, "will create more sales tax dollars for use throughout the state."
Vicki Varela, executive director for the pro-Olympic group Olympics for Utah, said voters are simply voting for a tax diversion in the Nov. 7 referendum.
"It's a vote for a tax diversion - it always has been and always will be a tax diversion . . . For them to suggest that diverting $2.60 per person per year is a tax increase just doesn't add up," she said.
The $2.60 figure is what 1/32nd cent in sales tax amounts to on a yearly basis for all Utahns.
Utahns for Responsible Public Spending also cast aspersions on organizers' expectations for selling the rights to air a Utah 1998 Winter Olympics for $420 million - providing the bulk of the state's proposed Olympic budget.
"A number half that big would be realistic," Pace said. "The TV rights gravy train may be about to be derailed," he added, pointing to reports of declining Olympic viewer ratings and huge network losses.
ABC lost $65 million broadcasting the 1988 Winter Olympics held in Calgary, CBS sources confirmed.
"Our estimates are extremely conservative," Varela countered, adding that CBS News bought the rights to air in the United States only the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway, for $300 million. That does not include rights to broadcast elsewhere in the world.
Further, Olympics for Utah spokesman Skip Branch reported that cable rights for the 1992 Games were sold to Turner Broadcasting for $50 million, bolstering the likelihood that the price of broadcasting the Games will continue to rise.
Utahns for Responsible Public Spending also criticized Olympics for Utah for withholding its list of campaign contributors.
"To the extent that the promoters continue to refuse to disclose their financing, Utah voters must distrust their motives," Pace said.
Jim Jardine, chairman of Olympics for Utah, said the committee will not release names of contributors because of problems during a similar 1988 campaign. Several businesses who contributed to Taxpayers for Utah, a group formed to fight three anti-tax initiatives, were threatened with boycotts promoted by a radio host on local talk-radio station KTKK, Jardine said.