It's payback time for Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, literally.
The chalkboard lesson is simple: Rocky opposes Legacy Highway in Davis County, highway construction is delayed because he has brought a lawsuit, and the costs are at $2 million a month to taxpayers as workers sit idle.
Enter the Olympics, and the fact that Rocky's city is scheduled to get millions out of the $59 million in sales tax revenue diverted so the state could build facilities to house the 2002 Winter Games.
Legacy Highway proponents say not so fast.
They want to take an eraser to that money scheduled for diversion to Salt Lake City and move it into the Centennial Highway Fund to pay for those delays.
House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, R-Layton, said late Thursday he plans to introduce a substitute version of SB118 that would take that money from Salt Lake City and put it in the Centennial Highway Fund to offset the exorbitant costs of construction delays.
If Garn and his allies are successful, the city stands to lose millions, but the state stands to gain one way of paying for a bill that grows larger as each month passes.
"The mayor of Salt Lake City has a pretty clear-cut agenda: Stop roads, stop progress, force people out of cars and into buses and trains, and let government plan how and where we live. That is his vision for Utah," Garn said. "My version is very different."
Garn and Salt Lake's mayor have been at loggerheads in the debate over Legacy Highway, which in its first phase would move traffic in four lanes from Farmington to I-215.
The planned $451 million highway received a thumbs up for construction in 2001 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency after exhaustive environmental studies assessing the damage to wetlands.
Months later, the mayor, in concert with the Sierra Club, brought suit to halt the construction.
Although Legacy proponents prevailed in getting the lawsuit dismissed, a challenge landed the battle before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued a temporary injunction halting the work until a hearing March 17.
It is that lawsuit and the costly delays that have highway proponents raging.
"The Army Corps of Engineers and EPA made sure we were complying with every iota of the federal law after one of the most rigorous permitting processes we have gone through to build a highway in this state," Garn said. "When it comes right down to these groups that oppose Legacy, they think that cars and highways are evil. They could care less about personal choice."
Anderson, outraged at this latest twist in the donnybrook he termed petty and vindictive, did agree with Garn on that point.
"There are direct adverse impacts of this on Salt Lake City as a result of Legacy Highway with increased cars and increased pollution."
Anderson said Legacy proponents are engaging in a reckless plan that compromises precious wetlands and ignores the sensibilities of mass transit.
"They're continuing this trend of putting down more and more asphalt on our wetlands," Anderson said.
Garn pointed out that while 130 acres of wetlands will be "disturbed" by the planned highway, more than 2,000 acres would be preserved in one of the most ambitious mitigation plans ever embraced by the state.
SB118, sponsored by Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, modifies the Utah Sports Authority Act by amending its provisions for the allocation of money in the Olympic Special Revenue Fund.
Garn's planned substitution takes the 1/64th of one cent of the sales tax revenue generated in a city of 150,000 or more people, i.e., Salt Lake City, and deposits those revenues in the Centennial Highway Fund for offsetting the costs due to Legacy Highway construction delays.
The top Republican leader said he plans to introduce the substitute on the House floor and is confident he has enough lawmakers on his side to prevail.
"There is a lot of sympathy that will cross party lines. There are a lot of Democrats who are angry with Rocky's strategy. I predict a lot of bipartisan support."
Rocky is confident, too —that Garn will fail.
"The majority of our legislators will not stoop this low, particularly when the great financial success of the Games is attributed in large part to the host city," he said.
"We will try to work with the more rational and less vindictive and petty of those in the state Legislature and, if necessary, challenge this in court."
E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com