An overwhelming majority of Utah residents don't care if the local public recreation center is competing with the private gym down the street.
In total, 75 percent of Utahns surveyed in a recent Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll believe the Legislature should refrain from passing any legislation that would ban local governments from building their own recreational facilities, even if those facilities compete with private businesses.
Just 18 percent of the 413 Utahns polled by Dan Jones & Associates think a ban should be in place. The poll, conducted Jan. 8-10, has a 5 percent margin of error.
Lawmakers aren't considering an outright ban on government-owned recreation centers, golf courses or reception halls, but they are considering a bill this year that would force local government leaders to consider the impacts of their projects on private businesses.
HB76 would require cities and counties to create a commission to whom businesses could appeal the operations of publicly funded projects that compete with them, including golf courses, reception halls and recreation centers.
If the commission finds that a public project is improperly competing with private business and the local government doesn't cease the project's operations, the commission could ask the district court for an injunction.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove, would also require the state to set up a similar commission.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, said at a recent Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee meeting that he wants to make sure local government cannot harm the private sector with its ventures, which have built-in advantages because of their tax-exempt status and the ability to cover shortfalls with taxpayer money.
The commissions would help protect the private sector from unfair and inappropriate competition from the public sector, Stephenson said.
In Davis County, such complaints about unfair competition arose when the Davis Conference Center and the South Davis Recreation Center were built. In October, the owner of Xcel Spa and Fitness sold his Bountiful facility to Gold's Gym, saying in a letter to Xcel members that the location had struggled because of the competition from the taxpayer-funded recreation center that had opened last April.
Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said he agrees that government shouldn't compete with the private industry.
Even so, "private industry, unfortunately, doesn't always and can't always serve the needs of the community," Corroon said.
Salt Lake County runs three ice-skating centers, 12 recreation centers, 17 aquatic centers and six golf courses. Corroon admits that a few of the golf courses are probably not needed, because the private sector is fulfilling the needs of the communities where those courses are located. But generally, "the courses we have serve people who otherwise couldn't afford to join a country club," Corroon said.
As for the recreation centers, most of which have gyms, "the people in there, they are not people you're going to see in private gyms," Corroon said.
Salt Lake County residents like their recreation centers, said Erin Litvack, the county's community services director. County voters overwhelmingly approved a $65 million bond in 2006 to build new recreation centers, baseball parks and trails, as well as finance face-lifts for aging recreation facilities.
Royce Van Tassell, vice president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, said government-owned golf courses and recreation centers do not make money and are "net consumers of dollars as opposed to producers.
"The various golf courses or the various gyms the cities or states have run, they operate in the red and are subsidized by taxpayer dollars, where their (private) competitors manage to turn a profit," Van Tassell said. "So taxpayers have to pay a fee to get in, and then they have to pay in tax dollars whether they use that facility or not."
E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com