round 3

It seems SL County Mayor Peter Carroon has found another opening to stop or stall the RSL stadium.

On Monday, Mayor Peter Corroon sent Sandy's economic development director a letter saying he "would not support Salt Lake County contributing its tax increment" to the community development agency. And even if Corroon supported the CDA, he doesn't have the votes on the County Council to approve the plan.

Sandy wanted to raise $10 million through a community development agency, but that takes the cooperation of all the taxing entities in the area. And cooperation is hard to come by.

Jordan School District officials have already made it clear that they will not forgo their cut of property tax dollars for the multimillion-dollar stadium.

And the county is reluctant to open its wallet again, after the state forced Salt Lake County leaders to use hotel-room tax dollars to pay for the public infrastructure of the $110 million stadium under construction in Sandy.

"Given that the state has already used $35 million of Salt Lake County's transient room tax revenue for contribution to the soccer stadium project, I don't feel that it is in the best interest of the citizens for the county to contribute more revenue to the project," Corroon wrote in a letter Monday to Randy Sant, Sandy's economic development director.

Color me unsurprised that public entites would not want to part with tax revenue during an economic downturn for a soccer stadium for a team that might not even exist (or move) in a few years.

But don't worry, County Councilman Randy Horiuchi, friend of Delevopers and Sandy politicans, is on the case.

Horiuchi said leaders are "scrambling" and "noodling" several ideas to come up with more public funding to help the city build the stadium for Real Salt Lake.

"We will never stop discussion in trying to help this thing and make it more amenable to everyone," Horiuchi said. "We're a jurisdiction that, we want to be one that is willing to just keep our mind open. If we can help in a way that is beneficial and not hurtful to the county, I'm sure we'll look at it."

Horiuchi may find out the hard way that the public hates the stadium deal. We all know Carroon will easily be reelected this fall, but I can't say the same for Randy. "He's got game," says his campaign slogan, but whose game is he playing?