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SANDY, Utah (AP) -- The Salt Lake County Council on Tuesday voted down a proposal to use $30 million in county tax funds to help build a soccer stadium for Real Salt Lake.
The council voted 5-4 against the latest version of the plan, which would have also provided $45 million for a downtown Salt Lake City arts district and $15 million for other projects in the county.
County Mayor Peter Corroon shot down an initial version of the plan in May, saying that $35 million tax bond would cost taxpayers more than twice as much to pay off.
Sandy, a suburb about 15 miles south of downtown, expanded the plan and proposed building a giant shopping center around the stadium. But the county money needed for the project was still too much for council members to approve.
"As far as I'm concerned, the project's dead," Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan said after the meeting Tuesday.
Real Salt Lake has already purchased the land for the stadium and has most of the funding lined up, but it wants public money to pay for things like roads, power lines and sewer systems for the soccer-only stadium.
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, meanwhile, is still trying to get the team to consider building in Salt Lake City, where Real plays its home games at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium. Anderson on Monday afternoon, the day before the Sandy issue was to go before the council, resubmitted a proposal to have Real build a new stadium on the Utah State Fairgrounds west of downtown.
Anderson said his plan would cost the county about half of what the Sandy proposal would have.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APTV-07-11-06 1337MDT
