Tuesday, January 5 and through January 15, 2010
Attend the Jan. 5 City Council meeting and give a 2-minute comment in person.
7:00 pm, 451 S. State St., Rm. 315 (Note: in order to speak you must fill out a form available near the entrance door and give it to City Council staff.)
Salt Lake City officials want to build, entirely at taxpayer expense, a sprawling $43 million sports complex on a 140-acre block of open space along the west bank of the Jordan River at 2200 North (see illustrations and photos in the attached “background” document.) The proposed facility, to be built in two phases, will eventually consist of 17 sports fields, a forest of stadium-type lighting poles, 3 new roads, a new bridge over the Jordan River, parking for 1,300 or more cars, and no less than 9 new buildings including an outdoor and indoor soccer stadium, a maintenance building, a concessions building etc.


Panoramic view of proposed Jordan River Nature Park site at 2200 North. The structure at left is a model airplane facility which will be moved to another location.
Given the object lesson of Hurricane Katrina it is purest madness to build any large public facility within any flood plain. This particular site is not merely within the flood plain of the Jordan River but also within that of the Great Salt Lake, which rises and falls cyclically, its saline waters moving long distances up the Jordan River from its mouth. The site has been inundated by flood water twice within the past 60 years, and was under water for several years during the mid-1980’s. It will flood again. When it does taxpayers will be asked to bail out and rebuild the facility all over again.
This is the last, relatively large block of undeveloped, unprotected, publicly owned land remaining on the Jordan River. Blocks of open “lowlands riparian” habitat this large serve as incubators and stepping stones for a large variety of native plants, animals and birds. In recent surveys the public has overwhelmingly supported open land & habitat preservation instead of sports facilities at this location and throughout the Jordan River corridor.
In at least four major open stakeholder planning initiatives over the past 35 years, this site has repeatedly been recommended for protection from commercial development as a flood control/water banking area, a nature park, nature preserve, native plant and wildlife restoration area, and/or a nature center. Since 1995 Tree Utah has planted 18,000 native shrubs and trees on the site.
In 2003 voters approved Proposition 5, a bond for a $22.8 million sports complex, with an additional $7.5 million in matching funding to be contributed by the Real Salt Lake soccer team. But the bond was not site-specific. Although Salt Lake City planners and environmental groups have identified and studied at least four viable alternative sites, the City has acted unilaterally to select this particular one, with no meaningful opportunity for public review and comment on the siting decision. A similar but significantly larger facility for hosting regional soccer tournaments already exists in West Valley City. Salt Lake City planners have never studied the need for such a facility and their own projections are that the facility will require a taxpayer subsidy of $270,000 per year if its utilization falls below 50%.
Moreover, total costs have nearly doubled (from $22.8 to $43 million) in part due to the high cost of building within a river flood plain. Recently Salt Lake City mayor Ralph Becker announced that he will ask Salt Lake County taxpayers to contribute another $17 million to the project.
The Becker Administration is now planning to ask the City Council to release the Prop. 5 bond on January 5th, 2010 – in effect, granting final approval for the project. Public meetings regarding the plans are anticipated only afterwards, a tactic calculated to ensure that comment.
We need your help preserve this valuable remnant of riparian open space.
Following in priority order are some things you could do to help:
1.) Pass this announcement along to all people that you know who might care and be willing to help. Tell your friends and neighbors about this issue. “ Viralize” it.
2.) Sign our online petition about the siting of the regional sports complex at:
www.petitiononline.com/jrsp0001/
3.) Attend the Jan. 5 City Council meeting and give a 2-minute comment in person.
7:00 pm, 451 S. State St., Rm. 315 (Note: in order to speak you must fill out a form available near the entrance door and give it to City Council staff.)
4.) Join the Jordan River Restoration Network to stay updated by using this link:
http://www.JRRN.org/join/request/
By becoming a registered member of this web site you can stay in touch with the latest information about this issue and make it much easier for us to notify you when something is cooking. There is no cost.
5.) Send a message to elected officials. Please call, write or email them to say that you oppose location of the project on the Jordan River. Ask that the Jan. 5 vote be delayed, as we need time for public process. See the attached sample letter and talking points for some ideas of what to say. Also attached is a list of people to contact with their email addresses and phone numbers.