Utah Voters Pass Referendum for Olympic Facilities

A clear majority of Utah voters are willing to spend $56 million to build sports facilities in anticipation of the Winter Olympics coming to Salt Lake City by the year 2002.

In a statewide referendum Tuesday, a proposal to divert 1/32 of revenues from the state sales tax over the next 10 years to construct bobsled and luge runs, a speed-skating oval and a ski jump passed with 57% of the vote.

With 99% of the precincts reporting, the count was 211,385 for the measure and 161,736 opposed.

The pre-election polls had indicated that the measure would pass with 62% to 66% of the vote, but an opposition group, Utahans for Responsible Public Spending, apparently struck a nerve with some voters. There was a higher turnout than expected for an off-year election.

Still, Salt Lake Winter Games Organizing Committee officials called the victory decisive. Their chairman, Tom Welch, met Wednesday in Mexico City with Juan Antonio Samaranch, International Olympic Committee president, to inform him of the results.

Welch had said that Salt Lake City would withdraw its candidacy if the measure failed.

“It looks like a landslide from my perspective,” said Utah Gov. Norm Bangerter, who was elected in 1988 with only 40% of the vote.

Salt Lake City is among seven cities bidding for the 1998 Winter Games. But officials from the organizing committee admit that Nagano, Japan, is the clear favorite among IOC members, who will select a site in 1991. Consequently, the committee has begun diverting a portion of its resources toward a bid for the Games in 2002.

The U.S. Olympic Committee designated Salt Lake City as its candidate for 1998 and 2002 earlier this year with a stipulation that the city begin building facilities in December, 1990, that will be available for use by U.S. athletes by June, 1992.

The vote Tuesday provided financing for those projects and also established a Utah Sports Authority to supervise them.