| Salt Lake City |
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| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
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| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
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| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
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| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
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| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
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| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
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| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
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| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
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| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
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| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
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Rocky, foes call Oly truce
Spirit of Games has mayor, council on fairly good terms
By Diane Urbani
Deseret News staff writer
The Olympics are having a strange effect on Salt Lake City leaders. Old enemies seem to be having so much fun that they can't muster the will to jab at one another.
Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, for example, is usually perched as far away politically as he can get from certain City Council members. A few of them resisted the mayor's plans for a downtown Olympic festival, for serving alcohol at the City-County Building and hosting parties for city residents at the start and end of the Games.
After much debate, the mayor got his way — except at Pioneer Park, where the council refused to allocate $90,000 for a stage and sound system for Olympic protesters.
Then, when Anderson posted his smiling face on banners at the park, a couple of council members just had to laugh.
"I thought they only did that in Communist China," joked Councilman Carlton Christensen, referring to the Chairman Mao Tse-tung posters that wallpapered Beijing through much of the 20th century.
Actually Anderson's picture is only on a couple of the 12 banners. Their cost — $3,360 — came from the city's Olympic budget. That, Christensen said, is probably not money the city needed to spend, but it's better than the original $90,000 sought by Anderson.
Alongside the mayor's image are the faces of Cesar Chavez, Mohandas Gandhi and Benjamin Franklin, plus a quotation from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"It's interesting that (Anderson) would put himself up there with Martin Luther King and Gandhi," said Council Chairman Dave Buhler. "It's not the humble approach. But, hey, whatever."
Wait a minute. Is this the same Dave Buhler who fought the mayor on where and how to provide free-speech areas during the Games? And isn't he the councilor who repeatedly disagreed with Anderson on how Salt Lake City should present itself to the world? Buhler touts Temple Square, while Anderson passes out brochures listing places to drink and dance downtown.
But these are not ordinary times. "I've tried to have sort of an Olympic truce with the mayor," Buhler said.
Responding to Buhler's remarks about placing his image next to the likes of Gandhi and King, Anderson was in similar good humor. "Well, I can see that," he said, laughing. "I didn't intend to include myself in their ranks."
It's the words on those banners, Anderson said, that he wants people to remember. There's King's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize speech: "We must learn to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence." Gandhi: "Hatred can be overcome only by love." And Anderson: "Open, peaceful dialogue helps us attain greater understanding — of other people, of ideas, of ourselves."
The mayor added his own words, he said, to show that such messages "aren't just remote sentiments from people in the past."
Anderson and Buhler agree on yet another matter of free expression, one that has grabbed far more attention than the Pioneer Park banners have.
"Those anti-abortion trucks" that have circulated through Salt Lake City and Park City showing grisly photographs of fetuses, "are offensive," said Buhler.
"I was very offended," added Anderson. "I think it's very inappropriate, frankly, to inflict that on people."
"But it's certainly their right to do that," said Buhler.
"We're not here to censor anybody," finished Anderson.
The mayor said he hasn't yet made it out to commune with any protesters. But one group, Generation Life, came to him. "They occupied my office," Anderson said. At first he resisted a meeting with them, saying, "I'm not going to be held hostage in my own office."
But then he decided to go out for a chat, and it turned out to be not so bad. Generation Life members are opposed to the distribution of condoms during the Salt Lake Games and urged the mayor to require distributors to include information about chastity and the fact that condoms don't provide a 100 percent guarantee against disease transmission.
"I told them I welcome them into my city," the mayor said later. But "I'm not going to tell anybody how to spread their message."
E-MAIL: durbani@desnews.com
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February 20, 2002
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