This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2009, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Two-term Draper Mayor Darrell Smith is seeking a third term and will square off Tuesday against three-term City Councilman Bill Colbert.
Smith said he's running for re-election because he likes the direction the city is going and has the experience to keep it on a successful course.
"I've always done something in the community," Smith said. "It's a good time in my life to serve, and I've got the experience to do a good job."
By the same token, Colbert says, he too, has a lot of experience after 10 years on the council. And he says it's time for change at the mayor's post. Colbert would push for mass transit as a key to Draper's future.
The councilman faults the mayor on at least two significant fronts. The first is the tax increase of 2007, in which property taxes jumped 67 percent. The second was a more recent decision by the City Council to embrace a deal where Salt Lake County gave Draper $2.75 million to buy 141 acres from the South Mountain development firm.
The agreement ended a long-standing legal dispute between the city and the developer.
Colbert voted against the South Mountain agreement and labeled it a "sweetheart deal" for the developer at the expense of taxpayers. The acreage was too expensive, he said. Beyond that, it most likely could not be built upon were it left in private ownership.
For his part, Smith said he didn't vote for the agreement -- the mayor doesn't vote under Draper's system of government -- but favored the open space purchase because it ended the "gut-wrenching" dispute that looked like it would drag on indefinitely.
"Our attorneys recommended it and it was time to move on," Smith said.
Colbert's challenge to the mayor on the tax increase is that it was too much at once.
"Most informed Draper residents are against it," Colbert said.
Like the open space agreement, Smith could not vote on the tax issue but he did support it.
The original proposed tax hike was larger, Smith said. Nonetheless, Draper had not had a tax increase and needed more funding for public safety.
"I felt we are still in a reasonable area [in overall tax burden]," he said. "And public safety is an important aspect of what the city does."
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