This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Tuesday in March
Here are some things that Rocky Anderson thinks about: Global warming. The religious divide in his city. A higher drop fee so cabbies can adjust to the cost of gas. The fuss over Gigante in a proposed shopping center on the city's west side. Human rights locally and globally. The war in Iraq. Zoning and development. Who's really in charge of the planned intermodal hub on 600 West. A proposed ordinance that would require a Silver Standard on energy conservation on any construction or renovation of buildings 10,000 square feet or more using city money. Quality of life for Utah's elderly. The federal government's $1 billion evisceration of community development block grants. Diversity in his own office. Whether his parrot, Cardozo, misses him when he leaves the room.
And that's just one day's worth of thinking.
6:10 a.m.
Anderson is running a 20-minute treadmill warm-up before heading for the weight room at the Metro Sports Club. He trades jokes and insults with his good friend David Ibarra as he warms up on a machine (Anderson: "This is what old men do so you don't hurt your shoulder." Ibarra: "After you work on your shoulder, you can work on your nice, plump guts.")
Then they head for what Anderson calls the torture chair: suspended on their forearms, they lift both legs parallel to the floor. Then it's over to the 20-pound dumbbells; this workout is for biceps and triceps. As he moves around the room, Anderson chats with other gym rats: "How's the theater district coming?" one asks. "The Utah Theater's gotta get done," he replies. One guy tells Rocky he just got back from the Antarctic. Anderson just has to ask: "Is the ice melting?"
Ibarra says the two of them team up like this three, four, even five times a week. They're partners, he says, but if he does something twice, Rocky will do it three times. "Rocky's the most competitive guy in the universe."
8:30 a.m.
Anderson's in his corner office in City Hall. It's a comfortable place, with a big oak and leather desk, bookshelves, his laptop. There are photos and mementos everywhere. The parrot, which lives in an open cage right by his desk, is named for Benjamin N. Cardozo, a progressive jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1932 until his death in 1938. Anderson thinks the parrot is pretty mellow, but out of his hearing, communications director Patrick Thronson calls the bird a psychopath.
Anderson brings up public access Channel 17 on the laptop and beams about its content: the City Library's Dewey Lecture Series, Bridging the Divide discussions (launched by Anderson to heal the religious rift that persists in the city), presentations of water conservation, a colloquium on under-age drinking. Oh, and climate change.
One wall is given almost exclusively to the work of Pat Bagley, The Tribune's pull-no-punches editorial cartoonist.
But if you want to fire Anderson up, utter these words: Lydia Pense.
She's the still-hot-after-30-years lead singer of Cold Blood, an R&B band that tore it up at the 2004 Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival. Anderson memorialized that day with a shadow box featuring a sometime-in-the-'70s concert flier (The U.'s Union Ballroom, $3 a ticket); a photo of Pense, Anderson and his son, Luke, inscribed, "I still want to make love to you. Love ya, Lydia Pense"; and a cocktail glass he took to her (full) before she took the stage at the jazz festival. Mention that you saw her at the Terrace Ballroom in the '70s and he blurts, "You were there, too?"
9 a.m.
Sam Guevara, Anderson's chief of staff, convenes a meeting in which key personnel offer updates on the city's business. Anderson takes a moment to talk about how he drove a skeleton down the Olympic Park course the previous Saturday, face down five inches from the ice. "How was it?" a woman asks. "Better than sex," Anderson says. A beat. The same woman: "You haven't had sex for a while."
Then it's on to taxis, the community-affairs calendar, west-side development, roadwork at the 9th and 9th neighborhood. Salt Lake's west side occupies a lot of the mayor's staff's attention, and the talk centers on the proposed Gigante shopping complex, which they believe would appeal to the area's Latino population. Anderson and his staff are worried about the last Poplar Grove Community Council meeting, when some Anglo members argued the project would exclude non-Latinos and aggravate the "Balkanization" of the west side. Anderson and his staff are appalled.
"There's a part of our community who are afraid to have their voices heard," says Mark Alvarez, Anderson's administrator for minority affairs, adding that it's important to get more diversity on the councils.
"We have to make this happen," Anderson says, "lest they are rendered completely irrelevant."
About 11:45 a.m.
Anderson takes a few phone calls, and he's about to name a police chief to succeed the retiring Rick Dinse, whose most memorable case was the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. After a quick private chat with the leading candidate, Assistant Chief Chris Burbank, Anderson walks back to his office. "I've just made a man very happy," he says.
1 p.m.
The next meeting is on a new family shelter for victims of domestic violence. The next involves the office's progress on economic employment for women and minorities. Then there are proposals for the Sorenson Unity Center, established as part of Anderson's settlement with the LDS Church on the Main Street Plaza.
Next, Anderson talks to representatives of the states Commission on Aging. At the fifth, Anderson is briefed on funding for TRAX and the intermodal hub on 600 West between 300 and 400 South. The sixth and last is a forum for business and property owners on transit-oriented development on 400 South between 700 and 900 East.
5:30 p.m.
The evening is given over to the City Council, first its work session and then the 7 p.m. meeting in the council chambers. Tonight's business is dozens of pitches for Community Development Block Grants, a federally funded program that President Bush, much to Anderson's disgust, has cut by $1 billion. Salt Lake City alone will lose $500,000.
About 9:30 p.m.
Anderson's official day is over. No telling what the mayor will work on the rest of the night.