Corradini takes USCM reins

It’s not as if Deedee Corradini didn’t already have enough to do. As the mayor of Salt Lake City, home of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Corradini will be one of the most visible local government leaders over the next year as the city prepares for the event. Additionally, because the first vice president of the United States Conference of Mayors automatically ascends to the presidency, this month Corradini becomes the official spokesperson for the nation’s mayors.

Corradini does not seem to be afraid of the prospect. “She doesn’t get flustered because something gets thrown at her,” says her presidential predecessor, Fort Wayne, Ind., Mayor Paul Helmke. “She’s got a lot on her plate right now, but if anyone can handle it, she can.”

“She’s a strong person,” echoes Frank Joklik, president and chief executive officer of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. “She has considerable willpower. It enables her to get a lot of things done that might not get done otherwise.”

That strength and willpower got her through her toughest time as mayor, when, in 1993, a gift-receiving scandal rocked her administration. (Charges were never brought against Corradini, but the incident did result in the city’s adoption of an ethics code.) It also, however, helped Salt Lake City in its bid for the Olympics.

No one gave the city much chance of winning the Games in its first attempt (at the ’98 Games), especially since another U.S. city, Atlanta, had won the 1996 Summer Games. Salt Lake City lost by a mere three votes; in its next attempt, the International Olympic Committee awarded the city the 2002 Games.

“Once Atlanta won the 1996 Games, we knew we became a long shot,” Corradini says. “We were up for the ’98 Games, which we lost by three votes. We knew we were the best bid, but we also knew the IOC wasn’t going to put back-to-back Games in the United States.”

In retrospect, Corradini says, the loss of the ’98 Games to Nagano, Japan, turned out to be a plus. “We have learned a lot from Atlanta and Nagano,” she says. “We’ve been hosting a lot of international events – World Cup soccer, ice skating – that have helped prepare us. We’ve had the international media here, and, so far, so good.”

Corradini may be the ideal mayor to serve as the host of an international event on the scale of the Olympics. The daughter of a Congregationalist minister, she grew up in the Middle East where her father taught in theological schools. Corradini still speaks a healthy smattering of Arabic and French.

(Ultimately, Corradini’s parents would settle in Salt Lake City after stints in Massachusetts and Maine. “We had never been west of Chicago,” Corradini says. “A church in Salt Lake City convinced [my father] to come out for an interview, and he fell in love with it. I came out to visit and did the same.”)

Growing up in the political hotbed of the Middle East spurred Corradini’s interest in politics. “I observed so much of what was going on in the world: the problems, the poverty, the refugee situation as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” she says. “I remember three-, four-, five-year-old children selling Chiclets in little packets, trying to make money for their families. I grew up knowing I wanted to do something that would make a difference.”

Corradini worked briefly in state government before heading to Washington as the press secretary for Utah Congressman Wayne Owens. With Owens, Corradini spent much of her time working to get a ban on chemical weapons through Congress. Those were heady days; not yet 30, Corradini, a divorced mother of two, was an integral part of the Washington whirlwind. Her work helped Owens get the first House hearings on chemical weapons and ultimately resulted in the belated signing of the Geneva Protocol, which addressed the subject.

“I was a workaholic,” she says. “It was a tremendous experience.” It was not, however, a great way to raise two children. So Corradini packed up her son and daughter, moved back to Salt Lake City and began working at the Snowbird Ski Resort. “I kept my skis by my desk,” she says. “I would run off and ski for my lunch hour. After three hectic years in Washington, it seemed like paradise.”

Despite a relatively benign “mommy” life, however, Corradini’s interest in politics never waned. After her children grew up, it came back full force. In 1992, she ran for mayor, a non-partisan position in Salt Lake City.

“First races are fun because you have no expectations,” she says. “One of my opponents had been the former mayor’s chief assistant. He knew a lot more about city government than I did. I had to learn the names of the city departments. But I went door to door and met a lot of people, and I guess I must have articulated some issues that resonated with voters.”

Those issues included revitalization of the city’s downtown, now under way. Called the Gateway Project, the effort encompasses 650 acres of what used to be industrial wasteland abutting the Union Pacific railroad tracks. “We are literally opening up 650 acres of prime land that will reconnect east and west Salt Lake City for the first time since the railroad came in,” Corradini says. The project, scheduled to be completed by the Olympics, recently won the city national honors as one of 16 brownfield showcase communities.

Designed to be a mixed-use entertainment district, Gateway will be pedestrian-friendly and feature commercial, residential and retail aspects. It is Corradini’s baby, her legacy project. She is determined to leave Salt Lake City more beautiful than she found it.

To that end, Corradini has encouraged tree planting projects and construction of two new city parks on former parking lots. Construction of one of the parks, City Creek Park, involved the restoration of a creek that had been driven underground by development.

The Olympics, which partially prompted the makeover, also offer Salt Lake City a chance to shine in mass transit, another area in which Corradini’s interest is keen. She has backed a light rail project and is an eloquent proponent of alternatives to the automobile. During her administration, Salt Lake City has converted city vehicles to natural gas, increased the number of its bike trails and implemented car pool and bicycle programs.

Corradini, though, is proudest of her efforts to stem the city’s crime, modest by the standards of most urban areas. “Every city is doing Community Oriented Policing in one form or another,” she says. “Here, we literally are taking back our city block by block. We now have 1,000 volunteers who had 17 hours of police training working with the police. Gang-related crime is down 30 percent, drive-by shootings are down. I’m very proud of what we’ve done on crime.”

Crime and mass transit will continue to command the attention of USCM under Corradini’s leadership, as will brownfields education and immigration. The responsibility is large, but Helmke, for one, thinks Corradini is up to the challenge. “She is a survivor,” he says. “She can take a punch. She was a great vice president for the group. She’ll be a great president.”