Deedee Corradini

Deedee Corradini
Former Mayor of Salt Lake City
32nd Mayor of Salt Lake City
In office 1992–2000
Preceded by	Palmer DePaulis
Succeeded by	Rocky Anderson
Personal details
Born	Providence, Rhode Island
Political party	Democratic
Profession	Businesswoman

Deedee Corradini served as mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah from 1992 to 2000. Corradini was Salt Lake City's first and to date only female mayor.

Corradini, now Senior Vice President for Prudential Utah Real Estate, is also the President of Women's Ski Jumping-USA. She has been on the WSJ-USA board for four years and served as president for the last three, taking a lead role in the battle to get women's ski jumping into the Olympic Winter Games (see www.wsj2010.com).

Corradini attended school in Lebanon and Syria for 11 years as a child. A graduate of the University of Utah with a Masters degree in Psychology, She also attended Drew University in Madison, NJ. She served as Press Secretary to US Congressman Wayne Owens of Utah and then Rep. Richard Ottinger of New York in the early 1970s.

Although Utah leans strongly toward the Republican party, Corradini is a member of the United States Democratic Party. This is not unusual for Salt Lake City, which tends to elect more Democrats than the rest of heavily Republican Utah.^{[citation needed]} Indeed, the last time a Republican was elected mayor of the city was Jake Garn in 1971. Since then, all mayors have been Democratic mayors: including Ted Wilson and Palmer DePaulis (Corradini's two predecessors), Rocky Anderson (her successor) and Ralph Becker, the current mayor.

Corradini's efforts gave Utah the initial shove that landed the state the 2002 Winter Olympics. Corradini was the first woman to receive the Olympic flag when it was passed to Salt Lake City at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Under Corradini's watch, the city's population experienced a tremendous growth spurt, as the metropolitan area of Salt Lake City and the rest of the state began to grow by thousands of families a month.^{[citation needed]}

But she also endured scrutiny for soliciting some $231,000 in cash gifts and loans to pay off $805,000 for her part in the failure of Bonneville Pacific, a publicly traded alternative energy corporation that went bankrupt on inflated financials in 1991. Though she never faced criminal charges, investigations dogged Corradini's administration, which never recovered from the Winter Olympics bribery scandal. In January 1999, she announced she would not seek reelection the following year amid calls for her resignation by the Salt Lake City Council.

The ACLU and the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, among others (including her successor Rocky Anderson), were upset with a deal she negotiated on behalf of the city to sell a block of Main Street — then city property — adjacent to Temple Square to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).^[1] However, the conversion of this block into a church plaza was one of the 14 major projects put forth by the city in its 1962 Second Century Plan.^[2][3][4] The 1962 plan stated: "It is proposed that Main Street between the two church blocks either be closed to vehicular traffic or an underpass installed. This would strongly unify these two blocks as a visual anchor on the north end."^[4] Some accused the Mayor of pushing the sale in exchange for the LDS Church's support of the Olympic Games,^{[citation needed]} as the church was not initially in favor of the city hosting the games.^[5]

During her tenure, Corradini pushed hard (and ultimately successfully) for the relocation of the Union Pacific railroad tracks that divided downtown, pushed through the TRAX light-rail system, and won massive federal funding for reconstruction of the freeway system in advance of the Olympic Games (one of the largest single public works transit projects in recent American history). She also was the guiding force for the construction of the popular baseball stadium for the (then) AAA Salt Lake Buzz, at the time, the farm team for the Minnesota Twins), the redevelopment of a 50 year old railyard into the 30 acre (121,000 m²), $375 million Gateway District mixed-use development, resulting in two million square feet (186,000 m²) of shops, restaurants, office space, and housing, as well as a 12 screen movie theatre a planetarium as well as plans for a children's museum.

Corradini served as the President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1998.

References

1. ^ "Judge to rule on plaza suit". Deseret Morning News. 27 January 2004. See online version at http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,590038900,00.html.
2. ^ "Downtown Salt Lake City Second Century Plan Map". J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections. University of Utah. http://content.lib.utah.edu/u?/coa,3115. Accessed 4 April 2007. Note the explanation at the bottom, left of center.
3. ^ "A New Vision for Salt Lake City". Downtown Rising: Inspired by the Second Century Plan. Page 4. Produced by Downtown Rising. http://www.downtownrising.com. See online version at [1].
4. ^ ^{a b} "Short Overview of Plaza Negotiations". LDS Church news release. http://lds.org/newsroom/extra/0,15505,3881-1---4-25,00.html. Retrieved 13 January 2007. See archived copy here: [2]
5. ^ Shipps, Jan. "The Mormons Score a 9.6". Religion in the News. Trinity College, Hartford CT. Spring 2002, Vol. 5, No. 1.

Preceded by Palmer DePaulis

Mayors of Salt Lake City 1992 – 2000

Succeeded by Rocky Anderson

Persondata
Name	Corradini, Deedee
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth	Providence, Rhode Island
Date of death
Place of death