Science Saturday: a Few Interesting Science Articles We Bookmarked This Week

Fascinating science stuff gleaned from the googlesphere

Springville high schooler's science project might hold key to computing leap: Give this kid a scholarship.

Global warming on planet Jupiter?: Perhaps Al Gore can explain this.

Insects (the original white meat): Good traditional sources of protein in hard economic times.

How Are Humans Unique? : Preliminary evidence reaveals Boss Godfrey may be human.

We're toying with the idea of making this a late Saturday/early Sunday weekend feature, just for a change of pace.

And what say our gentle readers about all this?

Godfrey Goons Tick Off Council

When will Brandon Stephensen wake up and sniff the coffee?

By Fly On the Wall

Fascinating article in the Standard-Examiner this morning. Godfrey goons tick off the Council again, by adding language to SB294 at the last minute to assure the Mayor can not be removed as executive director of the RDA board:

OGDEN — Some city council members are angry because they weren’t informed by the administration in advance about new legislation that gives Mayor Matthew Godfrey total executive authority over the Ogden Redevelopment Agency.
Senate Bill 294, sponsored by Sen. Curtis S. Bramble, R-Provo, became law May 5.
The last two lines of the bill contain an amendment requiring the mayor of a municipality operating under a council-mayor form of government to serve as executive director of the local RDA and exercise executive powers.
The Ogden RDA board is made up of city council members.

As usual Godfrey denies any knowledge of the back room activities of Goon Johnson and paid lobbyist Jolley.

I would have to call "Bullshit" on that one, Godfrey goons don't do anything without the knowledge and blessings of his lordship.

One more reason for the council to cut the funds to pay for a lobbyist that has only the Mayors' interests when persuing legislation.

And as usual Brandon Stephenson thinks the language was good, but he didnt like the trust issue it created.

When is Brandon going to wake up and sniff the coffee?

Update 5/24/08 10:45 a.m. MT: Kristen Moulton also provides a solid writeup in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune.

More News Re "The Ogden Ice Tower"

More promotional gibberish from "Ice Tower Lowe"

We received from one of our gentle readers an interesting email about one hour ago, concerning one of our very most-favorite Weber County Forum topics. It's been almost a full month since we last broached this subject. We're elated to have finally received this new information.

The topic of course is Boss Godfrey's Ice Tower Project, otherwise known affectionately on this site as The Fortess of Mayoral Ego.

Today's reader email contained a marvellous Adobe PDF attachment, which we're absolutely delighted to provide to our gentle readers this Friday afternoon.

By way of background, our "chain of custody" information is spotty. Our understanding, however is that Ice Tower Project information which we are about to provide, was distributed by Friend of Matt (FOM) Jeff Lowe, to an Ogden medical doctor, possibly at the recent Ogden Surgical Society gathering.

We'll now end the suspense, and provide a link to this new information.

As we understand it, this material was personally presented as a request for donations from local Medical Doctors:

Jeff Lowe's brochure sales pitch

Tempted though we are to analyse this sales brochure line-by-line, we'll resist that impulse.

Rather, we'll focus on the most ridiculous parts:

Here, in the last paragraph of Boss Godfrey's endorsement letter (page two on the pdf @ 100%), we find this carney-promotional language from Boss Godfrey:

"The City is contributing significantly to this project and we would be grateful to have you join us as we make it a reality."

To our knowledge, the Ogden City Council has NEVER contributed one dime toward Boss Godfrey's ice-tower project. If we're wrong on this gentle readers, please correct us.

The sole amount of taxpayer money committed (conditionally) to this ridiculous project (according to our understanding) is limited to the $200 K in "conditional" RAMP money that was committed by the RAMP committee morons last year.

And here's another doozy! Jeff Lowe says climbing ice in ridiculous ice climbing towers (and assuming Jeff's questionable projections) will make $12 K in profit annually. This slight profit, would arise from a boondoggle that is now pegged to cost $1.6 million - Which Jeff Lowe is pitching to be publicly-subsidized.

"Nuff said." Time to hear from our gentle readers.

Consider this a Friday nite open thread, if you like.

A Call to Action Re the Utah Property Tax

Ogden Valley Forum argues the property tax system is broken, and needs to be fixed

We'd like to put the spotlight this morning on an article posted yesterday on Ogden Valley Forum, which springboards nicely off yesterday's Standard-Examiner story, reporting that some "insiders" within the Utah tax collection establishment consider the existing Utah property tax system to be efficient, well-run, and in no need of tinkering or fixing.

OVF contributors Larry and Sharon Zini differ significantly in their assessment of the Utah property tax situation, and argue that the Utah property tax law, as currently applied, is riddled with inequities and inefficiencies. We incorporate their lead paragraphs below:

Today's Standard Examiner article stating that Utah’s property tax system is “well run” is self serving for many of the political leaders in our fair state and is disingenuous and misleading.

It may be that our property tax system in Utah looks pretty good to outsiders, but a close examination of the details of our property tax system indicates it is favorable to some and unfavorable for many others, such as the elderly, on a scale that is clearly not understood by most taxpayers.

The authors go on to provide some interesting fact reporting and analysis, as well as a few suggestions, all intended to add "fairness" to Utah tax law. In a nutshell, Larry and Sharon propose that lawmakers and taxing authorities should adopt following corrective measures:

1) Shift public education funding from the property tax to the sales tax;
2) Require property tax reassessments across all Utah Counties on an annual basis;
3) Deny permits and petitions to property owners who are delinquent in their property tax payments;
4) Crack down on property owners who abuse the 45% "primary residence" property tax exemption.

All in all, it's a fine and thought-provocative article; one well worth a read.

Interested WCF denizens can read it here.

When you get done reading and cogitating... don't forget to come back to WCF with your comments.

And if you think the Utah property tax isn't your, problem, it's probably because you haven't been "bitten"... yet.

Special thanks to Larry and Sharon, for providing this thoughtful piece of work.

Spotlight on Today's Std-Ex Op Ed piece

Lafray Kelley provides some sound and politically-generic advice

By Curmudgeon

I'd point out that there is an interesting, and well-written, op-ed piece in today's Standard-Examiner by LaFray Kelley, the chair of the Weber County Democratic Party. It discusses the relative importance of voting in state and local elections compared to national elections. Worth a look, I think.

Here's my favorite line: "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

Damn, I wish I'd written that!

Ogden "Lands" Swiss Aircraft Company

Contrary to the headline, Jet Aviation hasn't actually "landed" yet, but does seem to be "circling the airport"

Just as was revealed by Curmudgeon in one of last night's Weber County Forum comments sections, this morning's Standard Examiner's hard-copy edition has the full story (under the clever front-page banner headline, "Ogden lands Swiss Company") on the prospective arrival of Jet Aviation, the Swiss aircraft company which is currently negotiating to lease 70,000 square feet of space in Mel Kemp's Ogden-Hinkley Airport facility. We incorporate Ace Reporter Schwebke's lead paragraphs below:

OGDEN — An international aviation company has signed a letter of intent with Kemp Development Inc. to establish a maintenance and repair facility and a fixed based operation at Ogden-Hinckley Airport.
Jet Aviation, based in Zurich, Switzerland, expects to begin operations at the airport in the fall, said Bryce Gibby, business development director for Kemp.
“They are the premier corporate jet provider in the world,” Gibby said Wednesday. “They are global and none is better.”
Dave Harmer, Ogden’s community and economic development director, said Jet Aviation would help Ogden toward its goal of becoming a hub for the aircraft industry.
“This is fantastic,” he said. “Jet Aviation is a major player.”
The company plans to employ up to 200 workers at its Ogden facility in the next two years.
Negotiations are ongoing to finalize a contract between Kemp and Jet Aviation, Gibby said.

We'll chalk this up as great news for Ogden City, and especially for Mel Kemp, who's been stuck with vacant rental space since mid-winter, when Adam Aircraft, Kemp's predecessor aircraft manufacturer tenant, executed a fatal financial "nose dive."

Contract details are still reportedly "up in the air," including the inevitable taxpayer subsidies, which will apparently be necessary to lure this big player to "drop its landing gear," begin its "final approach," "touch down" on the Hinkley Field runway and "taxi" into Kemp's empty hangar:

The city is in discussions with Jet Aviation to provide possible tax increment financing, said [Ogden Community and Economic Development Director Dave] Harmer. Jet Aviation also plans to apply for undisclosed financial incentives from the state, he said.

We're pressed for time this morning; so we'll skip our usual microanalysis. Suffice it to say however, we don't think Jet Aviation is a "fly by night."

Perhaps a few of our gentle readers would care to "fill in the blanks" with their own clever comments.

Ogden City Saves $2.5 Million in Bond Interest Payments

Unfortunately, previously earmarked BDO lease revenue won't ease the ultimate taxpayer pain

According to this morning's Standard-Examiner story, Ogden City got a great deal yesterday on its new $49.1 million water infrastructure bonding, as is reported by Ace Reporter Schwebke in his morning story, "Wall street helps Ogden's interest rate on bonds." Here's the lede:

OGDEN — A nearly 200-point drop in the Dow Jones industrials on Tuesday will likely save the city about $2.5 million in interest payments for a bond package to fund sweeping water and sewer infrastructure improvements, municipal officials say.
The city council adopted a resolution Tuesday night to proceed with the sale next month of $49.1 million in bonds to finance the improvements.
Mike Goodwin, the city’s treasurer, said Tuesday’s tumble on Wall Street prompted skittish investors to turn to more secure municipal bonds like the ones being marketed by Ogden.
“Municipal investors looked at our options,” he said. “It was very good for us.”
Wall Street stumbled Tuesday after oil prices spiked to a new record above $129 a barrel and a government report raised investors’ concerns about the impact of inflation on consumer spending.
Jerry Nowlin, a senior vice president for Wells Fargo Brokerage who is assisting the city in marketing its bonds, said about 15 major investors committed Tuesday to buy from Ogden. “We had more buyers than bonds (available),” he told the city council.
As a result, the city was able to negotiate a slightly better interest rate on its debt service payments, estimated to save about $2.5 million over the 30-year life of the bonds, he said.

Market timing is tough even for the most seasoned investors, though. Look at what happened to the Dow today, however:


The Dow was down another 227.49 (1.77%). Obviously we're in a declining investor market.

Although it might be suggested that the Ogden bond underwriter (Wells Fargo) might have waited another day or two before nailing down investor commitments... we're not going to say that.

Our main gripe, even with these market-driven and highly fortuitous rate reductions, is this:

Prior to 2005, Ogden City was set up to finance water system infrastrastructure improvements from Business Depot Ogden (BDO) lease revenue. These bond payments could have been largely paid from BDO revenue under the arrangements at that time, rather than from taxpayer-paid water rate increases, if original commitments had been kept.

Instead, Boss Godfrey, in his "visionary" risk-taking mode, persuaded the former "gang of Five Counsel," rubber stamp Godfreyite lackeys at that time, to re-commit BDO revenues to the "Wreck Center Project."

How's that project doing, BTW, we ask. Does anybody really know?

Recent reports indicate Ogden City taxpayers are now on the hook for at least four "Junction" $3/4 million bond payments, notwithstanding whatever paltry payments are now being made by the very few existing"Junction" tenants.

Three cheers for the soccer moms, gondolists, sheeple from the wardhouses and otherwise brain dead Godfreyites who lifted the little twerp to a third term as Ogden Mayor in the last election.

What a shame it is that these nitwits can't be personally assessed for the future economic damage they will will have have caused to Emerald City.

Ogden Public Transit Update: Informative Editorial in This Morning's Standard-Examiner

The Std-Ex brings its readers up to speed on the current Ogden City public transit planning posture

Well-crafted and informative editorial in today's Standard-Examiner, summarizing the current posture of the streetcar option in Ogden city's public transit planning process. Today's editorial hits all the important high points:

1) "It wasn’t 'Kumbaya,' but it was close";
2) The administration and council "still disagree about which route transit should take, but they do agree that a streetcar is their vehicle of preference";
3) Both the administration and city council "take a dim view of bus-rapid-transit."
4) "Nary a mention of a gondola — although Godfrey did say, maybe cryptically or maybe not, that if the streetcar turns out to be too expensive, it would be time to look at 'other options.'";
5) The sudden arrival of Boss Godfrey within the pro-streetcar camp is "good news for Ogden."

Although much of the analysis in this morning's editorial will no doubt have a deju vu feel for our regular Weber County Forum readers, we're happy to see the Std-Ex editorializing on the subject, and going the extra mile to inform its general readership about the current status of public transit planning in Ogden.

So how about it, gentle readers? Is there anything either we or the Standard-Examiner left out?

Don't all chime in at once.

Crime-fighter Godfrey: Foiled Yet Again

City Council Chair Amy Wicks becomes inadvertently involved in the Ogden gang problem

Interesting "conjunction of events" in Emerald City these last two days. Yesterday, the Standard-Examiner published this short piece, buried in a Top of Utah section sidebar. We'll republish the whole story, inasmuch as it was very short:

OGDEN - Police say they received eight separate calls complaining of people shooting guns in the city early Sunday morning. Eight different vehicles or residents were targeted between 2 a.m. and 2:50 a.m. Sunday.
Ogden Duty Lt. Scott Conley said damage was found at some locations where gunshots were heard. At one of the locations, on the 2700 block of Quicy Avenue, six 9mm shell casings were found in the street, and six bullet holes were found in windows, siding and shingles in surrounding homes.
On the 2800 block of Jefferson Avenue, four bullet holes were found in a Dodge Durango.
The total area spanned 26th to 30th street, and Monroe Boulevard to Lincoln Avenue.
Conley said a white sedan and a red sedan seemed to be travelling together, and the shots seemed to have come from the two vehicles.
He said one victim told police he received a message on his answering machine saying that he had started a war and he was next.
"We will be following up on all leads," Conley said.

Gang war in Ogden? Go figure. According to Boss Godfrey's 2007 municipal election campaign propaganda, Godfrey is a crime fighter; and no such thing could ever happen while crime-fighter Godfrey is in charge. Such events are impossible in Emerald City, under the little wizard's watch.

Of course we at Weber County Forum already know Godfrey lied about his so-called crime-fighting credentials.

And here's where the previously mentioned interesting conjunction of events comes in:

We got this email missive from Ogden City Council Chair Amy Wicks on Monday morning:

I was one of the people calling 911 at 2:45 early Sunday morning. We need to address the gang issue now...and not wait for Department of Workforce Services to possibly get a program up and running sometime after the end of summer. All of our neighborhood revitalization programs are a waste of time and money if we don't take care of this issue NOW. Would you feel good investing your own time and money in the East Central neighborhood if you woke up to the sound of gunshots in the middle of the night several times in the past year?

Godfrey the crime fighter? Ha...Ha...HA. Would YOU invest your money in Ogden while a declared Ogden "gang war" was going on?

At long last one of the responsible adults in Ogden City government has become acutely (and uncomfortably) aware of the wholly unattended gang problem in Ogden. And now that Amy's on the case, we're quite confident she won't let it rest.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to the Ogden gang problem... now that actual grownups like Council Chair Wicks are back in charge.

That's our take, although we do readily admit we haven't been attending crime conferences for the last 35 years.

And what say our gentle readers about this?

Utah's Sorry Campaign Law

The Deseret News lays into the Utah legislature

Excellent editorial in this morning's Deseret News, calling upon the legislature to "demonstrate a commitment to transparent government by changing these (Utah campaign finance disclosure) laws." From the editorial:

We have long been advocates for transparency in elections, rather than tedious and ineffective limits on donations. When laws limit how much someone can contribute to a campaign or how much a candidate can spend, the advantage always goes to the incumbent. In elections, money equals exposure. Information, on the other hand, helps voters enter polling booths fully informed.
But in Utah, the public has neither transparency nor limits.
The Center for Governmental Studies, together with the UCLA Law School, the California Voter Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, recently ranked states according to how well their campaign disclosure laws inform and protect the public. Utah came in 45th of the 50 states and earned an F grade.

Being the curious type, we navigated to the Campaign Disclosure Project (CDP) website; and yesiree, Utah's campaign disclosure law did indeed score an "F" grade as of the year 2007. According to the CDP site, Utah is in fact one of only six states receiving "failing" grades. That's quite a distinction -- one in which all Utah legislators must take great pride, we're sure.

There's plenty of interesting information on the CDP site, including this Campaign Finance Disclosure Model Law. In the unlikely event that any Utah legislator ever takes heed of the growing public outcry for wholesale campaign finance disclosure reform, we believe this "model law" would be a great "starter template."

We congratulate the Deseret News for for keeping the need for significant campaign disclosure reform in the public discussion forefront. We likewise encourage all Utah media to continue flogging this topic. If all goes well, this issue will rise to the surface during the upcoming 2008 general election campaign, forcing the legislature to finally address it during the 2009 legislative session.

Transit Investment: Some Real-world, Reality-based Suggestions

Kudos to Std-Ex columnist Trentelman and one GOP State Senator

By Curmudgeon

Excellent column this morning in the Standard-Examiner by Charles Trentelman --- a fine example of the "reality based world" that our legislators, most of them, seem reluctant to live in, or at least to legislate in.

The title of Trentelman's column is "No Cheap Road Around It: The Future Is Going To Be Taxing." He looks at the number of cars owned an driven in Davis County as an example. Davis County's population is expected to bump up by about a third over the next dozen years, with about 60K additional cars in the county. And right now Utah needs $16 billion just to maintain the roads we have and build badly needed new ones. Cost of building and maintaining new roads into the future looks like a financial tsunami for Utah taxpayers, and it's absolutely on the way.

Trentelman talks too about the need for transit investment to take some [but only a fraction] of those cars off the roads.

What's truly appealing about the column is (a) its conclusions are based on research, on defensible numbers, not on [as is far to often the case], election-driven hopin' and wishin' and dreamin'. [Latest example: Candidate McCain's promise that if elected, he will reduce federal taxes still more and yet balance the federal budget. No he won't, not any more than Reagan or Bush Two did following similar campaign assurances.] And (2) Trentelman does not succumb to the American Public Revenue Syndrome [APRS]: that, somehow, we can have the government do all we insist that it do [in this case, build ever more capacious highways, and maintain them to high standards] without our having to pay for it through taxes. [APRS is epidemic across the spending spectrum, not just involving roads. We want excellent schools, but we don't want to pay for them; we want an excellent military, but we don't want to pay for it... and so on.]

And Trentelman's actually found a legislator... a Republican legislator... who is taking a hard look at the facts, and drawing the inevitable reality-based conclusions: Sen. Sheldon Killpack [R-Syracuse] who's talking about bumping the state gas tax another 14 cents a gallon and charging congestion tolls [higher tolls for driving during rush hours into SLC for example] to raise the $16 billion Utah needs for road building and maintenance. Imagine that. [And compare it to the la-la-land proposals of Senators McCain and Clinton that suspending the 17 cent per gallon federal tax on gas for three months this summer --- costing the federal highway fund billions of dollars without in fact guaranteeing even that gas prices would go down a single cent over the summer as a result --- is what needs to be done.]

Kudos to Sen. Killpack, and columnist Trentelman, for making some real-world, reality-based suggestions.

What to Do with an Old Aeroplane Engine

Suffice it to say... this post is intended for true motorheads

Got an email today from one of our long-time gentle readers, with a jpeg attachment. For motorcycle and airplane enthusiasts, this one is simply too good to ignore:

Query: What do you do with an old airplane engine? (Click image to enlarge.)


A Weber County Forum Tip O' the Hat to gentle Ozboy for contributing this.

We do ever hope to see to see this extremely creative rig the next time "The Bikers" show up in Ogden to show off their custom scooters.

Suffice it to say... this post is intended for true motorheads. Either you "get it"... or you don't.

Next...

Golf Course Update: A Suggested Boss Godfrey Summer Project

Privatization -- exploring neoCON dream options

This morning's Standard-Examiner provides a brief update on Boss Godfrey latest management fetish: staunching the purported financial bleeding at Emerald City's Mt. Ogden Golf Course. Among other things, today's Ace Reporter Schwebke article provides an interim tally of suggestions heretofore submitted by various community-minded lumpencitizens. Interestingly, letting the course "go to seed" reportedly drew a plurality of the ersatz "votes."

There was however one creative solution which appears to have particularly caught our "can do" mayor's eye -- one that we agree ought to be thoroughly explored. We provide the gist from Scott Schwebke's opening 'graphs:

OGDEN — Mayor Matthew Godfrey says he will look into a recommendation that a not-for-profit organization be allowed to manage financially troubled Mount Ogden Golf Course.
The recommendation was the most intriguing by far arising from a March open house to gather public suggestions to resolve the golf course’s money woes, said John Patterson, the city’s chief administrative officer.

Leaving aside the still unresolved question, whether the MOGC would be running at a "break-even" if not recently saddled by Godfrey bean-counters with "repayment" of a debt arising from the course's original construction (a debt repayment obligation apparently NOT originally contemplated by previous Ogden City administration officials,) we agree that it might be fruitful for the Godfrey and his well-paid "suits" to aggressively explore private management options.

Privatization -- the neoCON dream.

A quick Google search reveals no shortage of golf course management companies who might be solicited to bring MOGC operations to a new level of operational efficiency.

We say it's time for Boss Godfrey to get moving on this. Soliciting bids for competent golf course management would be an ideal diversionary summer project for Godfrey and his "A-Team," we think, while some of Godfrey's other projects and schemes (Larry Mylar and Gadi Leshem, anyone?) continue to flounder into the summer. And who knows? If Godfrey were to pursue the resuscitation of our MOGC with the same level of obsession demonstrated with respect to his gondola delusion over the past three years, a highly persuasive (and charming) visionary like Godfrey would surely succeed in luring a golf course manager/developer who's actually willing to bring some of his own cash to the table -- right?

Well...?

Krugman: Stranded in Suburbia

The European lesson for coping with a world of high priced oil

By Curmudgeon

Paul Krugman's column in Monday's New York Times deals with how the US will eventually solve the problem of ever-escalating gas prices. From the column:

Any serious reduction in American driving will... mean changing how and where many of us live.
To see what I’m talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.
It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.
And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.

Won't be easy. Many problems, like the transit chicken-and-egg problem:

Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.

He points out that the probable solution, pretty much modeled on European lines, does not involve Americans giving up their cars, or driving tiny three-wheeled mini-cars. Most Europeans own cars that are fairly mid-sized [though many fewer families own more than one]. It's just that cars in Europe get much better mileage than comparable American cars, and that Europeans drive them much less. Which they can do because Europeans have invested much more heavily than we have [so far] in urban and sub-urban mass transit. Whole article is worth a read, as Ogden contemplates its transit future.

The Ogden Marathon: Unqualified Success

An example how it can work when we all pull together

By Curmudgeon

Amidst all of our usual [and fully justified] grousing and grumbling about things not working as they should, I think we might give a nod to an Ogden event that went, from all I can see, very very well: the just completed Ogden Marathon.

According to this morning's story in the Standard-Examiner, there were more than 5000 runners registered for the event. I met some of them doing some carbo loading Saturday night. Nice folks, and very complementary about Ogden, and that was before the race, which I gather went off with nary a hitch and with [this year] good cooperation from the weather.

Big event. Teams of volunteers making it all happen as it should. Corporate sponsorship. Cooperation from the city government. Big success, apparently. And very good ink for Ogden and good reports going home with the runners.

When we pull together and plan well, we can do big events and do them well. There's also supposed to be video of the marathon on the paper's web page, but I couldn't find it. And a little odd that this morning's story didn't get front page treatment [just a banner saying story in Section B.]

Developers Gone Wild

Two Utah stories focusing on the effects of developer-abandoned projects

By Curmudgeon

Today's Salt Lake Tribune has an interesting story about what happens when developers are allowed to run amok with few or no restrictions on their conduct. In Draper, developers, out of cash and with the new homes market sagging, are simply walking away from half-finished projects, leaving half built houses or foundations behind them. Which is tanking property values in the surrounding homes. Draper city government is now trying to close the barn door way too late. But still, the city seems now to be embracing the heretical idea [in Utah's legislative majority] that government regulation of developers can be a good thing and might be a necessary thing.

Here's how the story opens:

Draper doesn't want to turn into a graveyard of unfinished homes.
In effort to brace itself for fallout from a slumping housing market, the city is targeting builders who walk away from unfinished projects, leaving behind skeletons of would-have-been homes. "This does create a safety concern and an eyesore," says City Councilwoman Stephanie Davis, adding that the city could at least require landowners to fence off their unfinished-home sites.
Several Draper residents, who already live next to long-abandoned shells, would welcome such a change. Take, for example, the Satre's, who are dazzled by the sweeping view of the Salt Lake Valley from their east-bench home's back windows.
But a glance out the front door tells a different story. A massive dirt mound and abandoned concrete foundation - peppered with unsightly graffiti and rusty concrete reinforcing rods have stood abandoned for three years atop a trio of would-be home lots in a neighborhood where many houses have sold for more than $1 million.

The full story can be found here. As I read it, I couldn't help wondering this: if Mayor Godfrey and his developer cronies had gotten their way, and they'd sold Mt. Ogden Park to build a couple hundred high-end vacation villas, would we all now be looking at benches filled with half completed homes and holes in the ground?

Second, the lead article in the Salt Lake City Weekly this week is about how, in Utah, developers and utilities get to do pretty much what they damn well please, with, often, unhappy consequences for the cities involved. Good account of how SLC permitted the destruction of a historic building in Sugar House, forcing out several successful non-chain small businesses, so a mega condo and commercial block could take their place... only to see the project stall in the weakening market, leaving a raw and gaping construction site where thriving businesses in a historic building used to be.

The City Weekly article can be found here.