Wednesday, November 06, 2019

Here are the final 2019 election results, Ogden City Peeps:


Yep. Ogden's own Mayor Mike soundly whooped the Los Angeles/Chicago carpet-bagger.

Great job, Mike!

Tuesday, September 03, 2019

Ogden Mayoral Debate Set For September 13

Will this be a fair debate? We'll see.

Attention all Ogden City voters and residents!  There a big debate coming up next week. We're swiping a Facebook graphic to provide the space/time coordinates.

Here's the skinny:
SEPTEMBER 13 - MARQUARDT PARK: - 7:30PM - 320 Taylor Avenue, Ogden, Utah 84403
Mayoral candidates Angel Castillo and Mike Caldwell will debate outdoors in Marquardt Park. Dustin Chapman of Ogden Education will moderate. You may send questions you'd like to be asked to the moderator via TEXT to: (801) 648-9883. Ten questions will be taken from the audience. Refreshments will be available, and this is a kid-friendly event.Please contact Sebastián Benitez at (801) 814-1001 if you are interested in volunteering to help with the event. Don't miss this pivotal event, Ogden Voters!

And who is this debate "moderator" Dustin Chapman? Check it out:


Will this be a fair debate? We'll see.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Ogden Election Primary Post-mortem: Ya Gotta Love Dan Schroeder

Here's a great pre-primary analysis, via  Dan Schroeder, a semi-regular WCF contributor over the years, Let's just call this our Ogden City Primary Election post-mortem:
Ogden voters: Primary Election Day is Tuesday the 13th, and we have four candidates for mayor. Following the money, I've downloaded their campaign finance disclosure reports from the city's web site (https://ogdencity.com/208/Election-Information). Here are some details that I found notable. 
Incumbent Mike Caldwell began with nearly $20k left over from previous campaigns, and has raised an additional $15k. His largest contributors this year are the Northern Utah Realtors Association, R&O Construction, Robert Bolar, The McEntee Group, Jeanne Hall, and Kevin Garn. Contributions made through business entities are business-as-usual here in Utah but they raise ethical concerns: Are the donors committing tax fraud by writing off their political contributions as business expenses? And what favors do they expect from the mayor in return? Garn, meanwhile, is the confessed pedophile and disgraced ex-legislator from Davis County who developed Ogden’s Hilton Garden Inn (under a deal made with former mayor Godfrey), sub-contracting the concrete work to FLDS child abusers; what favors he may be seeking from the current mayor are anyone’s guess.
Challenger Angel Castillo has raised a little over $13k for her campaign. Of this, $4k came from Ogden restaurant owner Bec Sato, and another $2.7k came from 2015 mayoral candidate Sebastian Benitez, through his business (Intermountain Property Cleaning Service). The remainder came from a long list of smaller donors, some local but most from out of state--especially from Los Angeles, where Castillo herself lived until a year and a half ago. Perhaps the most interesting of her contributions was $100 from Chris Peterson, who set off the Ogden Gondola War of 2006 by proposing to acquire foothill property from the city and WSU, and to build a resort in Malan’s Basin. The address that Peterson provided is of a rented private mailbox in Evanston, Wyoming.
Challenger Daniel Tabish has been the biggest campaign spender so far: nearly $14k. But his $16k in contributions have come from only nine different individuals. More than $11k came from John, Johnny, and Dalton Gullo (all using the same address in Wyoming), obviously divided among the three of them to evade the $5000 individual contribution limit. John Gullo is a former Burger King franchise owner with a long history of local philanthropic activity, but apparently had a falling out with the current administration a few years ago. Tabish also received $2k from major gondola proponent Curt Geiger, and $1k each from David Stevenson and Dan Musgrave. Stevenson’s address is illegally omitted from Tabish’s disclosure form but he is probably the David Stevenson who practices law with former Ogden School District Superintendent Brad Smith. Musgrave is the former head of Downtown Ogden Inc. (the contractor that used to run downtown events for the city), and also owns a downtown reception center and a local Subway franchise. Perhaps I should also mention that Tabish has been endorsed by the notorious John Patterson, who served several years as Mayor Godfrey’s unscrupulous chief administrative officer.
Perennial candidate John Thompson has received no campaign contributions at all, but has spent $400 of his own money on advertising in the Standard-Examiner.

Pretty good eh?

Monday, August 19, 2019

Standard-Examiner: Caldwell, Castillo Come Away with the Most Votes in Ogden's Mayoral Primary

Keep your eyes on this space, Gentle Readers. 

Well... we've cleared the 2019 Ogden City primary, Ogden peeps, and the Standard-Examiner has the full story:  Read up, folks!

OGDEN — The race for mayor in Ogden was likely whittled to two candidates Tuesday night. Incumbent Mike Caldwell and challenger Angel Castillo took home and 44.7% and 28.34% of the vote respectively, according to unofficial results from the Weber County Elections Office. Tuesday night's results are still considered preliminary. The county says a results update will be posted Aug. 16 and official results will be presented by cities during their respective board of canvass meetings.If the results hold, candidates Daniel Tabish and John Thompson are out of the contest, after receiving 22.16% and 4.79% of the total votes, respectively. As of Tuesday night, 7,364 votes were cast in the mayor's race. Read the full story, peeps:
Keep your eyes on this space, Gentle Readers.  We'll be closely following this exciting race into November of course.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Ogden City Mayoral Debate Set for Thursday at WSU - Updated

With a total of five candidates declared for the Ogden mayoral race, this should be interesting

Do you live in OGDEN??

PLEASE COME, MEET the candidates and support the MAYORAL DEBATE at 7 PM, July 18, Room 101 in Lindquist Hall, 3768 University Circle, WSU.


With a total of five candidates declared for the Ogden mayoral race, this should be interesting.

Update 7/22/19: The Standard-Examiner is carrying the post-debate story. Read up, peeps:

With at least four highly-motivated candidates in the Ogden City mayor race, it gets interertinger and interestinger, dunnit?


Thursday, July 04, 2019

Big Ogden City Mayoral Primary Debate

OK folks.  Seems we have another Ogden City Municipal Election coming up. In that connection, we're delighted to shine the spotlight on this important  upcoming Ogden City Election event:


Let's face it folks. Under Mayor Mike Caldwell's mayoral administration, Ogden City politics has been, in recent years, a bit of a  "snooze" In that connection, it seems that there are a few political newcomers, Angel Castillo,  for instance, who seems tbe well prepared candidate to "shake things up"

Tuesday, January 01, 2019

New Years Day Special - Dave Barry’s Year in Review: Is There Anything Good We Can Say About 2018?

Master American satirist Dave Barry: The New Years gift who keeps on giving

The inimitable Dave Berry hits paydirt yet again!
"Here’s hoping that the wish expressed by this erroneous HEMA message comes true. We would truly love for 2019 to be a happy year. Or at least a better year than 2018 was. It has to be better, right? How could it possibly be worse?
Please, put down the Tide Pod."
Read up, Preeps:
Master American satirist Dave Barry: The New Years gift who keeps on giving.

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