Windmill-Tilting, Act IV

There was a flyer circulated within this morning's Standard-Examiner, announcing an event this coming Monday in Ogden at 7:00 p.m. in the Union station lobby. According to the sponsor, Citizens Concerned for Ogden's Future, there will be a featured speaker, Howard Blackson III, a "renowned, respected urban designer," who will offer a presentation during which he will explain to all in attendance "why Mayor G's plan won't work," and "what will revitalize Ogden."

This is sheer speculation on my part, but I'd be willing to bet that this CCFOF "group" is the same batch of knights errant who got blown out of federal court yesterday, when they were hiding behind another concerned citizen acronym, CBCFOF, or something very similar.

Both the mode and timing of this presentation are also somewhat odd. If indeed this mysterious presentation includes an alternate plan for the old downtown mall site, why didn't these CCFOF people schedule this public sideshow earlier in the decision process? The Recreation Center process has been ongoing for years now. Why are they scheduling it now, on the very eve of the city council vote on the Rec Center bonding? The bonding's all but a done deal now. If these people had an alternate plan, why are they now bringing it up at the eleventh hour? Morever, why didn't they request that this presentation be calendered as a regular agenda item for consideration at Tuesday night's city council meeting, so that it could be heard by both Ogden's city's citizens and her government officials alike?

I did a quick internet search, and relevant web reference to Mr. Blackson came up as follows: Google -- 2; Yahoo -- 3; and AlltheWeb (my favorite search engine, by the way) -- 3. That's not an impressive number of hits, in my view, for a prominent figure in the flourishing urban design industry, but he may very well be an "up and comer." Mr. Blackson's own website does list some notable accomplishments, so I suppose there's actually no reason to question his professional competence.

I do wonder, however, how much research and effort Mr. Blackson may have expended so far. The cynic in me suggests that this is a last-minute situation. As you'll recall from yesterday's Scott Schwebke article, our little band of Don Quixotes dragged that unfortunate Salt Lake City attorney, Maxwell Miller, into their federal court action on short notice, to be pummeled about the head and shoulders by Judge Stewart and opposing counsel yesterday. I do hope he was well-paid for the embarrassment. Mr. Blackson's "presentation" smacks of the same thing, of course.

This raises a few further questions: Who's picking up the tab for this event? Is Mr. Blackman actually being financially compensated for his airfare and overnight accomodations; or is he arriving here at his own expense, in the expectation that he'll be able charm the local citizens into retaining his firm to re-design our old mall site? Have our lumpencitizen-activist crybabies fully informed him that his presentation will occur the very night before the Ogden city council is expected to rubber-stamp the current proposal? Does he understand the political position of the people he's dealing with?

So many questions...so few answers.