Eureka! Oil Discovered on Mall Site

Come listen to a story
about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer
barely kept his family fed
Then one day
he was shootin up some food
and up from the ground came a bubblin crude

Oil that is
Black gold
Texas tea

It appears that our intrepid Standard-Examiner ace city-beat reporter Scott Schwebke has identified the problem requiring the Ogden City Council Rec Center bond-vote to have been once again re-calendered, this time to August 16 of this year.

Oil contamination was apparently found on the old mall site during an earlier city-prepared environmental study. While city officials express confidence that this is only a minor problem, GE Commercial, one of the lenders "involved in financing the recreation center," isn't taking city officials word for it, and has reportedly demanded preparation of an independent study, which will reportedly take another couple of weeks.

It would seem, gentle readers, that this situation is truly evolving into one where Ogden City government literally can't spent our tax money fast enough.

For those Weber County Forum readers in far-flung places who don't have their own hard-copy of this morning's Std-Ex edition, you can read Scott Schwebke's entire article here.

I'm considering setting up a formal reader poll on this, and maybe I'll put one up later on. In the meantime, what about it, WCF readers? Will the old mall site ultimately check out "clean," as the Ogden City administration insists; or will our downtown dirt-pile prove to be floating on a sea of oil?

Place your bets here, folks.

Update 7/31/05 12:02 p.m. MT: Okay, here's the new poll:


Take My Poll


Update 8/3/05 10:14 p.m. MT: Due to the high volume of comments on this thread, I've shut down comments here. You may, however, continue your comments on the Union Square topic on this new thread that I've now set up for discussion of this topic.