In what amounts to a true local "man bites dog" story, John Wright reported yesterday in this Standard Examiner Story that an actual disagreement has arisen between the Ogden City Mayor's office, and the almost universally-agreeable Ogden City Council majority. Although there seems to be no disagreement at all about the object of hiring of a professional lobbyist to browbeat the state legislature into returning to the city the power to seize the private property of Ogden citizens -- in order to transfer it to giant multinational corporations like Wal-mart -- it seems some kind of turf-battle has now developed.
Whereas Mayor Godfrey desires that our new paid legislative-relations professional report to, and receive his orders directly from his office, the suddenly-obstinate Councilman Kent Jorgensen has gotten his hackles up, and insists that Ogden City's new lobbyist become the City Council's sock-puppet.
The true sticking point appears to be Mayor Godfrey's pet project, the proposed intra-city gondola. Mayor Godfrey has been outspoken in his support for such a system, and he plainly enjoys vigorous support for it from at least a portion of the Ogden community. Councilman Jorgensen, on the other hand, is employed by the UTA, which frowns on unusual projects such as this. It certainly wouldn't "sit well with the powers that be" in the UTA power structure if Councilman Jorgensen failed to put his foot down on something like this now, would it? After all, whose special interests was he elected to represent, anyway?
I swear you couldn't make up a story like this if you tried. The fact that someone from our notably slavish "rubber stamp council majority" is having any kind of disagreement with the Mayor's office at all would be news in and of itself. The fact though, that City Councilman Jorgensen actively and vocally promotes his employer's agenda, even while running as a candidate for re-election, prior to any significant public discussion of the issue, makes this story one well worth savoring.
It's my belief that our Ogden City lobbyist, (if we're going to have one at all,) should serve under the direction and control of the Mayor's office. The Mayor is our city executive officer, after all, and any arrangements or proposals that he might make for alternative forms of public transit would still be subject to the advice and consent of our city's legislative body, Councilman Jorgensen's Ogden City Council.
This whole brouhaha smells of political posturing to me. Any argument that the Ogden City Council should employ its own professional lobbyist is well beyond preposterous. My bet is that this is just another way for Councilman Jorgensen to put his name in the public forefront as November approaches.
What say our gentle Weber County Forum readers about this?
Update 8/30/05: 9:14 a.m. MT: The Standard-Examiner editorial board chimed-in on this issue Sunday in its lead editorial, advocating my concept of putting the new city lobbyist under the direct management of the Mayor's office, with the City Council maintaining legislative oversight and control, in the same manner as Salt Lake City's lobbyist arrangement. This is how it ought to be, I think.
Notably, The Std-Ex Editors wasted no opportunity to whine again about restoration of the City RDA's eminent domain power,which is actually the main objective in hiring the new professional lobbyist.
In a nation where recent polls have shown that upwards of 95% of the citizens oppose the use of the condemnation power for economic development projects, it's truly astounding that the editors of our home-town paper (and our Ogden City officials) can be so completely out of touch.
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15 comments:
I agree, Rudi....it is interesting that Jorgenson has suddenly changed his course, isn't it. I'm sure the upcoming election has nothing whatsoever to do with it. His agruments were kind of half-hearted anyway and he certainly didn't ask the mayor to meet himn o Main Street over this.
The Mayor should win out, as it is his position to hire and fire, and a lobbyist falss under his pervue, not the council's. They will vote on this however, but a trade might be made....the PR machine for the Lobbyist.
Nothing any of this Gang of 6 does would surprise me. Only wish that Jesse and Amy had a little more help, but, November is on the way and rational minds just might prevail.
This is something unprecedented.
What will happen next? Will councilman Kent "Timekeeper Hammer" Jorgensen, the official Ogden City Council Clockwatcher, suddenly let citizens finish their statements before the Council, without interrupting them in midsentence to announce that they've used up their three minutes time, half of it spent walking to the podium microphone and clearing their throat?
These are strange times we live in, when Mayor Godfrey's #1 rabid Ogden City Council chihuahua lapdog suddenly turns on his master just before the next election, bites him with his little-bitty teeth, and pretends he's not wearing a doggie choke chain, or a five-hundred dollar remote-controlled electronic training collar.
Gawd I love Ogden, Utah politics!
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
I read what you say and you are right.
This Jorgensen is a girlie-man.
Just because Jorgi is attempting to save his skin for rubber stamping everything the mayor proposes, does not make him right! I would much rather have a council member stand behind his votes even if they are wrong, than weasel (or ferret) out when he is feeling a little heat, or blame his votes on the "power" of the mayor. This guy is NOT a leader and definitely showing his colors.
Some good dudes are runnin' agin the clown....get out the vote!
Jorgi has no scruples.
He got elected on a platform of "not tearing down the old mall"
He then turned tail, and immediately voted to tear it down at virtually the first opportunity as a city councilman.
He's never offered a single plaausible explanation for his flip-flop.
He's a L-I-A-R.
There's never been a more lying POS ever to sit on the Ogden City Council within my memory.
The little lying, PR manipulating POS MUST GO!
Right on, dude....
I'm sure some where in his rubber stamping little neo-con heart that Jorgenson is an allright guy. After all, he takes in Russian orphans and provides them with a home. How bad a human could he be?
Of course he does side with the little big guy on nine in viturally every goof ball scheme put forward - regardless of the cost in dollars or human suffering.
He was at the front in the obcene attempt by the Lord Mayor and the Council to steal people's homes at some low ball price - under the threat of eminent domain - so they could turn it around and make a pile of money on these poor people's backs and sell the land to the worlds largest robber corporation for yet one more gigantic super duper WalMart center.
What kind of person would do something like that?
He is still crying over not getting his evil way on that one and is in full support of spending fifty grand or so of our tax dollars to hire a lobbyist to try and get the state government to give them back this totally immoral tool to use against the poor folks of Emerald City.
He is very quick to vote for the draconian so called "good landlord program", which did nothing to solve the problem that they were using as an excuse. It did of course put another big financial burden on the renters of Emerald City and turned the landlords into cops - and of course added a shit load of money to the public trough that they all have their snouts in.
He was very quick to vote to evict poor and disabled people from their lodgings in motels that can't get any other type of business. He evidently cares very little for the hastles that this will add to these poor people's lives as they routinely drag themselves and all their worldlies from one motel to another in their wheelchairs. Why should he care - he's getting all the heaven points he needs as he sits around the fine dinner table with his grateful Russian orphans.
He was very quick in taking the beer licence and major part of their income from the two immigrant merchants on 25th street. So what if they lost a lot of income and the problem didn't get solved.
Yorgensen could actually not give a squat less about these people or any of the thousands of others in the land of Oz that suffer because of his arrogant and condensending actions toward the citizens, and his rubber stamp votes in favor of the little guy's ego monuments.
Yorgensen has proven time and time again that his true allegiance is to the Lord Mayor, and this insane vision of turning our town into some tourist resort at the bottom of the ski lift - at the expense of the vast majority of common folks who live here.
His finger prints are all over the $72,000,000.00 dollars that Emeral City is in the hole. that's seventy two million bucks right out of our tax paying pockets and we have very little to show for it. Nothing they have done is working as advertised and the whole damn town and every project in it is hocked up to the eye balls over this incredibly stupid "Wreck" center idea. Yes, Jorgensen is one of the main authors of this maddness.
In short he is a shameless lackey of the short one.
Well said, Ozboy. Jorgenson appears to be the Mayor's lackey as his voting record would attest. His compassion toward the citizenry is virtually non-existant as his voting record would attest. He lies, in that he ran on an "I'll not vote to tear down the Mall" platform then at the first chace he had to walk the walk instead of talk the talk, he failed and voted to destroy the place. His attempts to reinvigorate the council with the shameless hiring of a $28K per year PR person smacks of double talk. Better yet, to admit that the council needs to hire this PR person is admiting the hubris of the council and that the members have failed at communicating with the citizenry. He is now double talking out of the side of his mouth by hoping he and the other members of the Gang of 6 are not lumped in with the mayor, when nearly every vote they cast does actually lump them in.
Way past due for a change!
I am going to be a dissenting voice here and say that I think the lobbyist should report to the Council as well as the mayor.
Not to go so far, perhaps, as to take orders from it, (since it rarely stands as one voice,) but to have the responsibility to inform the council as to what the lobbyist is ordered to do and is doing.
The reason I say this is that I remember an instance where the mayor was able to end-run the Council and get $155,000 worth of bleachers for Ogden's Ampitheater without allowing them to vote on it, and some of those Council members were somewhat peeved at this, even, as I recall, going so far as to ask if that were against the law. I think there may be other instances of this disregard for proper procedure as well---specifically, I am thinking of the negotiations for the rec center funding.
In both the Standard and the Trib today, there are articles about UDOT hiring a lobbyist in an effort to block further litigation against the Legacy Highway while at the same time "negotiating" with the environmental groups attempting to halt it via litigation.
The environmental groups are crying, "Foul!" about this, since it shows that UDOT was not being entirely sincere in its efforts to work things out with them. Behind their backs, it was trying to get a provision passed that would block all their efforts.
I can see the possibility of much the same thing happening here. The Mayor side of the equally powered Mayor/Council system already has shown itself to sometimes be lax in providing the Council with necessary information as to its actions. In order for us to have truly representative government, the Council must be kept up on what is going on, and if there is a lobbyist who works solely with the Mayor, the Council may be at times unaware of certain things it should know.
The problem, Dian, is that often times the Mayor gives the Council the information package only MINUTES prior to the council meeting wherein they will vote on his proposals. The only 2 councilmembers whom I've seen question this practice and therefore cast a dissenting vote, are Garcia and Wicks.
The other 5, who with the Mayor comprise the Gang of 6, shamlessly vote for nearly EVERY proposal the Mayor presents, regardless of time for R & D. We have a council that "rubber stamps" the Mayor, who rubber stamped Stuart Reid, and look what thats led to: a city in a state of economic and physical obsolesence.
The council members who follow this trait should be ashamed and definitely should NOT be re-elected. And Jorgenson and Safsten are the leaders, right out in front, never batting an eye.
Go rudi,
With one breath you ask everyone to come post here so all candidates will have a chance to get their message out and in the next breath you are calling Councilman Jorgenson names and basically egging others in the same vein.
I think you went a little overboard here. You may want to take a deep breath and reread your posts in these comments and edit or delete some of your posts.
Dian as always and ec's last post are the kind of posts that should elicite serious discussion. Most of the others are too full of emotion.
I do understand your reasons but I still think that if you take a few minutes to cool down and breath, you can make your points in a more civil way.
LOL, ARCritic. You weren't lyin when you said you were "AR."
Listen up!
Your comments exactly fulfill the hope and expectations that I had when I first set up this place.
The whole purpose of this weblog is to promote the free discussion of ideas and purported facts. I am not the board "Yoda." It's people like you whose visits I've tried to welcome here.
As I've said countless times here, this is not my soapbox. This is not intended to be an advocacy blog. This place is designed to promote the revelation of truth through discussion from all points of the opinion compass.
Here's how it's supposed to work: I post a provocative article, and it's you people who are supposed to sort out the truth.
Keep on posting, ARCritic. I think you're a valuable contributor here.
I think everyone appreciates and needs your insights.
Speaking of Kent Jorgensen...
I think Kent Jorgenson is a dishonest little s**t, as you already know. It would be unfair though, I think, to deprive him of the opportunity to put his unedited info on the WCF website, along with all the others, dontcha think? The individual sites will be comment-free, BTW.
Thanks again for contributing here, ARCritic.
ec, that is really mind-boggling to me. I don't know how they are supposed to function that way--I know I couldn't. I would need time to think, and maybe research a few things.
Maybe this is what happened on the 90 day motel ordinance---it was presented when they were cold, as if all the people who made long term stays were the ones that caused the most problems, open and shut, as it were, and then they ran a vote. Maybe no one even thought about the handicapped, etc., because they were not included in the presentation.
No matter how intelligent someone is, he or she cannot be expected to think of all the ramifications of something like this on such short notice. In fact, if meetings are Tuesdays, I would say that packets should go out the Thursday before. Especially on something like that ordinance, which affects so many lives. This would also give Council members a chance to talk to their respective constituencies, which, after all, they really should be doing.
I am really all for the Council getting every consideration and being supplied with all the information it needs. In my opinion, the scenario you describe is going a long way towards rendering it ineffective. And it is there to represent us. Even if it doesn't agree with us, it is supposed to be making our views known. And how can this system be effective if time is not allowed to let that process work?
You're absolutely correct, Dian....I heard Montgomery's presentation, listened to the council throw out a question or two, then watched as they shamlessly voted to kick 'em out in 90 days. Not much consideration over that matter, but then, there seldom is.
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