Madness, Genius or Obfuscation

The citizens of northern Utah were greeted with a remarkable lead editorial in this morning's Standard-Examiner, discussing -- what else -- the "Godfrey Gondola." It's a pretty good editorial, all-in-all, which takes into account many of the factors that left Ogden city in the unfortunate condition it's presently in: the departure of the life-sustaining railroad, the long-time Ogden up-mountain gondola dream, and the persistent Ogden "cultural inferiority" complex -- and then there's the inevitable "madness or genius question," of course.

I have to hand it to Don Porter, though. After wandering a little bit, this editorial actually finally cuts to the chase. It frankly addresses the precise question many of us have been asking. Even assuming we citizens are alright with the general concept -- mad or not -- who exactly will be asked to pay for it, we ask? Apparently there's been a recent "shift" in the approach to the problem of project financing among the gondola-boosters, the Std-Ex editorial writer reports. Bingo, Don Porter, I say!

For a time, the gondola's supporters imagined they might be able to sell the idea as mass transit, and thereby snare massive federal and local transit funding to help pay the construction costs. But a thorough transit study put that idea to rest.

Now Lift Ogden is frank in its description of the intra-city gondola: It's a tourist attraction, something that will perhaps ferry students to Weber State, but that will be foremost a unique asset to draw skiers to Ogden via a soon-to-come commuter-rail station, on up to Malan's Basin and, perhaps someday, over the top of the mountain to Snowbasin. And it will enhance the city's already growing reputation among ski-industry companies -- a handful of which have relocated to Ogden in the past year.

It's audacious, if not mad. But what has us intrigued, and inclined to support it, is what a pair of our editorial board members were told recently during a meeting with Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey: The city portion of the gondola would only be built at the same time as the university-to-Malan's Basin line, and it would be financed entirely with private funds -- the city's contribution would be the rights-of-way along the surface streets.

We've been told the same by members of Lift Ogden: The business community will find the funds and build this thing.

That, in our book, is a vision we can get behind. It's not mass transit, as we remarked in an August editorial, but a tourist ride. It's to be paid for with private funds -- including operation and maintenance in the years ahead.

I had an interesting telephone conversation with one of the "Lift Ogden" folks a couple of days ago, in which we discussed the "financing" obstacle. He told me that a private investor group was in the process of being assembled, with the object of at least contributing to the construction of the downtown gondola leg. I heard the same thing in last Tuesday's "Lift Ogden meeting, and Bob Geiger told me the same the next morning. The Std-Ed article further corroborates that, of course. The "devil's in the details," after all, and the financing of this project is one devil of a detail.

I hope the Std-Ex is right, and that the taxpayers of Ogden won't be expected to pick up the tab on this, if the project indeed moves forward. And in terms of selling this plan to the public at large, I believe a well-heeled group of local citizens with cash on hand would work wonders in selling this plan to the lumpen townfolk. It's encouraging to hear that out local gondola-boosters are at least talking about putting their money where their mouths are.

If they can do it all with private money I say, "let's do it."

I do have a couple of questions, though. When they speak of "private funds," are they speaking of strictly local private investors, or is it public bonding they're talking about, in whole or part? If municipal bonding is involved, public property security issues come into play, public property is put at risk, and the financing therefore isn't strictly "private."

And another question -- why are we talking about this right now, with a municipal primary looming in a little more than two weeks? It strikes me as odd that this project is being frantically brought to the public forefront by the Std-Ex editors at this time, when we could be devoting our attention to the dismal records of our current city council rubber-stamp majority block-vote, who haven't accomplished very much in the last two years, other than to drive Ogden city deeper into debt. As the Std-Ex editorial says, this gondola dream has been alive "for decade, after decade, after decade." It's not as if we need to solve this decades-old problem in the next week or two. What's up with this anyway, I ask? A skeptic might even come to the conclusion that somebody's trying very hard to obfuscate the real issues, and to change the subject, right on the eve of the upcoming elections. Now's the first time in a couple of years to replace a couple of citizen-unfriendly councilmembers! Why isn't the Std-Ex talking about that?

What about our gentle readers? Does anybody have anything to say about this situation, other than just to roll their eyes?

As an added bonus, today's Std-Ex editorial cartoon from the always-excellent Calvin Grondahl, (and a tip of the hat to Centerville Citizen for the suggestion):