I'll explain that I've been on the phone all day, gentle readers. Even though today's Standard-Examiner delivered a week's worth of news discussion red meat today, I've spent hours today dialing out and talking to my many secret but will-informed sources close to city hall on and about the most important one -- the empty downtown mall site.
The most important news story today, in my not so humble opinion, was this one that John Wright logged today. The title was ominous"... "Ogden Puts Up Collateral for Rec Center."
Yes, gentle readers, the lender who's been found, even though we didn't know he was lost, is asking for additional security, as a further condition to serving as the issuer of the essential letter of credit.
I'm going to break a real blockbuster story here. No, it's not about sidewalks. You'll remember when I warned you that Ogden City voters would receive an October Surprise, shortly before the November 8, 2005 municipal election.
This coming Friday, October 22, 2005, the Ogden City Council will conduct a special session, with the sole object of setting the thirty-day public comment period going into the Rec Center Project.
My sources reveal that:
The gang of six will try to characterize this completion of the project arrangements as an accomplishment, whereas rational people will see it for what it is -- putting all the revenue eggs into an insubstantial and risky basket -- and delivering an October surpise to continue our hellbent-to-debt present napoleonic government into another two years in the direction of municipal bankruptcy.• The "toxics" problem has been resolved;
• The construction materials price problems have been resolved;
• The financing problems have been solved, now we've thrown a public guarantee into the financial pot;
• The project is thus almost ready to go;
• The only remaining obstacle is the free-thinking Ogden townsfolk;
• the gang of six considers Ogden citizens to be morons; and,
• This election IS NOW regarded, even within Ogden City government inner circles, as a public referendum on the Rec Center project.
What had been sold to the Ogden city taxpayers as a public-private partnership, which would stand or fall on its own merit, has now been transformed into a deal that's guaranteed by the taxpayers -- us.
It's the old "bait and switch" folks. The central-planning schemers promised the taxpayers we wouldn't be "on the hook," even in the event of the default of the Fatcats and Golds principals. That's all changed, changed utterly. As a practical matter, the administration might as well be financing this project with government obligation (GO) bonds, because the present "publicly-guaranteed" financing structure is about as close to that as you can get.
If you don't vote out the neoCON gang of five brain-dead Godfrey-zombie incumbents in this general election, I don't want to hear anybody whining or complaining about it again.
As a matter of fact, I'll dun you for your complacency here from Nov 8 onward if we don't kick out these rubber-stamping dopes on November 8.
There will be scheduled a series of public comments sessions during the 30-day period after Friday, pursuant to the thirty-day plan, according to my information. I'm also told these proceedings will be recorded, pursuant to the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act. Concerned citizens should attend these meetings en masse, and put their objections on the record.
It's much simpler than that though, really.
If you like the rec center project, and its enormous debt, which ties up virtually every spare dime in Ogden city cash-flow, vote for People's Deputies Comrades Jorgensen, Burdett and Larsen.
If not, vote for the common sense choices of the people of Ogden -- Glasmann, Jeske, Stevens and Garcia.
Many Ogdenites demanded a Rec Center Referendum. It's comin' right up now.
Weber County Forum recommends cool-headed, business-minded Ogdenites to run Ogden City government.
Weber County Forum recommends against voting for mind-numbed, financially-reckless pro-Godfrey big-government extremists.
Don't be flummoxed by the October surprise B.S, which you'll probably read about in the Godfrey-Std-Ex around Friday. They'll try to tell you its good news.
It's time to say "good-bye" to the outta-town carpetbaggers who are trying to turn our wonderful cultural "melting pot city" into a backwater "whitebread" abomination -- like Provo.
Say "no" to Godfrey and his brain-dead zombies.
Etch that into your brains.
There are important political implications here. What for instance should happen if Godfrey-zombies Jorgensen and Burdett are voted out on November 8 -- and then cast their pro-rec center votes in favor or the rec center project anyway, as brain-numbed pre-programmed lame ducks?
Not a very pretty picture.
Comments, anyone?
Update 10/20/05 12:50 p.m. MT: Three public notices appeared this morning on the Ogden City website, which refer to a "contribution agreement," and appear to relate to the "additional collateral" reported in yesterday's John Wright story. You can read them here, here and here.
You can also read another concurrently-posted public notice, which pertains generally to the rec center project bonding here.
Each of these notices seems to bear an October 21, 2005 publication date, so it's likely that the thirty-day clock begins running tomorrow, regardless of whether a special council meeting is set, as a reader downthread has already suggested.
Update 10/20/4:30 p.m. MT: Councilwoman Wicks has kindly provided to this board the Ogden RDA's press release, which you'll probably read about in tomorrow's
Public venues have been scheduled. Please take your minds off the kids' soccer practice, Ogden citizens! Pay attention ye "unwashed" city towns-folk! We need to have the public input of people who recognize the ridiculousness of the administration's latest flip-flop. What started out as a public-private partnership, has now become a public-resource-draining publicly-financed boondoggle which will ultimately RAISE YOUR TAXES!
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10 comments:
Atta boy, Rudi! And amen, I'd rather live in Ogden than Provo any day.
Actually, if I didn't feel so tied to Centerville and a variety of causes here, I would seriously consider moving up north to the city of my ancestors. And then I could be closer to WSU, which would help cure my sick-of-spending-2 hours-on-the-bus-each-day-itis.
Jesus Jones Rudi have you turned into a sore loser or what?
i don't think a special meeting is required. i think all they have to do is publish notice.
That may be true, but I've gotten it from FOUR independent trusted sources that a special council meeting has been scheduled for Friday.
It might be merely a conference call; but my understanding is that a meeting will be held, in conformance with the Utah Open Meetings act.
They're operating on a very tight timeline. I doubt they'll want to push the limits of the rules with a mere "announcement."
I don't understand how this is working.
Bill Cook receives six inch thick binder of proposals Tuesday. That night, Council in work session puts together voting schedule on proposals? Then this Friday, they open it up to public comment?
What if something is found within the binder that has to be resolved before bringing the public in on it? Maybe this is what the Friday meeting is---to see if everyone agrees to open up the thirty days, or if there are still issues that need to be addressed.
If there are issues, they have forty-eight hours to think of them, the way this is looking.
The environmental issues deserve a very close look. This is suddenly resolved? How? We heard earlier that they were going after a brownfields designation. They don't need to do that anymore--don't need federal money to help with clean-up? This is interesting.
And the financing, which is what they are to vote on in 30 days. This pops the $30 million debt restructuring to a $50 million one, it seems. The bonds will be paid with lease revenue?
It has always seemed curious to me that these leases are not guaranteed. One would think that the leasing entities, successful as they are said to be, would have no problem providing guarantors. Yet it seems that they haven't even been asked to, and in the event of their default, the bond repayment will come out of the city's revenue from BDO.
Are the lease agreements pre-existing? Will they cover what they are supposed to cover, given the July price hike of the project?
Etc., etc.
I really hope this isn't the old "time constraints" thing, where something with problems gets pushed through because there isn't enough time to look at it properly. Not saying that there are problems, just that Council should have time to look for them, address them, and deal with them without being forced to push for a vote.
It is inconceivable that the city council, or any half way thinking person, would approve this wreck deal. But you can bet your butt they will. They will approve it regardless of what the public thinks and inspite of what common business wisdom dictates.
It is breathtaking to think they will literally hawk every single bit of Ogden's financial future on a goofy scheme that will depend on a couple of small time
operators pulling off an almost impossible financial task like running the center and having it generate enough dough to pay off an overwhelming and
crushing debt load in a town that does not have a big enough rich population to support it!
This mean that if these small time guys fail that every cent of BDO money for years into the future will be dedicated to paying off the failure. No BDO money will ever make it into the infrastructure as originally planned. BDO is the only friggen thing in the whole city that really makes any profit and the citizens of Ogden will never see a penny of it. Our financial future in the hands of Fat Cats and our local Golds gym operators! Think about it, this is beyond bizarre!!
This BDO guarantee is a new wrinkle that has been sprung on the people at the last minute inspite of the Mayor's repeated assurances that the tax payers will never be on the line for the mall development. Just one more example of his duplicity.
It is obvious that all eleven RDA projects that have been previously pledged as security are not collectively valuable enough to make the grade. Another indication that they are failures!
Northland Securities incidently IS Wells Fargo! They will end up owning the heart of our city for pennies on the dollar, and the profits from BDO for years. I can imagine the smiles in their executive suites these days.
The sad part is that these a__ holes in public office will merely fade off into other pursuits if it all goes to hell in a hand basket, but the tax payers of Ogden will be left holding the bag for many years into the future. We will have nothing to show for it but a big white elephant of a specialized and failed Rec Center casting a long and sad shadow over the Lord Mayor's Mud Hole...
This part of Wright's article: "The administration also is proposing to restructure a $10 million loan for BDO infrastructure" might refer to the situation with the military. My understanding of this is that the original contract with the military mandated that the city take a certain amount of lease revenue from BDO and put it back into BDO infrastructure. Which the city at one point did not do, instead using those funds to knock down the old mall.
The city was then taken to court by the military and made to repay those funds. I am thinking this might be this $10 million. I assume that during this time, the initial agreement, that a certain percentage of BDO's lease revenue is to be put back into it, is also still ongoing.
Meaning that it looks like there may be precious little lease revenue from BDO to collateralize away, it being booked up in repayment for diverted funds and in infrastructure improvements under the original agreement.
Which makes me wonder how that one is working, too.
Well, some of you have asked for it and now you have it. Steve Larsen, you've been a BIG TIME advocate of this madness and now the citizens are on the freaking HOOK for every stinking cent that it costs and at the mercy of two questionable businessmen. If they don't make it, it isn't just forclosed on, but Ogden, as co-signers (guarantors) of this bond financing, has to pay it off. Every dime generated by BDO will go toward the debt. And whatever the BDO money is being used for today will be in shortfall. And the way out of that is to raise taxes.
The Mayor ripped us for $43,000 to give to Reid and now has ripped us for $18.5,000,000 for this insanity. He, and the lame duck council members, will go mearily on their way, if it fails, while we, the people who live here, will pick up the friggin tab.
All you clowns in support of this. lead by Godfrey, Larsen, Jorgenson, Filiaga, et al, should be tarred & feathered and "run out of town on a rail!"
If, for some reason, it should make it, we'll have a WRECK CENTER while Fatz & Gold's gets rich, off of our dime.
Just in time for the elections....did you notice how all of the Special Meetings, Work Sessions, etc. have been schedulaed AFTER Nov 8th, except for one RDA Work Session on Tue., Nov 1st.
Coincidence?
Damn, but this feels good, being obligated to $18.5,000,000 with Gary Nielsen and whoever the hell it is that runs Fatz in charge of paying it off. And if they can't, guess what?!?
BBBBBBBRRRUUUUUUUMM---ZZCHLOOOOOOOOPP!?!?!?!?
You're right! We get to pay it all off. What a deal. We'll Bob G and Company, there goes the gondola....NO MONEY! You guys just struck out, I'm feared!
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