Sounds like a lot of fun -- the perfect way for new city leaders to get the neocon centralist-planning "bonding experience":
Charlotte’s “Incredi-Bowl”…..In spite of the hype, there's plenty of of oppotunity for our new council to learn a little bit. Bill Glasmann and Dorrene Jeske are flying to Charlotte Monday night, and Jesse Garcia and Council Director Bill Cook will be there Wednesday...after the Tuesday night council session.
The closing celebration brought to you by Wachovia
Saturday, December 10, 2005
7:30pm – 11:00pm (Hall C – Charlotte Convention Center)
Are you ready to celebrate! Come celebrate your time here in the incredible city of Charlotte as we bring to you the best of our teams in one location….Charlotte’s “Incredi-Bowl”.
We are “Teaming Up” with the most incredible sports around the Carolinas and bringing it to you! From the thrills of NASCAR and touchdown fun of the Carolina Panthers to our new Charlotte Bobcats, icy Hot Checkers, and Wachovia Cup championship golf there will surely be something to celebrate about! You’ll enjoy strolling around the Incredi-Bowl and testing your skills at some of the best in sports. Enjoy the incredible roaming entertainment associated with our local teams and be sure and get your photo with one of our celebrity mascots!
The room will be filled with incredible sports décor from all of the Carolina’s best. NLC Delegates will enjoy culinary delights sure to inspire the best of sports fans and top any tailgate you’ve ever seen! Beer, wine and soft drinks will be complimentary. Diverse local entertainment will take the stage to WOW the rowdiest of crowds and you won’t want to miss our exciting “Half Time” special entertainment from the Four Tops!
It’s the best of our sports teams and we’ve brought it all to you! The game is about to begin….Welcome to the Charlotte Incredi-Bowl! Continuous shuttle service will run between the Charlotte Convention Center and NLC hotels beginning at 7:15pm.
To those who ask: "How are we gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen
The advantage of our elected council's attending an event like this is that they'll be exposed to all the new ideas. Notwithstanding all the "party hype," there are numerous good workshops happening in Charlotte.
I'm hoping at least one of them will be willing to offer a report on the event here, after they get back.
And what say our gentle readers? Are our new councilpersons stepping into the neoCON "Lion's den," to be ineluctably "sucked into" the "central-planning" mindset? Will they be irredeemably compromised by partying and having photo "ops" with the Carolina Panthers professional cheerleader squad? Will they all take the workshop on "eminent domain" and come out power-hungry to steal local private properties for the benefit of Wal-Mart? Will they "catch" the neoCON RDA influenza?
I "thinks" NOT.
The Ogden City townsfolk haven't elected such a "stiff-spined" collection of native Ogdenite councilpersons in years.
"Little Caesar" will be learning to say "please," and "thank you," if he knows what's good for his political future.
And what thinks the rest of our gentle readers about this?
Will the "bully on nine" learn to "play nice?"
25 comments:
How do I get a ticket?
Who is paying for this boondogle?
If these so called common sense council people elect are paying for this party trip themselves, so be it. If the tax payers of Ogden are paying for it, I say its just more of the same bulll shit that has been going on with the old council, ie - "screw the tax payers now that we are in office!"
There is absoulutely nothing that they can "learn", about being good comrades, in Charlotte that they can't learn from the League of cities Web site or from their local propogandists.
You should go to this, Rudi. You could be a presenter at:
Can Blogs Improve Your Constituent Communications?
This session will focus on web logs or blogs which are a new type of Web content typically created by independent writers. Attend this session and learn if and how this fast-growing technology can be of use to local leaders as one more way to communicate vital information to your constituents.
I am sure you would put a unique twist on the presentation.
Sometimes conferences fly presenters in and house them. Or perhaps the current city administration and council can set it up for you to go. Perhaps with all the frenzy over the rec center, they intended to, but it slipped their collective mind. Maybe you should call.
I mean, you can keep an eye on everyone, have complimentary beer and soft drinks, and make sure everyone attends:
How Localities are Handling Growth in the Tax-Exempt Sector
This workshop will explore the implications this growth has had on the ability for municipalities to depend on local property tax revenue. In addition, the workshop will include a discussion of proposals that have been considered at the municipal level to help recover the loss in property tax revenue.
I see the Eminent Domain Workshop is the only one with "To Be Determined" after it---but I know that you would keep an eye out for that one, for sure.
Maybe it's not too late. You could call down Monday morning and get someone to make your travel arrangements.
Am looking forward to participants writing their impressions here at WCF and hope they do.
(And I too would like to know who is paying for this.)
Jeske=savvy?
"Jeske=savvy?"
Much more savvy than you, dumbass.
Wow Rudi! Struck a nerve did I? Why is it kosher to attack the "little" Mayor and his cronies, but I'm a "dumbass" for my comment on Jeske?
It was somewhat surprising to receive such a comment from you, I must say.
It's something that I might have expected from a low-life, like Mr. President.
I've never read anything like it from you before.
Perhaps you should consider apologizing.
It was not an unkind statement. I simply don't consider Jeske to be "savvy", thats all. She is a strong woman with many qualites I'm sure, I just don't find her to be savvy. Now I would consider Glassman to be very savvy. I think you too often group the new council together in the same category. To me it seems to be an attempt to divide them from the administration. Why do you feel they need to be anti-Godfrey to be effective? Do you really feel Godfrey has been that distructive in Ogden? I can't decide if your anti-Godfrey leaning blog is to cause controversy, and therefore increase traffic, or if you really think he's that bad.
You are a very talented blogateer and could use that to really benefit our city. While I do believe asking questions and holding elected officials accountable is important, However I feel you tend to be too devicive and pessimistic towards the administration.
I got to know Dorrene very well during the election campaign.
What she may lack in her public persona, she makes up for one-on-one.
Dorrene has learned much from life experience, and should not be underestimated. She's as street-smart and savvy in her own way as Bill, who indeed knows "what's up," as you suggest. Her B.S. detector is one of the best; and she doesn't back down, as her predecessor always did.
Above all else, she's morally and ethically scrupulous, possesses great common sense, and will be more than a match for an adminstration which is abysmally lacking in those qualities.
I'm privy to details of which you are NOT. For now, you'll have to take my word for it, I guess.
I'm franky tired of hearing people blindly slamming Dorrene, however. If you're going to judge her, I'd suggest you do so AFTER she's been sworn in, and after she's had the opportunity to demonstrate her competence.
Just a thought.
Two comments, both [of course] unsolicited:
1. All these impassioned pronouncements about how "savvy" a particular new council member is or isn't are pretty much at this point beside the point. In a month or so, we will start getting some irrefutable evidence on the matter when the council member takes office and begins work. But all this endless predictive blather at this point serves no more purpose than two fans before the first pitch of spring training arguing over whether the Mets or the Yankees will be the better team in the coming season. Patience, people, patience. We will soon know, so why waste time and space on predictions? Made some sense during the election campaigns, but not now.
2. The trip: I used to assume, some years ago, that all such trips to similar conventions, meetings, workshops by public officials were boondogles, plain and simple and had no purpose other than to send the boys and girls off on the taxpayers' nickel to frolic in the sun. And God knows a lot of such mettings are exactly that. We've all read tales of I think it was ABA conferences at which tvs were set up in rooms of empty chairs, playing an instructional video to an empty room to justify the "working" nature of the trip to Maui or whatever.
However, I was wrong. I came to pass that, doubtless for my sins, I got to know, and do a little work with, some people who held county jobs and who attended national meetings of things like NACs [Nat. Assoc. of Counties] and such like. And I changed my opinion. Yes, of course, some of the good ol' boys go and never do a lick of work worth doing. But for others, these are working trips. They pointed out to me what should have been obvious: that when reps. of thousands of country and town govts get together, the odds are the problems you are facing in your county have been faced in dozens of others, and the people who solved them, or tried to, will be a the meeting, and there is much to be gained by talking with them. [Yes, there are professional journals and websites. No, they are not the same as talking face to face with a mayor or commissioner who has been there, done that, got the tee shirt]. Unfortunately, not all of what is gained can be quantified in dollar terms. [How do you put a dollar figure on a potential solution to a problem your county commission was thinking about, and then didn't implement because at such meetings they spoke with other county commissioners who tried the plan, found it to be unworkable, and made their case convincingly?]
I understand the suspicion that such meetings are all boondogles and that attendees are going for the trip, the hotels, the meals and such like. I don't doubt that many do. But not all. There is much that can be gained from attending by concientious elected officials. And the potential benefits [and savings] to the taxpayers can far outweigh the cost of the trip charged to them. [Note: I said "can" not "always will."] Like most things in govt, it comes down to the quaility of the people going. Good people will work the meetings and the public will benefit. Not so good people will work the bars and beaches, and the public will lose on the exchange. All I want to suggest here is, that the latter result is not always the one that happens.
You better believe you'll get a report when I get back and so will the City Council!
I wasn't going to go, but I was told by a former Council Member and Chair of the Council for 4 years that there is a lot of good information at these conferences and that it would be very helpful to have the training so that the new Council Members are more effective when they take office.
I take this responsibility very seriously and feel that the seminars for which I've enrolled will be beneficial in trying to deal with some of the challenges that the Council must face in trying to revitalize downtown Ogden.
Here are the seminars that I'm looking forward to attending and gaining information and insight on how to deal with these challenges:
1. MARKETING YOUR CITY FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM: As civic expectations grow, city leaders have to move from bureaucratic to market-based service delivery systems. Learn how to leverage your city's assets as the foundation for cost effective strategies that will work for your community. Gain the skills needed to develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive marketing program that supports your objectives for economic development, tourism, and constituent services.
2. PUBLIC PROBLEMS, DEMOCRATIC DECISIONS: THE ROLE OF MAYORS AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. The complexity and time pressures of public office make it difficult to be an effective leader. Understand that to make good decisions, councils must use public values to solve problems and identify good public choices. Learn how you can lead and facilitate public conversations about the values that under lie public problems and choices to govern well. (The lack of communication on the Rec Center and its funding has divided Ogden and pitted a lot of the young people against what they consider "old fogies." Ogden must unite and work together now that the Council has voted to move forward with the Rec Center to ensure its success and Ogden's place as "The Place to Be!" We may not agree with the decisions made, but we have to accept them, make the best of them and move forward or face the failure of the Rec Center, and probably bankruptcy for Ogden. None of us want that!
As I see it the Council must be more diligent and vigilent about the budget than ever before and accountable to the public for all its decisions. That's why I am attending the following workshops:
3. TEN WAYS TO STRETCH THE LIMITED CITY BUDGET: This workshop will provide a series of 10 individual roundtable presentations on options for dealing with limited city budges, such as pooling departmental resources to deliver city services, regional cost/revenue-sharing and service delivery, advantages offered by specific revenue sources, and joint purchasing programs.
4. FOCUSED STRATEGIES TO MAKE CDBG FUNDS GO EVEN FARTHER: The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is the foundation for many cities to leverage millions of dollars for community development in their neighborhoods. This workshop will help city officials use CDBG dollars in more focused, targeted ways - comprehensively revitalizing one city block at a time.
5. BEST PRACTICES AND APPROACHES TO DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION: This workshop will provide best practices from cities that have undertaken successful revitalization efforts. This session will offer suggestions regarding innovative ways to sprk private/public partnerships and examples of successful strategies to focus on revitalizing your city's downtown. (Hopefully they are ethical suggestions - not like taxpayers' dollars funding a private health club!)
6. DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION CLINICS: These clinics offer delegates an opportunity to meet with economic development consultants about their city's issues one-on-one. Delegates will get suggestions to meet their cities' specific needs. (I met with Mr. Harmer, Mr. Montgomery and another gentleman last Tuesday to discuss Ogden's redevelopment plans in preparation for this clinic.)
7. CAN BLOGS IMPROVE YOUR CONSTITUENT COMMUNICATIONS?" as Dian mentioned. I feel that communication is going to be a key in determining the degree of success of Ogden's rebirth. And I plan to attend:
8. USING TECHNOLOGY TO PROMOTE CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: As a local official, how can you engage your citizens in city activities and the decision-making processes? Here is an opportunity to learn from cities that are using new information and communication technologies to increase citizen participation.
9. MAKING OUR CITIES SAFER: FEDERAL FUNDING FOR YOUR PUBLIC SAFETY NEEDS: This session will examine the new criteria for disseminating first responder grants and determine what the release of spectrum for public safety means for your city.
10. MORE THAN BRICKS AND MORTAR REDEVELOPMENT: HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY TURN AROUND A COMMUNITY AND ITS RESIDENTS: Community and economic development includes soliciting business to enter your communities, building public facilities and infrastructure and more. This workshop will include holistic approaches to successfully revitalize a community to prepare its residents to grab those economic opportunities, through workforce development, literacy programs, alternate educational programs, and small business growth.
If some of the other participants plan to attend any of the above, then I have a few other alternate workshops that I'd like to attend:
1. RISING MUNICIPAL HEALTH CARE COSTS: WHAT CITIES CAN DO TO REDUCE COSTS: Locoal governments spend more than $68 billion annually to provide their employees and their dependents with health care coverage, and the amount has been increasing by 11% every year. Find out what the NLC Working Group on Health Care is recommending and what you can do on the local level to attack these rising costs.
2. NEIGHBORHOOD REVITALIZATION STRATEGY: WE'RE ALL ABOUT MAKING NEIGHBORHOODS BETTER: Learn about he city's (Richmond's) approach to revitalization, including collaborative efforts planning, affordable housing, infrastructure improvements, working with neighborhood organizations and governmental coordination. Participants will learn how the city identifies revitalization neighborhoods, how organizations work together to bring about change, and how they measure their success. (This is a host city mobile workshop that allows participants ro learn more about the exciting programs underway in Charlotte, and how to replicate them back home to help your city run more efficiently and save money.)
Also because the River Parkway development is in the near future, I am thinking about attending
INTEGRATING GREENWAYS INTO THE COMMUNITY: Participants will hear first-hand from community leaders how Charlotte has integrated greenway planning and design guidelines to successfully connect people and neighborhoods along the Little Sugar Creek Greenway to cultural, historical, environmental, educational, institutional, office, retail and recreational uses.
There are several youth oriented workshops that I would like to attend. Maybe if some that I've mentioned above are full or don't prove to be as worthwhile as I anticipate, I can attend them. They are:
YOUTH VOICE, YOUTH LEADERSHIP: ENGAGING THE NEXT GENERATION TO BUILD ABETTER COMMUNITY: When youth are involved in their communities, cities and towns benefit. Learn how your city can work with the next generation of leaders, engaging young people through such activities as youth councils, youth service, youth summits and youth planning
KEEPING YOUTH AND COMMUNITIES SAFE: EFFECTIVE PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION STRATEGIES: This roundtable will feature city officials from several diverse communities who will share their effective strategies for promoting public safety by addressing the needs of high-risk youth (including but not limited to school dropouts and those affiliated with gangs). Participants will be able to take part in a facilitated discussion with peers, learning about practical steps they can take to protect young people and make their communities a safer place for all their residents to live.
CITY PARTNERSHIPS FOR SAFE AND HEALTHY KIDS: This session will focus on partnerships with schools and community-ased organizations to improve the health and wel being of youth - from birth to college. Attendees can expect to learn about how cities are working with school districts, afterschool providers, health care and community-based organizations to provide comprehensive academic and social supports.
As you can see there is a wealth of information available, and not enough time to assimilate it. But my goal in attending is to bring as much of that information back and share it with city leaders and the community to benefit Ogden and its citizens. I will encourage the other attendees to attend different workshops and to also share the information. Otherwise it is a waste of time and money.
Sorry this is so long, but I am not going to Charlotte for any other reason than to gain as much knowledge as I can to help me in the job to which I have been elected. If you have a preference for some of the workshops that you would like to see me attend that I have listed as optional, I am open to your suggestions and would love your input.
Councilwoman elect Jeske -
Who is paying for this trip and how much is it costing? For all four attendees?
I do not question your integrity or motive for attending this party/work trip. I have to assume you are sincere as I do not see you as the typical jock sniffing partyer who is looking to have her picture taken with some Panther Football players! However, I do worry that you are going along with this "central planning" organization. When you lay down with dogs you most likely will get fleas! It seems to me to be akin to going to Moscow to learn about democracy.
What can you learn three fourths of the way across the country in 30 - 60 minute seminars that you couldn't learn better and a whole lot cheaper at home on your computer, or in meetings put on in SLC by the league of cities?
Oh, and could you get me an autograph of that big hunk of a quarterback?
I am an expert at sniffing out a male chauvinist.
Nauster is more than qualified.
Read the brochure and saw their itinerary and bad news....no autographs as the Ogden contingent will be flying home during the Big Send Off Dinner, hosted by NASCAR and the Cheerleaders. Also of note, the workshops are 3-4 hours instead of 30-40 minutes and there's nothing like up close and personal to really get a hanlde on things.
As Moroni Says, it's all up to how the individual approaches the conference as to its true worth. I'm confident that the Ogden folks will do well by it.
I think it's good they are going, and even if the City is paying for it, this is not really too heinous. After all, the City just paid for a trip for the Mayor and possibly also Bob Geiger to go to Washington to talk about gondolas, etc. I actually think it will be great for our new Council people to meet other people from around the country who deal with similar issues as we do here, and if this will give them an edge in being up to speed, it is all to the good.
But I must say, I think three and four hour workshops are too long. I think they should go two hours maximum. There is so much they are offering and the time is limited. Maybe our people should communicate among themselves and divide things up.
Also, if the "solutions" presented at the conference are not the solutions for us, that's fine too. Sometimes one can learn a lot from a negative example.
As always, Dian, well said....
Dian:
In re: the city paying for Geiger lobbying trip to DC with the mayor. There is no "possibly" about it. Two council members have confirmed that the city picked up Geiger's travel costs in excess of $1000 for the trip. [Though I think it was Curt rather than Bob.] I hasten to add that the money was expended by the Mayor's office, and the Council had to ask about it after the fact, when a Standard Examiner story implied that the public had paid for Geiger's trip. [Please keep that in mind, all of you who think there is no point to reading SE reporting any more.]
The League of cities and towns are great fishermen. They know how to place the lure in front of the suckers face, and they know how to set the hook.
Now all we gotta do is watch as they reel these big ones in!
So much for "common sense" candidates standing up for the poor and middle class of Ogden. Seems like an open and shut case of false advertising. The poor voters of Ogden have been snookered again by some ego driven fast talking hustlers. Jorgensen and Burdett have just changed their names, but not their true colors.
Business as usual at city hall. Godfrey must have a big smile these days. These particular suckers chomped on the very first worm he and Cook dangled in front of them. The Godfreyites hooked them before they even took office!!
Glass Man and Jeske have sold their souls, and the citizens of Ogden down the river, for the price of a ticket to No. Carolina, and in Glass Man's case a chance to suck up to some ball players and cheerleaders! What a disgrace.
So far since the election it is Godfreyites - 1, Citizens of Ogden - 0.
At least we got one decent self respecting councilman on board. That of course being Doug Stephens who has refused to participate in this disgracefull charade and waste of Ogden tax payer money.
My hat is off to Doug, the only honorable one in the bunch.
Mr. Charles -
In refering to the new council members you said: "The poor voters of Ogden have been snookered again by some ego driven fast talking hustlers."
I agree the people of Ogden have once again been "snookered" with this paid up vacation being taken by the new council members - before they even take office.
However, "fast talking hustlers" when applied to Jeske is a real hoot! My god man have you ever listened to her? If you had, you certainly wouldn't have chosen those words!!!!
Me thinks Sir Douglas goes a little bit overboard with his implications. There'sw value in a trip such as this, as long as it is approached coprrectly. Assumptions by those not really in the know do nothing but detract from reality.
It seems to me to be a small price to pay to network and learn. If the new council members are to make a stand, it should come over something more significant than a plane ticket and hotel room.
WB
They aint implications. They are facts.
Glass Man betrayed the people that voted for him. There is no value to this trip other than pumping up his crummy little ego, his main life force. He stiffed the voters for an opportunity to go half way across the country and sniff the jocks of some pro football players. Believe me, I am in the know with this guy and his distorted sense of reality.
There is nothing more significant and telling than a guy who promises the voters he will exercise common sense and then sell them out for a plane ticket and hotel room.
He is a phony poseur. His campaign material was full of distortions and lies about his past. If you want the full gory details I will be more than happy to furnish them here on this blog.
Just ask and you will recieve.
Two questions:
Merl Moore - what did you mean with your last comment about Jeske? I am not sure how to take what you said - "have you ever listened to her? If you had, you certainly wouldn't have chosen those words"
I know Mrs. Jeske and I can tell you without reservation that she is a first rate thinker and a very concerned citizen. Public speaking may not be her forte, but I can assure you that she is very aware of the issues and the direcction that this city needs to go in. She will be a vast improvement over what we did have on the council.
And Mr. Charles - What exactly is it that you mean when you write about Mr. Glassman's "distortions"?
And why didn't you speak up before the election if you really do have the "smoking gun"? I hope that you are wrong about him, he sure had me and a lot of other people believing he had some sense and integrity.
Regardless of how it plays out with Glassman, Ogden will be in much better shape with Jeske and Stephens on the council. Common sense and integrity will now have at least a 4 to 3 edge on that legislative body.
Patti said: " all who attended consider it a good investment on the City's part." said like the true whore that HE is! HE is merely making a lame attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
Godfrey and Reid also think that the seventy or so million they have blown on all of these goof ball schemes are "good investments on the city's part".
Sleazy politicians always come up with a bunch of crap like this to justify ripping off the public with their boondogles and self serving slopping at the public trough.
Their's and your stupidity and perfidity knows no bounds.
Wow! Douglas Charles, you are an inspiration to all! I'll bet your mother is so proud of you, especially if she was one of those who said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I, personally, am so glad that I have never had the pleasure of meeting you, as you would darken the brightest day. And medical advice tells us to stay away from negative people as they only drag you down and depress you which isn't healthy. You're not even healthy for Ogden!
I know Bill Glasmann, and I am impressed with his integrity, his ability to see through the smoke screens that the Ogden City administration uses to conceal its covert dealings, and his courage to bring them and their deceitful ways into the open and before the public. He thinks things through and eloquently calls a spade a spade. He will serve the people of Ogden well.
D.C., you have lost any credibility that you may have had by your personal, incredulous attacks on Bill Glasmann. Whatever your hangup is, you need to drop your vendetta against him, get a life and try to accomplish something worthwhile instead of attempting to undermine those who are willing to put a halt to those who are plundering Ogden City and ripping off its taxpayers!
Sounds to me like Charles had not only got Glassman's number, he has got his goat too!
This "new voice" sounds just like the old voice or two that toots Glassman's horn and pumps up his ego. Gee, I wonder who that could be?
Is there something phony in the baloney?
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