A Week of Mirth and Merriment

This morning's Standard-Examiner reports that the old mall-site name-selection committee has whittled the contenders down to five:

OGDEN -- And then there were five. Like judges at a beauty contest, a 10-member panel of community members has narrowed 1,050 entries in an effort to come up with a stylish name for the former Ogden City Mall site, which is slated for redevelopment. The finalists are (drumroll please):

* The Rendezvous
* The Junction
* Summit View
* Two Rivers
* Wasatch Commons

The name suggestions from the public were placed into various categories that described such things as Ogden's railroad heritage, its recreational offerings and outdoor splendor.

There were also 50 to 100 "joke names" turned in, according to Linda Fonnesbeck, communication specialist for the Ogden Redevelopment Agency, who did not provide details.

Joke names? Whatever could Ms. Fonnesbeck be referring to?

And speaking of jokes, it appears that Utah State Senator Al 'The Prankster" Mansell also had them in stitches yesterday on Salt Lake City's Capital Hill, when he revealed that he was merely "pulling his fellow legislators' legs" with the 80-page SB170, which would have thrown Utah planning and zoning law back into early 1950's, a dark era predating the Beaver Cleaver family -- a time even before Fidel Castro became the quintessential grand central planner on a little island nation called Cuba.

Mansell's bill, the Senator now tells us with a completely straight face -- was merely a "message bill" -- a slight elbow to the ribs of the grand municipal central-planning schemers -- just a ruse to attract their attention.

Trouble is, some folks didn't "get" the joke.

The neoCON apartchiks and their fellow-travellers were in disarray all week, trembling in fear that their socialist aparatus would be dismantled, throwing our neatly-ordered Utah society back to the paleolithic era of the 50's, when property owners still enjoyed actual property rights.

The comrades at the Utah League of Cities and Towns were particularly unamused. Their normally-moribund website was suddenly all abuzz, with daily new articles, shrieking about the end of civilization as we know it.

The editors at Ogden city's own "Pravda of the Wasatch" were also duly-horrified. They got into the act with Wednesday's Std-Ex editorial, hysterically decrying a backslide into an era when citizens were actually treated as adults by their government. This editorial was shrill, even by Std-Ex Standards. From the bowels of the Std-Ex editorial room, oozed visions of "A Nightmare Scenario", brimming with socialist slogans and dripping with dire warnings about evil & greedy developers:

SB 170 rejects the 'greater good" philosophy that has guided planning commissions and city councils for decades.

It is a naked attempt to destroy an enlightened view of urban and sub-urban lifestyles and well-designed communities in favor of the crass desires of developers."

Did you hear that, Boyer Company? The Std-Ex editors think you guys' desires are "crass." I do hope the Std-Ex editors will be quick to apologize. We don't want them packing their bags and leaving town like the guys from Ernest Health did.

Senator Mansell's gag bill even drew discussion on Weber County Forum from otherwise rational (and always gentle) readers who likewise railed against the evil "developer class:"

"Who would you rather have making decisions over land use - city councilpersons who can be replaced (like in Ogden recently), or rich and greedy developers that are responsible to no one but mammon?. They only swoop into communities to strip all the cash they can, then they vanish only to go on and rape the next community," gentle reader Ozboy exclaimed.

All in all, it's been a week of mirth and merriment, I think.

And what think our gentle readers about all this?

Update 2/2/06 1:03 p.m. MT: I'm linking hereto this ULCT executive summary of Sen. Mansell's original bill, for those lacking the fortitude to plow through all the legalese.