At risk of sounding like a broken record, we'll remark once again about how lucky we are, having Dian Woodhouse as a regular contributor.
Here's her latest most excellent city counsel meeting report, which she's submitted without pecuniary remuneration -- out of the sheer goodness of her heart.
I've been on the phone with Dian about this article. The only element of last night's event that she mentions having left out, is the fact that Matt Godfrey was NOT present at last night's council meeting.
Interesting, isn't it? The new Ogden City Council behaves quite functionally, when Matt Godfrey isn't there glaring at everybody.
And NO! Contrary to recent rumors and manifestos... this is NOT an anti-Godfrey Blog.
We analyze the little guy's fuckups on an ad hoc basis.
When he does something right, we'll be the first blog to offer kudos -- if that ever happens.
Comments, oh ye gentle readers?
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30 comments:
The question has still not been answered: Are the City Council and the Mayor having secret meetings or not???
Yes and no, armysarge. What is happening is that the individual members of the council are meeting individually with the mayor and discussing these things---the development, golf course, gondola, resort, etc. Any time four or more of the council members get together, this constitutes a quorum, and is therefore subject to Utah's open meetings law, meaning that the meeting would be public, publicized, and we would all get to go and listen.
But done this way, in groups of ones and twos, the open meetings law does not apply.
So yes, they're having meetings, but not all together.
You've asked the right question, ArnySarge.
Rumor has it that some of these meetings have already occurred.
I'd take that to mean Comrades Safsten and Stevenson have already met with Godfrey secretly, displaying the secret "high signs," and exchanging the "secret handshakes."
P.S.: I was another "Army Sarge" in another life, years ago myself.
"But done this way, in groups of ones and twos, the open meetings law does not apply."
This violates the spirit of the law, in my opinion.
These meetings are clearly designed to skirt the Utah Open Meetings Act.
Attendance by council members at such meetings are highly unethical, though not technically illegal.
Rudi-
Correct! If the Mayor talks to a council member, he should broadcast the conversation in a public sphere so that we can all hear is B.S. first hand. He should not be allowed to converse with anyone in the city government without it being taped, broadcast and put on transcript!
Little punk!
It's crazy to think that a Mayor could have a meeting with one or two city council members without full disclosure, the paper present, the transcriptionist present and a megaphone in his mouth---ESPECIALLY OUR CORRUPT LITTLE PEE WEE!
Ask Bill Glassmann why he agrees to these meetings. Isn't it as much his responsiblity to keep openness? After all, he ran on that platform, and we all supported him.
Bastards!
Rudi-
You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You should support the Mayor when he does things right. How can you get mad at him for communicating with the city council, when you are always agry with him if he doesn't.
""""WA, WA, WA.... I hate it when he doesn't communicate with them, but when he does, I hate the way he does it.""""" --- Not an anti-mayor site though!
Anon -
Calm down. Rudi is just pointing out that just because it is legal doesn't mean that it is right! It is wrong for the mayor to meet with council members without a transcriptionist, the paper, and a megaphone present! That is a fact. We should expect nothing less from our Mayor. That is why we are going to throw him out!
As for Bill Glassmann---leave him alone. Right now he is just a pon in a big game that is out of control. The Rec center is voted in, and he has to deal with it. The Gondola project is marching forward and he has to deal with it. The West Side resort is marching forward and he has to deal with it. The Golf Course is in the balance and he has to deal with it.
The last thing he needs to for there to be a transcriptionist on site when he calls Pee Wee an F'ing Retard. He doesn't need more press about him being hostile.
I'm sure he's fighting the good fight for all of us.
THIS is NOT what I expected from the new Council members. I am very dissappointed - I really thought they were better than this.
Perhaps THIS is why voter turnout is so low these days. It seems that no matter who we elect, the result is more of the same. I should have just stayed home I guess.......
I have been to one of these "secret" meetings and assure you that there was no atmosphere of secrecy. The mayor is simply providing the information to the people that you people demanded was not being done...! Damned if he does and damned if he don't!
Any time public business is conducted in secret meetings it is immoral and for sure not in the public's interest. If it were in our interest then there would be no need for secrecy.
The subject of these supposed secret meetings is of extreme importance to every citizen of Ogden. If the mayor is doing this, as he apparently has been used to doing with the old council, then I agree - nothing has changed with the new council inspite of their promises during the election that they would put a stop to this kind of immoral governance.
If Glasmann, Jeske, Garcia, Wicks and Stephenson are a party to secret meeting as alledged, then they should be exposed as the hypocrits that they are - if true.
Do not give up, do not get discouraged. If we keep true to the cause of open government, it will happen in Ogden. If we, the citizens, stand firm on this, then it will happen. The only way Godfrey will get his way of secret behind closed door dealings is if we let him. He is a snake, and we must theoretically cut his head off or he will consume us with his treachery.
If Glasmann, Jeske, etc cannot rise to the occasion and do what the voters elected them to do, then we must replace them with people of courage that will.
We have yet to begin the fight. Good and moral government must and will prevail in Ogden if we stand firm and have courage.
Talk about bizarre, double talk, disengenuous logic!
"Deep throat" professes to have been at one of the secret meetings and then tells us that there was nothing secret about it!
Notice that he did not go into any detail about what happened at the secret meeting, just that there was nothing secret about it!
If this commentor was truly at one of the secret meetings, then he/she is by definition one of the insiders! It would be like a child molester telling you to "trust" me with your child, don't worry about details, just trust me cause I am an insider and am privy to the secret hand shake!
This is a perfect example of what is wrong with this insidious "insider - secret" government game that Godrey and some of the council are playing.
It is this very kind of venal insider - trust me - thinking and acting that is at the heart of what is wrong with Ogden city government. Nothing willl change until we elect some people of character, people of back bone, people of humility and integrity, people who actually do what the promise - to city government.
I hope that I am wrong about some of the newly elected, I fear that I am not
Wow Rudi. If I used the word "f#*@up" on my blog in reference to any of my city leaders, I would get sooooo much flack.
Several points:
On one on one meetings between council members and Hizzonah: grow up people. Anyone who believes all city [or state or national] governance is normally conducted only in full public view is being very nieve. So is anyone who believes all public business can be conducted that way. What matters is not what is conveyed by way of information at those meetings. What matters is whether any agreements are made at them vis-a-vis major policy decisions by the Council What matters is how the Council members act. Let's not all get our knickers in a twist over nothing.
Second: there is also a public relations matter to be considered here, as has already been pointed out. Council members refusing to take meetings with the Mayor open themselves to the charge of having refused chances to receive the information they wanted. What matters is the Council's actions as a council. And this latest meeting seemed to put a lot of them clearly on the record that they insist on whatever process is involved regarding planning gondolas, west-slope resorts, and all allied matters, be carried out with extensive community involvement in the process and in the open. Things just aren't at that stage yet, apparently.
Third: other good things happened. It is good that it is now on the record before the Council that Hizzonah is representing, in Ogden promotional materials, the gondola/gondola scheme as a "done deal" and that there is a danger of the mayor and city appearing to be dishonest in their promotional efforts when that becomes clear. My sources tell me that some leaders of the business community and business organzations have already expressed some concern about this via back channels to Hizzonah.
Fourth: If Dian can't get to the Council meetings on time, we will have no choice but to let her go....
Curmudgeon -
You're usually pretty astute on your observations here on the WCF.
However, it is my considered opinion that you are full of shit on this one!
Have you forgotten the little lords history? Have you forgotten about the major issue in the last election?
Have you forgotten why the three new council members were elected in that election? Have you forgotten how odious the "secret" actions of the mayor and old council were to the people of Ogden?
Well pal, it stunk to high heaven, it stunk so bad that the voters of Ogden threw the bastards out of office when they had a chance. It stunk then, and it stinks now! SECRET MEETINGS HAVE NO PLACE IN OGDEN CITY GOVERNMENT! These people were elected to do the people's business. There is absolutely no business of the people's that should be kept secret from the people - period.
The last election was all about secrecy and the horrendous track record of the little twerp's secret combines with the old council, in case you really have forgotten. Maybe you been sleeping away in your Ivory tower too long?
The people of Ogden are sick and f__king tired of this old secret, behind closed doors, form of government that has been perpetrated on them by this little c__k sucker for the last six f__king years.
Get real Curm, wake up, a new day has arrived.
Oz:
We disagree, though not as much as you think we do. Again, no governing body can function on the basis of every face to face meeting, every conversation, every memo, being done in public view in real time. It has never happened anywhere that I know of and it can't.
Making agreements or decisions on the part of Council members out of the public eye absolutely would be a violation of the public trust. I don't see anything to indicate that that is going on here. No has anyone offered any evidence yet to suggest that it is.
But no business, no school, no public governing body, at any level, can operate on the basis of full public real time disclosure of every conversation, every memo, etc. Nothing would ever get done. It would not, were such a system to be tried, result in good governance. It would result in deadlock.
Again, it's the actions of the Council as a Council that matter. I don't see anything in this business so far to make me worried that the members are, as a Council, behaving unethically or even, so far, unwisely.
So on this, OB, we're going to have to agree to disagree. I can certainly understand why Hizzonah's previous actions have you suspicious. They have me suspicious too. He has not behaved ethically, in my view, in several instances dealing with the former Council. But so far, this Council seems to be reasserting the Council's proper authority. One on one conversations with the Mayor don't violate the public trust.
okay, boys with the mouths that need some soap!!!
Do NOT lump Jeske in with those acquiescing to the mayor's demands for a 'private' meeting in his chambers.
Remember that it was Jeske who handed out the flashlites to the council on their 'swearing-in' day so that light would always be on their doings??
She remembers her pledge to the citizens of Ogden and she will NOT be meeting with the mayor.
If the mayor has 'plans' to confide, he should say them to the entire council!
She's taking a lot flak for her integrity and a few kudos to her are called for!
How about showing up a council meeting and giving her some support??? Perhaps some of the wimps will want some of those kudos too and start putting some steel in their spines.
Curmudgeon
We are not talking here about casual one on one meetings between the council members and the little lord. Or any other incidental meetings between and amongst the elected leaders of Ogden City.
We are talking about a long time practice of the twerp's wherein he intentionally avoids and subverts the intention of the open meeting laws of the land. He is calling in members of the council to appear before the thrown by two's or three's. He is then lobbying them, cajoling them, threatening them or whatever it takes, to get them on his bandwagon.
After he has them in his pocket, he will then revert back to the legal proceedures of open government. They will have council meetings where they have the mandatory public input sessions. Theater written and directed by the little lord hisself. It is a farce perpatrated on the citizens to lead them into believing that we actually live in a participatory city government. It is cake to placate the masses.
We have all seen this evil game played out by this moral midget time and time again over the last several years. That is why the "Rubber Stamp" rang so true with the voters in November. That is why the voters turned out the incumbent "rubber stampers" and the little lord's hand picked successor to Filliaga.
There are no matters of National Security before the Ogden City Council. These are not meeting to discuss private personal information about employees. There are no spies in Iraq that this council needs to protect with secret meetings.
These are meetings to get the council on board to sell off public lands and to hang the costs of this obcene gondola scheme around the necks of the Ogden Tax Payers. This is a blatant attempt to have the tax payers pick up the tab to build roads and infastructure to Malan's basis so the mayor and his insider group can build a monument to their ego's.
This is government at it's self serving worse.
This must be stopped.
You're absolutely correct, Ozboy. The general rule is that public business ought to be conducted in a public setting. Exceptions to this rule need to be rational and compelling.
To date we've heard no rational argument at all from the advocates of these secret meetings to explain why they are in any way preferable to the open public meetings that the public expects and deserves.
The obvious intent of these secret meetings, where council members attend in "fragments," is that certain information is intended to be concealed from the public, and prevented from seeing the light of day.
If mayor Godfrey wishes to do a "sales job" on the council before setting the matter for a full city council hearing, he should request a special work session, or series of work sessions, with the full council, the press and the public in attendence. To do otherwise is to thwart the spirit of the Utah Open Meetings Act.
The council should insist as a body that these VERY IMPORTANT matters be discussed fully and openly in a unified forum where the pros and cons of these proposals can be fully, freely and publically aired and deliberated.
Issue here is that it takes two to tango. Keep overlooking that. Your argument holds no water because "your people" are agreeing to the meetings, if they are even happening. Convenient analysis is all this is. Next, you can say this is not the anti-mayor website until you are blue in the face, but that will never change it from being true. This has become nothing more than the Ogden Rumor and Gossip blog.
I agree with Rudi and Ozboy on this one. First off, this is a developer with a proposal. We have had other developers with proposals that have either never made it to the Council/RDA, or have had to give a formal presentation to them in a public meeting. For instance, did the developer of the 24th street project even get to address the Council/RDA? Did the Mayor call in the members individually to plead this developer's cause? Hardly. This is favoritism, and all that it would take to stop it would be a refusal of the Council/RDA to participate in it.
Furthermore, look what is happening with this. We are all "the public." Yet some of us know this and some don't. Some have heard that the golf course might be sold. Others have heard that it's both the golf course and the park. This is why city business should be public, to get it on the official record exactly what the issue before us is, and All of us have a right to be informed about it, not just some who talk to officials on a regular basis.
You can just call this the "anti government abuse" blog if you like, anonymous.
And if a couple of "our people" fail to understand the ethical complications of "secret" meetings, you can count on us to continually hammer our points again and again. We'll continue our campaign to inform our "ethically-challenged" comrades, and bring them back into the fold. We occupy the moral high ground here, as we press for righteous public behavior in all of our public officials.
And we're still waiting, so far to no avail, for a single kernal of rational argument to support holding meetings on important substantive issues in secret, outside the public's view.
One additional point -- or maybe two:
If the members of the city council can be, on the basis of a private meeting with the mayor, placed in his pocket and rendered tame enough to bear stroking, then, folks, it really doesn't much matter. The game is lost. If a majority of the new Council are in fact merely bobble-head dolls who start nodding "yes" at a tap from Hizzonah, Ogden's toast anyway, regardless of how many meetings, public or private, go on.
Since rumors are now circulating in re: the city selling Mt. Ogden Park to a private developer, and the matter of private information has been brought up by a member of the public at a Council meeting, I agree that the Council should insist now on a public work session. Things have progressed to the point now where public notice of what the Mayor is proposing to do and public discussion about it by the Council are absolutely necessary.
My point above was simply that private conversations between the mayor's office and council members do not, ipso facto , violate the public trust.
Oh, you mean moral high ground and public righteousness, kind of like slanderous statements made in the name of just being funny.
I'm touting strict adherence to the morality, ethics and philosophy of open government... um... er... "anonymous."
Either you believe morally and politically in that philosophy, or you don't.
If you're a believer, all it will take from us will be some slight nudging, to bring you to the path of political righteousness.
And if you're not... we're all wasting our breath on you... aren't we.
It really isn't all that complicated, is it?
I'll say parenthetically, that many of us are still awaiting some rational argument to explain why you, and some misguided others, seem to believe fragmented secret meetings are preferable to unified public work sessions, in this particularly important case.
Please explain logically why you believe the public business of selling the legacy Mt. Ogden Golf Course (and possibly Mt. Ogden Park) to developers ought to be conducted in secret.
We still patiently await your anticipated well-reasoned reply, and we do so with abated breath.
Take your time. We warily suspect you can't find two properly-firing brain neurons to rub togather at any given moment; so you can take all the time you need.
Our minds are always open, however.
Who knows? Maybe you and Patterson and Harmer and Brown can cook something rational up over the weekend.
Next!
OzBoy and Anon....Don't lump Jeske in with those who are meeting with the mayor for a little 'secret' talk.
Jeske is the one who gave each council member a flashlite and vowed to keep a lite on the doings of the council and hopefully, the city!
She has not and will not meet with the mayor. Public business is to be conducted in and for the public.
I understand Wicks and Garcia hadn't met YET, but are leaning that way, and may meet on Monday. JESKE WILL NOT!!! Im my ever so humble opinion....she's the member with integrity! She campaigned on that and she hasn't let us down.
I think we should give support to the 'good' council members and voice that support at the meetings. Who knows? The ones who may be 'flattered' by Godfrey's invitations to the inner sanctum may want a few public kudos also and start doing what is right.
Your right sbout this, Sharon.
Of all the new coucil-members, Jeske's the ONLY one who desreves kudos.
The rest of them have behaved like wimps.
She stood up after the Std-Ex's month-long pesonal barrage with nary a feather ruffled.
She's the new leader on the Ogden City Council -- the only one who seems willing to stand up for her beliefs... and those of the the tax-payers.
Garcia and Wicks have behaved in disarray; and Glasman has become the mayor's personal bitch.
What Stephens will do day to day is anybody's guess.
Jeske has never betrayed us though. And she acts with supreme confidence.
Bravo to Jeske I say. May the rest of the council learn to follow her decisive lead.
Curtis -
How right you are!
Dorrene Jeske has shown courage in the face of this obcene set of circumstances. She stands tall in the eyes of the community, a stateswoman of the first order. I personally am very proud of her.
I am hopefull that Garcia and Wicks will find the courage to follow suit.
Doug Stephens is still an unknown and it may be too early to count him out. I think he is a decent guy and will do what is right in the end.
I also am hopefull that Glasmann has not gone over to the dark side. He said a lot of good and righteous stuff in the election in order to get elected. Things that resonated with the voters of Ogden. I am not ready to accept that he has in fact become the mayor's "personal bitch" just yet, although it may appear to be the case to some.
This secret meeting stuff seems to be the first real test of the new council. When the dust settles we will surely know who is made of what - won't we!
ozboy and curtis b....Somebody say "Amen!"
Wow, some really interesting stuff. I have to say I can understand both sided of this argument.
When I do research on topics facing my city am I limited in who I can talk with? Can I only talk with citizens in private meetings? Can I talk with city staff? If I talk with other council members or my mayor, am I restricted to only talking with them in open and public meetings that have been properly noticed?
On the other hand how much private information is too much. At what point is the line crossed between providing information and "selling the project?" If I begin to form an opinion have I gone too far?
I am not sure where the line is and would hate to end up in a situation where because of my refusal to meet with my mayor about an issue that I end up the only one at a meeting knowing nothing about the issue under discussion.
At the same time I would also hate for the discussion to be severly limited in public because the council already had so much information that things were not brought up because "everyone already knows that stuff."
Anyone have any suggestions?
Arcritc
When the discussion is about the color of the conference room carpet or an inquiry about the health of a spouse, then a private discussion is OK.
When the meeting has to do with garnerning support of a publicly elected official for a multimillion dollar tax payer funded project, or the bartering off of an important piece of the public's recreational land, then a pirvate discussion is not OK. Not only not OK, but manifestly illegal and immoral.
The wise voters of Ogden just recently thru a couple of insider wheelers and dealers out of office over this exact same issue. Seems like the voters don't like this bull shit any better than I do!
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