Std-Ex Cartoon by Calvin Grondahl
For some odd reason we're experiencing a profound case of deja vu here at Weber County Forum this morning. The grand schemers down at city hall have promised they'll bring jobs to Ogden; and they seem to be delivering on that. Surely employment prospects around Ogden are improving, for members of the legal profession, at least.
As Scott Schwebke reports this morning, Ogden City is mired in yet another lawsuit. This time the City is a plaintiff. At issue is the alleged failure of the named defendant, a New York demolition company, to have adequately performed the demolition work on the old mall structure, and the failure to have discovered and removed the leaking underground fuel tank which one of our sharp-eyed gentle readers tipped us about last week.
Where this will all end is anyone's guess; but here's one prediction that we can all take to the bank. Additional demolition work and the mitigation of the toxic spill will result in further delay and increased project costs. To top it all off, everybody will have to wait for the State Department of Environmental Quality to investigate and work out a mitigatory plan. And we already know the State DEQ moves like molasses. The eneluctable delay cost spiral begins (or continues.) This project, conceived and approved on an already strained budget, again devolves into the great unknown.
So what say our gentle readers about all this? Are these the kinds of things that would have been foreseen and prevented by competent and experienced real estate developers? Are these new problems the natural and probable result of the incompetence of our claque of "visionary amateurs" at city hall? Where is Stuart Reid when we need his reassurance? Isn't he the one who got us into this mess? Is there room for the incessant optimism we hear from the boy geniuses at city hall, or is this latest glitch the first glimmering of the proverbial "straw" that will "break the camel's back?"
So many questrions; so few answers.
Let's hear our gentle readers' two-cents on this!
