Here's another cheery news tidbit, submitted by one of our attentive readers, that ought to gladden the hearts of local citizen activists. It appears officials in another Utah city recently have gotten at least one land-use decision right. Democracy is alive and well in South Jordan, Utah, evidently.In the face of strong citizen opposition, South Jordan municipal officials recently dropped a plan to sell a mere four acres of the city's 300 acres of public parkland. They dropped it like a hot potato, in fact.
A municipal government that responded to the will of its own citizens -- now there's a novelty.
Who knows? Perhaps we'll be reading a similar headline in the Standard-Examiner some time soon. There's a local lesson in this story, we think. While we at Weber County Forum don't have much confidence in the citizen responsiveness of our own mayoral administration, we do believe we can rely on our new city council to exercise a little common sense, and possibly demonstrate a more pronounced tendency toward democratic citizen input.
That's what we think. And what do our gentle readers think? Hmmm?
5 comments:
Overheard in a coffee shoppe this AM:
While hard at work in a local coffee shoppe this morning, Pursuing Truth and Knowledge over some black coffee [ok, ok, doing the cryptaquote], I overheard part of a conversation one table away between a real estate agent and a house hunter. This exchange caught my ear:
[House hunter]: "You mean trail heads are right up there [pointing to the mts] just a few blocks away?"
[Real estate agent]: "Yes. All along the neighborhood up there. You'd be on the trails in minutes."
[House hunter]: " Let's go look at the two in this area you told me about."
I thought it an interesting exchange. Ready access to trail heads and the bench and mountain trails a selling point. Imagine that. I wonder if "Well, actually, the trails start on the other side of those 400 condos up there, and you have to go around the gated community and private golf course to get to them but not too far, really" would have had the same impact.
I also wonder how many conversations like this go on, unrecorded and unremarked by Messers Geiger, Peterson, Allen and Godfrey. I know a very similar one went on between me and Mrs. Curmudgeon and our realtor when we moved to Ogden four years ago.
Just a bit of an over-heard conversation I thought I'd throw into the mix.
Lord Mayor Godfrey will only look at his counterpart's in South Jordan as caving into the mob! This sort of thing will only stiffen his resolve. Even as his Neo-Con brothers are coming around to the common folks way of thinking all over the state, the Little Lord will not budge. He is after all "called". It is his mission to save us from this horrible fate that he has decrede we will suffer from if we do not catch his vision and sign blindly on to his rosy journey through the blue sky country.
What he is really scrabling for is more money into the city treasury from any where he can get it. In the six years that he has had the keys to the treasury, Ogden's finances and income has gone down the toilet. He needs more income to cover up for the income he has lost through his own incompetence.
And dontcha just love the Nate Pierce guy running on his financial genius as the head administrative guy in Ogden for the last twenty years! This of course is also the worst twenty years in Ogden's financial history!!! Politicians like this are down right cheeky!!
I'm sure that in his self rightous way he doesn't see any thing out of the ordinary about this!!!
I cannot wait for our Hubris layden Lord Mayor to run on his record! What a field day it will be.
Bulding trophey homes on the Malan-donated site isn't what was intended when the city took title from the Malans to the subject property.
It isn't complicated.
We should honor the intent of the gift.
We Ogden citizens should "choose the right" in this instance.
That slogan is our unofficial Utah motto, wethinks.
And NO. We are not compelled to sustain our evil 'leader' Godfrey's scumbag.visionary gondola plan.
Godfrey and the Geigers should be ridden outta town on a rail.
Well, SLC is considering BONDING the residents for open space!!!
And numb nuts (if he has any to BE numb) is ready to give ours away for 30 pieces of silver!
Wonder if we'll be kissed before we're screwed?
Naysayers! How dare citizens question a plan to convert open space to a use that will bring bodies to the city and further economic development? South Jordan's future is doomed!
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