We're not making decisions based on sticking our finger in the wind. We're making decisions based on what we think is in the best interests of the community.
Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey
Standard-Examiner
November 10, 2005
I look forward to having their data. It’s great to find out where people are at on the issue.
Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey
Standard-Examiner
May 23, 2006
A tip of the hat goes out to ace reporter Schwebke this morning, for getting to the heart of the matter re the recent Mt. Ogden Landgrab Telephone poll. Yesterday, we discussed James Freed's letter to the editor, complaining about a suspect "poll."
This morning's front-page story provides helpful follow-up, and reels off a list of the usual suspects -- Lift Ogden, Matt Godfrey, Bob Geiger and Pinnacle Marketing -- most of whom admit to knowing "nuttin' from nuttin'" about this so-called poll. And what they do know -- they ain't tellin'. A new character is also added to the suspects list -- an outfit called Focus Communications, an Ogden telemarketing company. That's right -- a telemarketing company.
Our gentle readers can read this morning's sad Standard-Examiner story here .
As an added bonus, and for our readers' enlightenment, we are linking to an article entitled "20 Questions A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results." It's obvious from Mr. Schwebke's story that he asked at least a few of these questions, although he obviously received very little in the way of satisfactory answers. Be sure to read this latter article. When you do, don't forget to read between the lines. After that... gulp down a strong dose of Pepto-Bismol.
So what say our gentle readers now? Does anyone recall ever witnessing the antics of a more inept and pathetic pack of clowns?
Comments... anyone?
14 comments:
Rudi:
Thank you for the link to "20 questions to ask about polls." I'm printing it off to keep at hand.
May I suggest that you forward a copy of the article to Mr. Schwerbe and his editors? [They're getting tired of hearing from me, I think.]
It would be interesting to have the SE ask the questions of the poll they wrote about. [And to be fair, they did not report the results of the poll; they responded to reports that "the mayor" had commissioned a poll.] If it is a legitimate poll, not a push poll, having the questions answered should establish that, and I imagine those who commissioned the poll, if it is a legitimate one, would be eager to answer the questions and establish the legitimacy of what they had commissioned.
If they are not willing to provide answers to the questions... well, that will tell us something too.
And if the answers are not forthcoming, the SE should be very leery about reporting the poll "results" as news. Hizzonah and the Lift Ogden Wired Ascent Cheerleading Squad will disseminate the results, but there is no reason the SE should aid and abet them in doing it.
I imagine if it is a push poll and the alleged "results" are favorable to Peterson/Godfrey/Geiger cabal, we will all read about it in our next city water bill anyway.
Is any one really surprised at these tactics?
Really, the Little Lord has been rigging polls and "studies" for six years now. Case in point, the so called "Study" that was done to justify blowing $18 million in public money for the so called "High Tech Rec Center". The "study" was a joke put together by the two local jokers that are the recipients of this public largess! Neither one of them would know a real study if they saw one.
Now we have this so called "public poll" that Propoganda Minister Geiger doesn't know who is behind it! And a Telemarketing company to boot! What does the "marketing" in Telemarketing mean? Hmmmm.
If they claim that this so called "poll" shows massive support for the Gondola, like I suspect it will, then the logical question is why not put it on the ballot for November? What would they have to fear by doing so? If their "poll" is scientific, honest and accurate, then the masses will confirm same at the real polls, no?
Does any one have the "script" that was used for this "poll"? Or can any one give us more info of exactly what "questions" were asked, and what propoganda did they try to disseminate?
These people have absolutely no moral compass. They will do every dirty trick in the book to get this monstrosity built. They actually believe their own lies and fantasies. They are extremely dangerous to the future financial health of all Ogden Citizens and tax payers.
My concerns exactly: Who commissioned the poll? Private businessmen...but WHO are they? Always unidentified.
Also, the SE should have printed the poll questions. Perhaps many letter writers would send in their own answers.
After reading the excellent link...thanx, Rudi....I can see that using a teleMARKETING firm did just what Bonnie Lee asked...marketed the subject.
Couldn't make the CC meeting tonite, so hope someone who attended will let us know the doings.
If I didn't do my job, I'd expect to be fired. Our Mayor was hired to represent the people of Ogden, not Chris Peterson. Despite his preachy explanations about our form of government, it _is_ a representative democracy, not a dictatorship.
Isn't there any way that he can be recalled or impeached or do we just have to wait until November?
- Anonymous too.
I doubt very much that the SE has the poll questions. It certainly didn't have the results. The polling company and those who commissioned it are keeping the questions private, as is their privildge.
I agree the SE has not covered itself in glory on the gondola scheme reporting, but fair's fair. They heard the claim that the mayor had commissioned a poll, and a push poll at that, and they went after the story. As they should have. But they don't own the poll questions or results and cannot print them w/o the permission of those who do. Fair's fair.
Anon:
Impeachment is generally a procedure reserved for elected officials who commit serious crimes. That is not alleged in this instance. And the procedure probably does not apply to municipal officials in any case. It is usually reserved for high executive officers [like governors] and judicial officials.
As I understand it, Utah law does not provide for the recall of municipal officials. The remedy for discontent with the mayor's performance in office is the ballot box.
Curm
I believe that Utah law does allow for removal from office for violating the law. I also suspect that Mayor Godfrey and Stuart Reed may very well have committed a felony with the severance package that Reed recieved from the Mayor. The whole thing was swept under the rug by the old City Council who also amended the law in an attempt to retroactively make the crime legal. I am not a lawyer, but I do not believe that you can retroactively forgive a crime? Especially a city council forgiving a felony which I believe is a state crime, not a city one. Any lawyers out there to verify this?
Removal for conviction may well be in the law. I would be surprised if it wasn't. But that is not impeachment.
We need to remember, though, that absolutely no criminal charges have been brought by anyone in this matter. I doubt any will be. Differing views about the contracting powers of the Mayor do not necessarily mean that any crime has been committed, much less a serious one, even if the administration's view turns out in the end to be judicially determined to have been the wrong one.
Darrell, I am no fan of the mayor. He has, in my view, mismanaged the city's economy badly. He now wishes to involve the city in a wildly speculative real estate development plan that I think has virtually no chance to be successful. He has not behaved in office as I expect honorable public servents to behave. [Using the city-owned cable TV station as his personal political outlet, and to campaign against a school bond issue he opposed while denying those with other views access to the city's channel, and using the channel to campaign for a private developer's real estate specualtions {the Geiger gondola "interview" has been re-run more times than "Mash"} is evidence of this. So was having pro-Lift Ogden FAQ's -- which present so-far unsupported speculation as established fact and include "information" that is misleading if not downright false {to wit, the claim that Mr. Peterson's gondola systems will connect with Snow Basin} --- included in the little bulletin that is mailed to all city utilities customers with their monthly bills.]
But it would be a mistake to confuse what we might think unethical conduct with illegal conduct, or to confuse dishonorable actions with crimes.
I would be very careful about alleging criminal conduct on anyone's part in a political dispute without being very very sure of my ground. What is going on is a continuing dispute over public policy, and it should be resolved as public policy disputes are usually resolved: through the political processes established to do that. Even if we think the tMayor and his allies choose to engage in that process in less than fully ethical ways. Like commisioning push-polls perhaps?
Curm
What I wrote was:
"I also suspect that Mayor Godfrey and Stuart Reed may very well have committed a felony with the severance package that Reed recieved from the Mayor."
I don't know, but I still "suspect" them. Unless we actually have an investigation by a competent authority, we will never really know because as I also said:
"The whole thing was swept under the rug by the old City Council"
Why wasn't this ever investigated by the County Attorny or State Attorney General? Only the shadow knows.
What I do know however is that there was a brief hubbub about it, the council commisioned an outside attorney opinion letter, the council later decided not to take custody of the "opinion letter" thus keeping it out of the public, the council changed the rule retroactively to make the action legal under city code. The public never heard a damn word about it again. $43,000 of tax payer money went down the rat hole.
Darrell:
Working just on memory here, but I don't think the Council retroactively changed the rules to "legalize" what happened. As I recall, the Council altered the rules to make sure such goings on did not happen again. Let me see what I can find out.
Sorry if I misread your intent. Others have recently been talking about "illegalities" etc. regarding the Mayor and the current dispute. My comments were intended more generally, not just a response to your post. If I didn't make that clear, and I probably didn't, my fault.
Part of what set me off is my unhappiness with the general trend of much political dispute these days [at every level] which seems far too often aimed at demonizing advocates for the other side rather than attacking on the merits the policies and programs the other side advocates. I don't want to put those who differ with me [wrong though they clearly are] in jail, or to convince people they are reprehensible maggots who are mean to small dogs and children. I want to convince people that their ideas are wrong for the [pick one] nation, state, county, city and will, if adopted, not achieve the ends we want. In the long run, I don't see how the political system we have that has, with some bumps along the way, served us well over time can long survive if what someone has called "the politics of personal destruction" goes much further and becomes more entrenched than it already has. That's what I was addressing, really, in part of my post, and if I read more into yours than you intended, the fault was mine.
So Curmudgeon, what are you saying?
Do we, or do we not have evil forces amongst us, disguised as a competent Mayor and assorted hanger's on, who represent the dark side, but believe they represent the Lord?
How can they be seperated from their policies? Do you mean to imply that Lord Godfrey hisself is actually a real nice, easy going, well intentioned, honest and charming guy who is not connected in any way to the sneaky, ill intentioned, morally reprehensible tactics he routine uses to get his way regardless of what is good or bad or wanted or not?
I think he and his band of incompetents have shown their true colors. I think they all should be illiminated from public life and forever more restrained from approaching the puclic treasury.
Is that a bit too harsh for your pussy footin ways? Spades are spades no matter what else you call them. Godfrey is not going to go gently into the night. He will only grace us with his political departure after a down and dirty political street fight. He is one mean little weazle, he will destroy you any way he can, he should never be taken lightly on any subject.
So Curmudgeon, what are you saying?
Do we, or do we not have evil forces amongst us, disguised as a competent Mayor and assorted hanger's on, who represent the dark side, but believe they represent the Lord?
How can they be seperated from their policies? Do you mean to imply that Lord Godfrey hisself is actually a real nice, easy going, well intentioned, honest and charming guy who is not connected in any way to the sneaky, ill intentioned, morally reprehensible tactics he routine uses to get his way regardless of what is good or bad or wanted or not?
I think he and his band of incompetents have shown their true colors. I think they all should be illiminated from public life and forever more restrained from approaching the puclic treasury.
Is that a bit too harsh for your pussy footin ways? Spades are spades no matter what else you call them. Godfrey is not going to go gently into the night. He will only grace us with his political departure after a down and dirty political street fight. He is one mean little weazle, he will destroy you any way he can, he should never be taken lightly on any subject.
Ozboy:
Evil? No. Unprincipled, unethical and dead wrong about many many matters of public policy for Ogden, yes.
Denouncing Hizzonah as representing the "forces of Darkness" and/or worse may make you feel better, but it does not do much to advance public discussion in Ogden, and it is in fact I think counter-productive. Does no damage as long as you're preaching to the choir, as, largely, you [and I] are doing here. But when you start the name calling, "he's evil," "he's a criminal" "he's a lying little weasel" rhetoric before the undecided and uncommitted, from what I've seen, it merely convinces them the name caller is off the rails, unresonable, unreasoning and they turn you off as a result. I've seen it happen at the Hizzonah's little Tuesday night soirees.
We're not going to convince the Lift Ogden Wired Ascent Cheerleading Squad and they are not going to convince us. The people in play, that we are both going after, are the undecideds and the [so far] uncaring. Name-calling rants [however objectively true you and to some extent I may think they are] simply turn such folks off. In large numbers. And they start discounting what you have to say. We cannot afford to do that, especially since Hizzonah and his allies have means of mass communiction at their disposal that we do not. [E.g. the city utility bills bulletins, the city-owned cable station, and high-ticket advertising campaigns like the push-poll funded by their business supporters.] Alienating the undecideds by rants is not wise strategy, IMHO.
I have a strong tendency to be nastily sarcasting in discussing political matters and public policy. I indulged it in a letter to the editor [not here] some years ago, and ran it past a good friend first. He sent it back with a note: "Do you want to feel good or to be effective? If the former, send it as is; if the latter, cut the sarcasm and name calling and rewrite it so it's civil." He was right.
That clear it up?
Curmudgeon
Well we do disagree to a degree here. It has been my observation that the electorate are turned off by mindless and baseless name calling and accusations, so we agree on to some extent on that.
However, I believe Ogden folks appreciate and enjoy straight up "Chicago" style political discourse. I think they like politico's that have the guts to stand up and call it like it is in plain down to earth Ogden language - as long as they are telling the truth. Look at the last election in Ogden.
I think that this gondola madness is only going to be stopped by a diverse group of concerned citizens coming forward with the whole range of political style from name calling to smooshing at the Country Club.
The beauty of the Godfreyite's is that they give us all plenty of ammo! They are the most inept bunch I think I have ever observed.
Be nice Curm, there are some out here like me that won't be, and still more that will make me look priestly. Yes indeed, I do love Ogden politics.
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