All Gondolas, All the Time

or:

Descente Doesn't Care!

By Dian Woodhouse

I attended a "Gondola/Resort" meeting last night. It did not change my opposition to these projects, of which I have written at length before, but attending this was very worthwhile because I was finally able to understand part of the motive behind all this.

Mayor Matthew Godfrey ran for office on a platform to revitalize Ogden. He recounted last night that one of the missing components in this city is, and was at the time he took office, white collar jobs downtown. For five years, he, and staff, and Community and Economic Development tried in vain to recruit companies to come here and provide those jobs. And for five years, they did not get one taker.

Enter Curt Geiger in 2002. Discussions between him and the mayor take place, and the idea of making Ogden the ski hub is born. Descente moves here, Lift Ogden is formed, and they begin to pitch this idea to ski companies.

In the last year and a half, Mayor Godfrey said, everything has changed. Seven ski companies are now here, with an eighth possibly on the way, and "the only thing that has changed in the pitch is the gondola."

In other words, the gondola does seem to be being looked at as a silver bullet. After five years of total nothing, inclusion of this gondola/hub idea in addition to the other things Ogden already has to offer, seemed to generate, finally, outside interest in Ogden in the way of these ski companies.

I say "seemed," because I do not think this is that simple. I do not think the gondola is and was the key to increased economic development here. Instead, I think that the reason that the mayor spent that grueling five years with no return is that a large portion of the country was, for that five years, doing exactly the same thing. When the tech bubble burst in 2000, and then with the occurrence of the subsequent Enron scandals, the sudden disgrace of nationally prestigious accounting firms, and the realization that the boom of the nineties was in large part predicated on false accounting, inflated figures, and money that existed only on paper, a whole lot of people lost a whole lot of money.

Probably many companies were in no shape, after that, to move anywhere, let alone Ogden. Many of them had to spend a few years trying to stay afloat. And many of them didn't make it.

So it is very possible that the bad time Ogden had in generating interest was not caused by lack of a gimmick, lack of a resort, lack of high end housing, but by the fact that, at that time, quite a few people had no money to put into anything. It wasn't just in Ogden--it was all over the country.

Interesting, I thought. That is part of the motivation for this project--that the inclusion of the gondola in the pitch might have coincided with a brief upswing in the national economy, and the gondola, not the economy, is being looked at as the reason that Ogden is doing a bit better because of the ski companies that have come in. Not to minimize the effort the mayor and Mr. Geiger have put into this effort--we all know it has been a huge effort--but just to say that it might not be the only factor operating in this.

The mayor said, as he has said before, that from the station at the top gondola, "you could get into Snow Basin if you want." Another quote was: "You can point your skiis east and ski right down that road that's already up there and go right down into Porky." Another was: "You can access Malan's from the Strawberry gondola."

Not knowing the terrain there, I am not qualified to comment on these things, although I do find it interesting that they were said in view of the position of Sinclair Oil, Snow Basin's owner, that appeared in the Standard Examiner. Mayor Godfrey also said that "they," (I assume Sinclair,) wanted it stated that there were no ticket or other arrangements between the two resorts, but also in the meeting, when questioned about this pitch for the gondola when Sinclair had said it wouldn't go to Snow Basin, stated: "They did not say it's not going to Snow Basin."

Moving on, there was quite a bit of discussion about selling the golf course. The Mayor's point of view regarding that is that the golf course has a negative value--this because it runs at a deficit. Because it has a negative value, we will not be losing anything if we sell it. There were spirited exchanges here between the mayor and members of the community who alleged that the books from the golf course were not totally accurate as they included a carryover debt which was questionable, and in fact, that the Mount Ogden Golf course could probably Make money hand over fist were it given the opportunity to do so.

Speaking of spirited exchanges, there was also one between the Mayor and State Representative Neil Hansen, who asked if involvement in these projects was truly what a government should be doing, and also why the taxpayers of Ogden should assume the costs for the Urban gondola. The Mayor's answer to this was that the urban gondola would benefit us. People wanted to know how. The answer was that it would increase downtown economic development.

Curt Geiger attended this meeting, and at one point delivered an impassioned speech to the effect of the fact that we in Ogden have a chance to boom, to make something of the city, but that it was our choice. If we wanted to naysay and be against everything, that was up to us, and that "Descente doesn't care. This is his home, he is happy here, and it is up to us whether to get behind this idea or not, but "Descente doesn't care."

Mr. Geiger also said elsewhere that his rent is $2,500 a month--1971 levels. He employs fifteen people, and his payroll is a million dollars a year, which is "not chump change," and he pays $125,000 annually in sales tax to Ogden City.

Someone commented that the Mayor should be honest and open with the public about "the parking lot at Weber State for the gondola." This was the first, and last, I have heard of this. There was no further discussion about it.

Someone else commented at the sad state of Ogden City Schools, saying, "We need that revenue!" There was applause at this.

One comment I thought interesting had to do with the idea of those opposed to the gondola being so because it would damage their current quality of life. Since quality of life is not something that you can look at on a balance sheet, arguing the merits of this project based on a balance sheet alone leaves quality of life out of the equation.

Then someone stated that he had lived in Ogden for forty years and his quality of life had gone down. There were some murmurs of assent at this.

There was a comment that all trails are not equal. That if Chris Peterson changes the ones we now have, will that mean that what he comes up with will be as good as what we now have.

This was a Long Meeting. We left at about 11:30 at night and the meeting hadn't formally closed. I don't know if it ever did. Many things were discussed, and both sides, pro and con, asked questions. Since this is getting to be therefore, a Long Article, perhaps the best thing to do is end it here and readers can ask questions about the meeting. Other things touched upon were---a streetcar, motorized vehicles and emergency services at the resort, the trails, the housing development, The Junction," Larry Miller, light rail impact, open space, affordability for locals, jobs---you see how long this would get if I attempted to discuss all these things. So ask away, and I will check in periodically and try to answer.