Council Meeting Overview: 5/17/06

By Dian Woodhouse

They ran out of seating at the Ogden City Council meeting last night. Former Councilman Kent Jorgenson was sitting against the wall, and, upon seeing an elderly lady standing in the back, carried his chair over to her so as to enable her to sit. It has been said that more simple courtesy is needed in that room, and there we had some. Thank you, Mr. Jorgenson.

Mikel Vause from Smart Growth Ogden formally presented a petition signed by 282 residents of the Mount Ogden Neighborhood regarding the formation of a Mount Ogden neighborhood plan to the Ogden City Council. There is an article in this morning's Standard Examiner recounting what transpired next, entitled: "Godfrey Accused of 'End Run.'" In a nutshell, it seems that Mount Ogden residents wish to formulate their plan and have it included in the city's General Plan, where it should be. (As we all know, the city's General Plan has to be amended if the Peterson project is to proceed.) The administration's proposal is to amend the general plan first, it seems, from this in today's Standard by Scott Schwebke:

"Godfrey's proposal calls for amendments to the General Plan, which would be needed before Peterson could purchase the Mount Ogden Golf Course, to be addressed first, followed by efforts to develop the community plan."

Mr. Cook's point was that the Council has already put a public process in place which prioritizes the formulation of a Mount Ogden Neighborhood plan as a first step.

Despite the heat and the crowded room, our Council members were fully engaged in the business at hand. One highlight was the action of Chairman Garcia in allowing concerned members of the public to speak to an issue before the vote. This issue concerned the rezoning portions of 21st and 22nd Streets from Manufacturing and Industrial Zone, (M-2,) to Central Business District Zone, (CBD.) Of this issue, Councilwoman Jeske remarked that it had been discussed in the work session, and that she felt that the rezoning would protect residential owners from having manufacturing near their homes. Three people concerned with this issue spoke briefly, and the motion to rezone passed.

The next item was a proposal presented by Dave Harmer regarding a change in the Junction plan requested by the administration. It seems that, although the site plan has been approved and The Junction named, Mayor Godfrey wishes to have a building on the northeast corner of the site expanded to six stories instead of four. Stated reasons were:

*Will provide increased density downtown, which is what we want.

*The intersection at 24th and Washington has long been viewed as the center of downtown, and we need a Landmark there. A four story building will not be a Landmark. A six story one will be.

*It will give us more office space. These two floors will be premiere office space, thereby providing more lease revenue to the city, because....

The city will be responsible for leasing these two floors. We will be so much responsible that we will agree, if this proposal goes through, to pay Boyer for the leasing of them ourselves until we find tenants. This will cost a little under $400,000 a year. We will allegedly get money to do this from, (you guessed it--BDO lease revenues.) Boyer doesn't want to take this on because it does not think six stories there makes economic sense from its point of view, and therefore, if we want six, we will pay to lease them if we wish Boyer to build them.

Mr. Harmer stated that this was a "now or never" decision, and that if we did not build a six story building there now, it might be another 50 years before the city gets another opportunity. He addressed the obvious question, which is---Why would we wish to do this if Boyer, which is, after all in the business, thinks it not profitable--by stating that Boyer and Ogden City have different views and goals on things of this nature, and the city is perhaps more interested in long term benefits than Boyer is.

Councilwoman Wicks asked what the current vacancy rate for office space was in Ogden. The answer was that this is unknown, but that this office space will be different, being "premiere space." Some council members pointed out that The Junction and the PRI projects included office space, but the rejoinder indicated that there was really not that much being built, and little of this nature.

Councilwoman Wicks also asked, What about the space in the American Can Company? The answer here was that that area is not currently delegated for office space.

As part of this proposal, Mr. Harmer also suggested that the BDO lease revenues be placed in what he called a "Debt Obligation Clearing House" account. This would, one assumes, be an interest bearing account and would ensure that we had money for the site when we needed it. In this context, he mentioned that a major tenant, had left BDO and subsequently had caused a decrease in lease revenues, and such an account would hedge against losses should these things occur.

There was also discussion concerning---Would these plans then have to go back to the Plannng Commission? Would many already agreed upon processes between the city and Boyer have to be sent back and revised? These things would have to be looked into.

Councilwoman Jeske stated that this was one of the issues she had campaigned upon, that the city should not be acting as a developer. Heads nodded at this. The response to this was that "it is not possible to do what we have been charged to do" without acting as a developer.

The issue ended by being tabled for two weeks partially, it seemed, because the ramifications of agreeing to this proposal had not been presented to the Council's satisfaction. The proposal had been presented as having Boyer wishing an answer by today or it was going to start on the previously approved plan. Evidently the project has been held up by the request for these extra floors, and Boyer wishes to get going. So we shall see how it turns out.

(My question here is---Is it possible that these two floors are being proposed to be built with a prospective tenant already in mind? And if so, who would that be?)

I have saved mention of the OPD for last. Many were there last night, in uniform. A brief statement was read concerning current negotiations between our police department and Ogden City. It is to be hoped that we can provide more information on this, perhaps in a separate article, because this issue is a very important one, deserving at least as much, if not more, coverage, as Mark Johnson's Hummer.

As always, if there is anything in the above that needs correction, please do so.