Much has been said concerning a proposed gondola, resort, and hillside development in Ogden over the last several months. Although no official proposal has come before the City Council, the public has requested information and voiced opinions of both support and opposition. To ensure that the public’s ideas are taken into account and that all the necessary information is considered, the Council adopted a resolution on April 18, 2006, directing that a comprehensive public process be developed by Council staff. The Council directed that the process include development of the Mt. Ogden Community Plan, possible updating of the Ogden/Weber Transit Corridor Study, and other aspects of a public process conducive to this proposal. The Council also directed staff to meet with other decision-making entities to learn their decision points and public processes. The Council is determined to “gather facts, receive public input, and collect data consistent with the Council’s due diligence prior to making any decisions on this far-reaching and very important proposal” (City Council Resolution 2006-13).Pursuant to this resolution, The Ogden City Council staff has set to work, and has been diligently compiling the data necessary to fulfill the objects of this resolution (according to our always reliable sources;) and is in middle of the complex process of making the contacts, having the meetings and collecting the preliminary data which would logically precede the public input and deliberative portions of the process.
Apparently the "brain trust" in the mayor's office doesn't believe the council staff is moving fast enough though, notwithstanding the fact that these hard-working people are only a little less than five weeks into the process.
"If it isn't done yesterday, it's being done too slowly." That's the attitude of The Blessed but Perpetually-petulant Egomaniac on Nine.
The Mayor's office has thus taken the matter into its own hands, decided to do an end-run around the council, and has now scheduled a series of its own non-council-sanctioned public input sessions. "The Council be damned," sez the mayor of us all.
In that connection, we are linking this important "public notice," which was transmitted to us this morning by one of our attentive and gentle readers: Public Open House.
Our readers should carefully note that two separate events are being "noticed" by the mayor's office in the preceding announcement. The first of these, scheduled for June 13, 2006 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., is intended for citizens residing between 26th-36th Streets East of Harrison Boulevard. The second event, intended for those citizens living south of 30th Street to 36th Street will be held the following night on June 14, 2006.
Affix these dates to your calendars with a giant magic marker, people. "Snoozers wil be losers," as the old saying goes.
We believe that all Ogden citizens who are concerned about another of the mayor's hare-brained schemes being summarily shoved down our public throats should attend these meetings, and do so in force, notwithstanding the fact that these meeting are are entirely premature and non-council-sanctioned.
A failure of interested citizens to show up in significant numbers at each of these events will be inevitably interpreted by the city administration as a lack of interest on our part. Blessed Matthew Godfrey has a sordid history of doing just that.
And when we do attend, we should forcefully voice our objections, not only on the merits of the proposal itself (or the lack thereof,) but to the ham-handed manner in which the mayor is choreographing his version of the process -- putting the cart before the horse -- inviting public comments before the council is even midway into the fact-gathering process.
We're also wondering: "So what the rush?" Chris Peterson has been dawdling about the details of his so-called proposal for over a year now. He hasn't even told us how much he's willing to offer for the Mt. Ogden Parkland property, let alone put a formal purchase offer on the table. We're not laboring under any obvious impending deadline. So where's the fire, anyway? we ask.
And what are your comments on this, O gentle and perceptive ones?
6 comments:
June 13th, as I said yesterday, is the only opportunity the public has to give input to the budget, should the public wish to do that. (It may not--I have no idea. But this is the only time to get objections or affirmations on the record.) Council meeting starts at 6 PM---this public meeting starts at 7 PM.
One hour for the budget public hearing if people want to attend this other public meeting.
Bogus meeting or not, and I don't think it necessarily has to be, it is very important that residents of the Mt. Ogden neighborhood attend and speak up. And out. It took some considerable effort to get the Godfrey administration to agree to even begin the process, and it took some backbone on the part of the planning commission [for which thank you, people] to reject the administration's suggestion that these meetings be held immeidately following the Labor day holiday following a very brief and hasty public notice period. Be a shame to waste the opportunity by not attending and speaking out.
The Godfrey administration did not want these meetings held at all, and when it couldn't stop them, it wanted them held with almost no public notice in the final week of school over a holiday period. Which suggests to me the administration is anxious about what the meeting might produce. That's enough to guarantee I'll be there.
Can't agree with you on this Curm. The mayor has scheduled his meeting for June 13th, precisely because it is the only night for public input on the budget!
Also, HE should be in attendance at the budget hearing.
Everything he does is 'crisis mode' and sneaky. The neighborhood meeting should be rescheduled for the next week, or better yet, CANCELLED.
I think attending the budget hearing is the more important of the two. We can all call or email the city to cancel his meeting. Also, without the CC finishing ITS business....how can the mayor in good conscience even have these 'public' meetings? Is the obvious answer that he doesn't have a good conscience?
This administration is going all out to push a private "developer's" agenda using taxpayer funds, and without CC approval! Isn't that what our new CC members campaigned against?
The CC needs to put the brakes on this runaway ego.
Well, first of all, these particular meeting dates [and there are two meetings, not one, on two different nights] were set by the Planning Commission to replace the much earlier dates proposed by the Godfrey administration.
Second: the meetings are to seek input for the Mt. Ogden Community Plan. They are not general meetings for the entire city. Half of the Mt. Ogden neighborhood meets one night, the other half, the other night.
While I agree it would be better to not have had either meeting on the same night as a Council Meeting dealing with the budget, only one half of the Mt. Ogden Neighborhood will have a conflict. And I suppose a Mt. Ogden resident whose community input meeting was on Tuesday could attend the input meeting intended for the other half of the neighbor hood and thus make it to both meetings. I suspect not many people will do that.
While I have no confidence that the Godfrey administration will act ethically and in good faith on these matters [it has not so far], I don't think we need to hunt for some cleverly diabolical purpose behind every action, particularly since in this instance the Planning Commission did not accept the administration's proposed dates but instead, selected dates of its own. And from what I could see, the Planning Commission seems to guard its independence jealously from what it perceives as attempts to restrict it from any direction --- the Mayor's Office or the Council.
One never has to HUNT for a diabolical reason, clever or otherwise, with this shady group. So, if the input from part of a neighborhood is desired, couldn't the mayor have reminded the PC that it would be better not to have a conflict??
We have a conflict in information, I have found.
When attending the Council meeting last Tuesday, I heard that June 13th was the last opportunity for the public to give input on the budget.
In going through the literature I picked up from the Agenda table, I saw a handout that gives three dates: May 30, June 6, and June 13.
I asked a Council Member to clarify the budget hearing question briefly after the meeting, and was told, "You have one more," meaning, I believe, that the June 13th meeting is indeed our only chance.
But since I have found this handout, we should probably doublecheck.
One thing brought to my attention yesterday that I had not considered is that the Council members will not be able to attend the June 13th meeting either, and I think that is unfortunate. The city's presentation will probably be the same at both, but of course the public comments will differ, and I would think that Council members would want to hear them.
But it is hard to schedule meetings to everyone's satisfaction, and I think the Council is working on its own public meeting process. We must all attend those also, I suppose.
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