We've received a "heads-up" via email of today's Kristen Moulton/Salt Lake Tribune article, shedding new light on the heretofor mysterious Chris Peterson, the erstwhile Biillionaire's son-in-law, and Boss Godfrey's erstwhile best buddy.
We're posting a link below, for our gentle readers' edification, without editorial comment.
Readers who are desirous of learning a little more about Earl Holding's son-in law can double-up their Chris Peterson information-base by reading Ms. Moulton's most revealing article here.
Comments are invited as always.
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17 comments:
I asked an engineering consultant Friday for his take on the proposed gondola.
His reply was that it won't work and he won't be for it unless it will take him to his ski slope.
That should end the controversy because Holding says it is not going to connect to Snow Basin.
With Mr. Peterson, as with Mayor Godfrey and his Lift Ogden Amen Choir, the strategy is to stonewall all requests for hard and fast information about the project. From the SL Trib story:
Chris Peterson won't say whether he will rely on outside investors to help him buy the Mount Ogden Golf Course, and adjacent city and WSU land.
Has Chris Peterson put together any type of detailed business plan together? If not, why has the Mayor/City shown such strong support (the mayor should not be working his butt of trying to sell an out-of-towner's project!)? Also, as far as engineering goes, doesn't Malan's Basin have steep slopes that would prevent any type of major Swiss-Alp like development/resort from taking place? Are there plans that show how this will work? What type of geological studies have been done in the Malan's Basin area? I remember in grad school as a planning student I had to look at over a dozen variables in terms of an environmental suitability analysis I was doing for development of a project in an area of high slopes. It is not easy. It is apparent that in Utah cities and planners overlook environmental issues (look at all of the damaged and destroyed homes we've seen over the recent past due to lack of planning and building where we shouldn't be). Those are just a couple comments and questions that I have regarding the project. I have seen that SGO has had a difficult time getting questions answered from the City and Mayor. Is there anybody else that has answers besides Chris Peterson and Mayor Godfrey? Chris Peterson seems to have some credentials as a developer based on the SL Tribune article written about him, but nothing that would make me want jump on the LiftOgden bandwagon until serious issues and questions are resolved.
Also, does anybody know if any work is continuing to be done on the streetcar proposal within Ogden City? Since many claim the urban gondola and the streetcar are not mutually exclusive, which I have problems with and object to, shouldn't the city be focusing some of their efforts on that, too? I hope they are. The urban gondola is probably my least favorite part of the entire proposal.
Also, does anybody know what the 65 acres of land is that was referred to in a recent newspaper article that will have to be sold to Mr. Peterson for this project to work? I had never heard of this until the other day. I assume it is not part of the golf course?
Anon:
The sixty five acres is part of what folks usually call "Mt. Ogden Park' which includes the golf course, the two small parks [Mt. Ogden and Marquard] bordering the golf course on the west, and the wild lands uphill from the golfcourse on its eastern edge.
It's the latter land uphill from the golf course that the 65 acres refers to. Several trails, including part of the Mt. Ogden Exercise Trail, run through it. More or less, it lies between the Bonneville Bench and the golf course. And it's city owned parkland and Peterson says he needs it along with the golf course and the WSU lands.
When the LO types talk about "selling Peterson the golf course," what they mean is the golf course [about 120 acres] and the additional sixty five acres uphill from it [for a total of about 210 acres of city owned parkland].
At one of the Mayor's "invited" public Tuesday night sessions, a woman asked for exactly this kind of information. Instead of replying with even a fraction of what this interview presents, the Mayor shot back with a joke and then said "we had a third party (didn't say who) check Chris out and he's OK."
Why has it taken over a year for Chris to present his (version of his) background.
Anon:
At the another recent presentation by the Mayor, last Thursday I believe, Hizzonah was asked specifically if he knew the latest estimate of what it would cost to build the city portion of the gondola [running from downtown to WSU]. He replied "Chris [Peterson] has asked me not to talk about that."
Let me get this straight: the Mayor of Ogden is asked by a resident what the gondola he wants the city to build with public money, and which the city will own will cost to construct. And his answer is "a private real estate speculator doesn't want me to tell you that, so I can't"?
Kind of makes you wonder who is running Ogden these days. The mayor we elected, or his real-estate speculator cronies. I wonder what else Mayor Godfrey has to ask Mr. Peterson for permision to discuss with Ogden residents and voters.
Would love to have been a fly on Holding's wall this morning when he read some of the stuff his numb skull son in law said about him to the newspaper!
Peterson mentioned that getting your name in the newspaper was no way to advance in the Holding empire. Well, rule number one above that is - don't ever talk about Earl - especially to the news paper!
After nearly 20 years schlepping for Holding the best the son in law could do is hold the chandelier and help in pulling the ten thousand acres together for the land swap with the government. You know, the one that poor old Earl got the very worst public scrutiny and bad press in his whole life. The very worse business experience in his life by some accounts. The man was reportedly mortified at the public furor and bad press. Seems like Peterson, if he really were in charge, should have protected and isolated old Earl a hell of a lot better than that! No wonder he don't work there no more!
If Peterson were worth a bucket of warm spit he would be a major domo in the Holding empire, not just one more former executive that couldn't cut it. It doesn't take a genius to succeed in a corporate environment if you're married to the owners daughter, who you might notice has been completely invisible in this whole Scam. Hey, his old lady won't even stand up for him of this BS!!
anon:
It's now been a full year since the streetcar recommendation was announced by those who did the Ogden Transit Corridor Study. During the last year the mayor has done his best to kill, or at least delay, the proposal. He's falsely claimed that the people of Ogden would have to pay $50 million for the streetcar system; he's exaggerated the amount of time it would take to design and construct; and now he's falsely claiming that it can't be built without a tax increase. The Planning Commission did sortof endorse the concept a few months ago, but I think it's safe to conclude that as long as Godfrey is mayor, the streetcar proposal ain't gonna move forward. Oh, and UTA has said that the travel demand in the corridor from downtown to WSU is not sufficient to justify two major investments, so if the urban gondola is built, the streetcar (at least between those two points) is probably dead.
I felt embarrassed for Peteraon when I read Moulton's article and Peterson's self-revealing remarks. I wondered if he cringed when he 'heard' his remarks??
What a dumbo. He really didn't do much of distinction when at the feet of Holding.
Lawyers sewing carpets, the women hanging lamp shades...come on...is that how one brings a BIG project in on time???
Then he bad mouths his father-in-law.....such bad form. Where is his wife? How pleased is she to see this ingrate's remarks about her father??
He is NOT a developer. The only thing he's developed is a growing animosity and suspicion toward him, his bud Godfrey and cronies. He was just a glorified gopher for Holding.
Godfrey is a mean, vengeful, ego driven LITTLE man who also has a father-in-law.
However, Godfrey's father-in-law sings his boy's praises. Methinks they are very much alike. FiL doesn't have the 'office', so he's using the kid to make himself appear shrewd (behind the scenes), and hopes that the boy will take him to greater heights! (Like up our hillside).
Nah, these three are using each other. It will be interesting to see which one is screwed over by one of the others first....."honor among theives" and all that.
Abner:
Well, you may be being a little hard on Peterson here. I thought the story of bringing the hotel on line on deadline was impressive. And we don't know if the deadline set by the boss was reasonable or not, whether suppliers met contracted delivery dates or not, etc., so the tale of having everyone from janitors to execs out there doing what had to be done to bring it in and open on time seems something to be proud of to me.
It does not mean Mr. Peterson's project for Ogden is a good idea [it isn't] or can work [based on the little we've been told so far, I think it can't]. But I don't see much point in trying to find something to criticize in every part of his biography.
You can darn well bet that if that had been a government project they would have paid an extra few million to get things done before the mayor, council and city staff would have done any actual work.
I say kudos to that company. A company where everyones job description is to get the job done.
Kinda sad when people hate someone so bad they are willing to degrade someone seemingly of priviledge actually willing to rollup their sleeves and get the job done.
Though there was really nothing in that story that increased my level of comfort for the gondola project. Just seems to show many of you people are so full of hate for Godfrey and Peterson and some others that you will bad mouth anything and everything about your opponents.
But pretty much par for the course here.
It is easy to keep overhead costs down, as Peterson states in the article, when you have a misguided mayor of a major city doing all the work for you.
Good will is a tremendous asset to a business. After reading the comment about "hating Chris Peterson so much ...." it occurs to me that IF the project were to come to fruition, many people would refuse to use any aspect of the gondola/resort simply because of ill will now being generated.
Not the way I'd like to initiate a business venture, and just another example of poor planning.
Anon:
Well, I don't know. When folks are engaged in a serious dispute, they have a tendency, mostly, to talk with people who think as they do. And so it's very easy to draw mistaken conclusions about the depth and range of support for your own POV. Besides, the Gondola Amen Chorus has told us repeatedly that they expect both the gondola and resort to serve primarily visitors to Ogden, not residents.
You remember --- all those thousands of skiers they expect to land at Salt Lake City airport and pile into cabs for a ride to the Frontrunner station at North Temple, where they will wait for a comuter train to Ogden [their bags in tow] so they can then take three gondola rides that won't take them to Snow Basin. That's who all this is designed to service.
Curm & Arcritic,
Thanks for your as always level-headed perspective. I was working on one of the first events held in the Grand America Ballroom. My crew and I showed up at 11am to begin setup and the floor was still concrete - the hotel event planner told us to come back at 3pm to set up for the 6pm event. When we came back there had to have been 20 carpet guys laying carpet as the catering staff moved tables onto the carpet immediately after it was stretched and rolled. Earl Holding as well as his wife were throwing tablecloths right along with the staff and the event was pulled off without the guests even aware of the scene not an hour earlier. This was a great example to me of someone who can get things done and even with the power and resources available at his fingertips is not above getting in and rolling up his sleeves. I believe this character trait accounts for a huge portion of his success. I hope if this deal goes through, Mr. Peterson exhibits the same characteristics.
Any one who worked at Snow Basin, or for the contractors, during the build up to the Olympics knows that Chriss Peterson WAS NOT the main man. It was a long running joke that he was Mr. Holdings porter and man servant.
When Mr. Holding was around, he attended to every detail. The man has superb taste incidently. Mr. Peterson was very much in the back ground, very meek and waiting his command to fetch water, or paint samples, etc. When Mr. Holding was not there, Mr. Peterson was magically transformed into the big man on the mountain. Virtually no one liked or respected him. Every one cheered when they found out he had left the company.
thanks,
dianne.....it's amazing how everyone all of a sudden is singing the praises of the carpet-laying, step and fetch it, Peterson!
It doesn't take much to impress some yokels.
I agree with Dianne. Peterson was in the background most of the time, and that doesn't mean I hate him just because I'm not impressed with his bringing in ONE project on time. Was Holding impressed?
Apparently not enough to give the gopher a big career boost at Sinclair.
Hate is a strong word....I don't HATE Godfrey or Peterson. I don't TRUST either one, nor any of their boosters.
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