Searching for UTmorMAN's Vanished Blog Posts
By Rudizink
On August 9, Dian provided us detailed narratives on the previous night's regular council meeting and work session. Of particular interest to us was Dian's description of the work session "presentation," wherein Chris Peterson's attorney, Tom Ellison, outlined a series of proposed "steps," which would amount to a wholesale "scrapping" of Emerald City's existing zoning and planning scheme as it relates to Peterson's Gondola/Golf Course/Residential Development/Resort Project. Dian described it quite accurately, we think, as "...[substitution of] a development agreement that will itself constitute the regulatory process for the project."
We obtained yesterday a copy of a July 21 letter Chris Peterson letter, addressed to Mayor Godfrey, which squarely addresses the subject of Mr. Ellison's Tuesday night presentation. Having reviewed this letter ourselves, we would suggest that its text sets forth the "Approval Process" portion of the Peterson proposal with more particularity, we believe, than even the earlier oral presentation. Several readers have privately expressed to us that they would like more detail in the information provided by Mr. Peterson so far. We have therefore uploaded this document to an archive page, which can be accessed by clicking this link.
Although we've done our own review of this document, we'll resist for the moment the offering of our own micro-analysis. Instead, we thought we might throw it out for reading and discussion amongst our gentle readers.
Having said that, we will note three aspects of this proposal that we find particularly troublesome:
- Unrealisticaly "Tight" Timelines: The document sets forth a series of timeline "phases," the first of which (entry into a "pre-development agreement" by August 4, 2006) has already lapsed. It seems to us that even the series of "approvals" proposed in the proposal's "Initial Phase" were far too complex to have been reasonably expected to have been performed within the timeframe set forth in that section. We believe the anticipated timelines set forth in the other "phases" are likewise hopelessly unrealistic, and simply cannot be met, except by short-changing the public process that the citizens all expect and deserve.
- Illogical Sequence: Our initial impression is that the presentation of these proposals piecemeal, in the absence of any information about Mr. Peterson's general purchase proposal, puts the cart completely before the horse. What we believe Mr. Peterson ought to have done, is to have laid his complete and entire proposal on the table, together with the approval process proposal portions contained in his letter and oral presentation. The expectation that the city council should be expected to remodel our entire scheme of zoning and planning prior even to the presentation of a firm purchase offer, (which would set forth the respective general duties and obligations of all parties to the transaction,) goes far beyond unrealistic, into the realm of the preposterous.
- Absence of Information re Purchase Price & Terms: Although this aspect of our concern is really a sub-set of the defect described in the preceding paragraph, we find it astonishing that Mr. Peterson has yet to inform anyone how much he proposes to pay for the targeted properties, or what "financing terms" or other concessions he might expect. Price is the most important element in any purchase or development transaction; and the absence of any discussion of this fundamental contract element leaves us doubtful about Mr. Peterson's seriousness.
We're hoping here to tap "the wisdom of the crowd" on this, (and keeping our fingers crossed.)
Who will be the first to comment?
Update 8/11/06 11:07 a.m. MT: One of our gentle readers, OgdenLover, submits this Kristen Moulton tidbit via email. Our old pal UTmorMan, who for a while operated a rabidly pro-Godfreyite blog, is Boss Godfrey's selection for a Godfrey-vacated planning commission seat. No better way to ram the Peterson proposal down the throats of the townsfolk within the narrow timelines that Chris Peterson proposes, we guess, than by packing the planning commission with shameless Godfrey "brown-nosers."
Update 8/12/06 4:29 p.m. MT: Being the curious type, your ever-inquisite blogmeister travelled over to our old pal UTmorMAN's now-abandoned blogsite, The Good In Ogden, and found that not only has our pal quit posting on his blog -- he's committed the ultimate sin in the blogoshere -- deleting almost a year's worth of posts. Now that he finds himself one of Boss Godfrey's chosen ones, and has been nominated for a city planning commission seat, his slavish pro-Godfrey work product of at least ten months has now vanished into the cyber-ether. This is the cyber-equivalent of document-shredding as far as we're concerned. We believe that this devious and evasive suppression of highly-partisan prior political activity, which entirely deprives our city council of VERY relevant information, highly pertinent to his proposed planning commission appointment, can only be interpreted as an intentional act intended to deceive the council, and to mendaciously subvert the appointment process.
See for yourselves: Here's a link to UTMO's blogsite: thegoodinogden.com.
Your humble and ever-curious blogmeister will devote some time over the weekend employing obscure search engines, to try to uncover cached copies of some of the material that UTmorMAN has deleted. Nothing ever truly vanishes from the internet. We'll let our readers know what we come up with. Sounds like a fine project, dontcha think?
