What Are They "Up to" Now?

By Rudizink

We at Weber County Forum watched with amusement the ongoing antics of our lovable Emerald City Gondola Cult, as they slowly ratcheted-up their gondola/land grab propaganda for almost a year.

Then, during the months of March and April, their marketing campaign kicked into high gear, with simultaneously-executed template-style Std-Ex letters to the editor, slick door-to-door pamphlet distribution -- and those crimson & white signs -- which popped up like gaudy mushrooms (our favorite fungus) all across the Emerald City landscape, literally overnight. These signs decorated vacant properties, curbside strips and gondolist lawns as far as the eye could see, all over the Land of Oz. The Lift Ogden folks plainly put a lot of concentrated effort (and money) into this propaganda blitz. It was obvious at the time that Bobby Geiger & Co. meant serious business.

Suddenly though, this veritable public-relations shock & awe blitzkrieg inexpicably withered to halt this month, just as abruptly as it had begun.

Nary a gondolist letter has appeared in our home-town newspaper in over two weeks. Neither Bob nor Dustin has distributed a single glossy brochure since July, at the very latest. Emerald City lawns, once festooned with gondolist signs and symbols, again assume the unadorned and slightly bucolic look and feel of the Mayberry USA that we all know and love.

And wonder of wonders, these folks, who have single-mindedly and recklessly split the community down the middle for the past year, and have strategically refused to answer even the most basic questions, now unabashedly call upon the only publicly-visible citizen opposition group, Smart Growth Ogden, to remove their own signs - the ones that remind the townsfolk to merely "Ask Questions."

Meanwhile Boss Godfrey, Chris Peterson's de facto personal real estate broker, is not-so-quietly packing the planning commission with his hand-picked gondolist adherents on the one hand, and joining the amen chorus in calling for community harmony on the other.

We swear we couldn't have made this kind of story up, even if we'd tried. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

The Std-Ex website has a useful article here, deftly illustrating the contrasting views in this truly bizarre current political stand-off.

The sane citizens among us are scratching our heads and asking: "Ok, what are they up to NOW?"

We now open the floor for discussion. Could it have something to do with the 800-lb. gorilla? Several of our sources privately hint that this might at least partly explain the gondolist zombie about-face.

What are our readers' theories?

Comments, anyone?

Grift Ogden Update 8/24/06 7:29 p.m. MT: Our talented friends at Grift Ogden published another brilliant new original art graphic on Monday. Shame on your humble blogmeister for not having linked this earlier. We hereby vow to check our email much more often in the future.