Kellogg, Idaho, of course, was one of the stops on Boss Godfrey's Flying Amen Circus Tour last month, and INbedded Ace Reporter Scott Schwebke offers his usual probing reporting and analysis of that little Idaho hamlet's now-fulfilled gondola "vision," in this morning's second series installment.
Reporter Schwebke does his usual bang-up job, and doesn't disappoint in providing his typically-cogent journalistic insight this morning, including this marvellous quote from Gondola Cheerleader Dave Hardman, whose already-hot gondola love affair was ratcheted-up even a few more notches, merely upon casting teary eyes toward the Kellogg gondola, which the voters of that little once-dying Idaho mining town reportedly approved by a tidy 80% majority vote:
Dave Hardman, executive director of the Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce and one of those who made the trip, said visiting Kellogg and Telluride gave him insight into how gondolas can drive tourism and provide effective mass transit.Ace reporter Schwebke's second installment is another milestone achievement in his Standard-Examiner career, we think. Be sure to read Reporter Schwebke's entire story here. It's near-perfect, and certainly destined to win some kind of award in the near future. Perhaps Boss Godfrey will arrange to get him one of those important resume-building awards himself. (Scott Schwebke: "2006 Utah Mother of the Year," maybe?)
"I gained the idea that gondolas were the catalyst to get people to come to the community and created a transportation system that didn’t disrupt other traffic," he said.
The Kellogg gondola is particularly impressive because it virtually saved the town’s economy when silver-, lead- and zinc-mining operations went belly up, Hardman said.
"Even though the magnitude is much smaller than what is planned for Ogden, the gondola was a catalyst for economic opportunity," he said.
Even Ace Reporter Schwebke isn't perfect though; and there is one question we'd like to ask parenthetically:
Are we the only readers who are becoming increasingly annoyed at Mr. Schwebke's constant reference to Chris Peterson as a "Developer?" Shouldn't that label be reserved for people who've actually (and successfully) done at least one development project in the past? (OK... two questions. "Just asking..." you know... rhetorically.)
Have at it, gentle readers. Today's Ace Reporter Schwebke masterpiece has the look of a low & slow pitch, delivered over the outside corner of the plate.
Batter up!
47 comments:
Here we have the real story of the gondola in Idaho... Some Kellogg residents believe the town’s investment in the gondola is placing a financial burden on the community.
Barbara Miller, director of the Silver Valley Community Resource Center, which is a grass-roots environmental and social activist organization, said voters were pressured by town officials to approve a $2 million bond issue in 1988 to help fund the gondola.
“Poor people are being taxed,” she said. “We still haven’t seen economic recovery.”
While Ogden, with a population of about 80,000, has a relatively stable economy, that hasn’t always been the case in Kellogg, which has about 3,000 residents, said Kellogg Mayor Mac Pooler. Take this for what it is worth. but fokes we're talking about a half a billon dollar investment here in ogden can we aford a big risk like that here if it doesn't work out. just like the mall didn't work out.
Just to add a little local flavor and background to this story, we link to this Kellogg, Idaho website, and offer this colorful quote:
"For one hundred years, Kellogg was proud of it's Mining and Milling Heritage. Kellogg's Bunker Hill mine and smelter was known world wide as a leader in it's field. Then the unthinkable happened. Bunker Hill shut it's mine and smelter down, throwing thousands of men out of work.
The town, wanting to change it's image, adopted an Alpine theme and built a gondola to the top of the Jack Ass Ski Bowl, renamed it Silver Mountain; changed Jack Ass Gulch to Jacob's Gulch, etc. etc. etc.
But there are among us, people who believe that putting a duck in a chicken house and calling "chick-chick" will not change things. It is still a duck! It is still a chicken house."
"People without a history is like wind through the grass." - Sioux proverb
Whether this has any Emerald City implications -- we just don't know.
Suspense got the best of me, so I ran down to the store for a copy. Sounds more like a travelogue right out of Sunset Magazine.
Another piece sorely lacking in any congruence to Ogden's particular needs. Dave Hardman says that "I gained the idea that gondolas were the catalyst to get people to come to the community and created a transportation system that didn't disrupt other traffic." Nice idea, Dave. First of all the only traffic issue was on the road to Silver Mountain. There was no Resort related traffic issues in Kellogg. The little village of Wardner was probably tired of ski traffic, but back in 1990 the ski area was not what it is today and the traffic was not much of an issue. The gondola simply allowed people to park near downtown Kellogg and save driving up the mountain road. A nioe relief for the folks in Wardner and good for downtown. Hardman also said the visits gave him insights how gondolas drive tourism and provide effective mass transit. Actually the Ski Area is largely responsible for driving tourism as it does almost everywhere. The gondola provides no mass transit except to the ski area. So he has it backwards. The gondola would never have been built without the ski area.
Now for the contrasts. The Silver Mountain Gondola was also a perfect fit for this area. You have a very small town like Kellogg with little or no transit issues within it's city limits. They wanted to preserve space at the resort base for development instead of paving parking lots. The gondola base is about a 1/4 mile from I-90 making the particular geographical layout perfect. This gondola does not serve any urban transit function. Again this installation resembles more the Foothill to Malan's base leg than any proposed urban leg. Sure the base is right adjacent to the downtown area like the Ogden plan but the similarity ends there. There is 4 miles of Urban route between our downtown proposed base and the Foothill base. Kellogg is nothing like this. Again, Peterson is welcome to build his mountain gondola if he can secure the land for a foothill base. As for Ogden's inner city transit needs. The gondola will not serve nor provide any backbone to reach key centers of urban activity. It also fails to contribute to street level development. Something that Ogden needs to lead the way for a new urbanism. Ogden is not like all the rest of Utah's exploding new cities. Those other cities are being carved fresh out of retired farmland. Ogden is an old city with fixed boundaries and little newly developable acreage. Cities like this must focus on REdevelopment which is why a transit corridor is so key to our resurgence. Unfortunately for all the rest of the suburban hotbeds they have no central city with magnificent historical homes. Ogden does have this and wide streets shaded by 100 year old trees. Our situation lends itself to street level transit which will stimulate that redevelopment making Ogden's central core great again instead of sliding steadily into rental property and bulldozing perfectly restorable buildings. A gondola system to reach the foothill for a proposed tiny resort places too much emphasis on that proposal as the lynchpin to Ogden's resurgence and assumes tourists are what this city needs. Tourism is fine but Ogden needs a transit corridor to stimulate that resurgence. Let Peterson build his resort without selling the golf course and Ogden retains part of what makes it great.
Dan S. makes the point clear that Malan's skier capacity will never place the kind of demand on our city to require such a system. We should concentrate on what our city needs, not Chris Peterson. Which leads me to this point. Most of these ski area and infrastructure projects are done by corporations. Only in Ogden do we get an individual who probably salivates everytime his name gets in the paper which is quite often. I'm sure he and the mayor feel that the personal touch will serve the project well. Hardly. I get damn tired of hearing his name tossed about as the saviour of our community. It's gotten so tiresome to hear what Chris Peterson wants. Sounds like we are serving it up to some child who won't take no for an answer. Corporate structure came about as a function of infrastructural needs. The first corporation in America was formed to fund and build a badly needed bridge, an Infrastructure. Corporate structure allowed everyday citizens to form an investment group to build things that were necessary for their common livelihood...bridges, tunnels, causeways, toll roads, etc. Corporations today exist only to serve the profit and growth needs of the stockholders and get quite a lot of preferential treatment from the government and the IRS. This has evolved considerably from the original spirit of the corporation. The pointin this corporate rant is that todays ski corporations are quite sophiticated when viewing development plans and come to communities with well drawn proposals that are easy to understand and shape to a communities needs. Here we get Chris Peterson who thinks he can do all of this singlehandedly without showing us his backing, any engineered plans and has the gall to try to force a sale of municipal parklands. This last attemp would have him run out of town in any other outdoor sports community.
The SE map is a joke and only serves up more disinformation. Why not show a local layout with a map of their gondola route. Is the SE too cheap to pay mapquest or other professional mapping services. Their map provides even less information than their statement of Kelloggs locale in the opening paragraphs. I thought map boxes were supposed to provide clarity.
I don't know what more to say than what was said yesterday that also applies to todays awful piece.
The piece leaves the impression in it's language that Gondolas alone spur growth. Well they have to go somewhere. Gondolas either shuttle skiers up steep mountains or connect between two key points of human activity. In Telluride it connects the historical town to the new Mountain Village with the ski mountain conveniently between. You could not ask for a more perfect situation. In Kellogg it connects the very small town with the ski resort. They are building a similar setup in Breckenridge and Avon Colorado which share a similar geographic layout. Kellogg, Breckenridge and Avon all needed to eliminate the mountain access traffic. All three had no urban ground to traverse and no transit need for the gondola. Our mayor somehow, somewhere, latched onto this idea of gondola as urban transit and ran with it without doing any research as to it's best application. My sense is that Peterson simply hopes to garner and leverage the complete gondola installation contract so that the cities gondola budget subsidizes his gondola when purchased under one contract form Doppelmayer or Poma. Notice doppelmayer, who have a substantial presence in Utah, are strangely silent in all of this. I do not think they get into promoting themselves rather waiting for contracts to come to them. They could be in a heap of mess if they promoted the construction of a rig that turned out to be a loser. Still it would be nice to hear their engineer's view of the proposals around here. Of course if they said it was unwise they would be shooting themselves in the foot losing a lucrative 6 miles of gondola construction. This is equal to their average yearly construction from what I can see of worldwide gondola construction. Surely Peterson sees the potential of swinging a sweet deal by cornering and muddling the whole thing to the city.
Ogden does not fit that layout. For some reason the term transit has been placed on the gondola system yet transit is usually reserved for systems that serve urban arteries
Peterson and the mayor have drooled over the prospect of "Good Money" coming when they buy up our municipal golf course. This "Good Money" is in the form of second home owners who traditionally spend little time in their second homes and little time in the host community spending little money there. Most ski resorts are filled with unoccupied second homes making the neighborhoods mere ghost towns. I've lived in a couple. Nice for the quiet. Sanitized for the rich. Not my idea of a warm cozy feel. I like the sound of kids playing and the sight of homeowners tending their properties. There would be none of this in Petersons Utopia of footprint 1031 investment boxes.
If you truly want "Good Money" then lets focus on a transit corridor that will stimulate redevelopment in Ogden's core bringing that money in the form of skilled handy folk who wield tools and are not looking for the next tax shelter. These real people will rebuild Ogden's historic homes and make a contribution to the beautification of the inner city in renewed pride and investment. It is not buig money that will make the difference here. Fortunately Ogden has a ton of homes awaiting hard working individuals eager to rebuild. These same tradefolk will open small businesses along a Transit Route and create life instead of caricature small town replicas recently found along the gulf coast and on Disneylands Main Street. You cannot recreate cities like Ogden but they can be preserved. A Transit Corridor will do just that insuring our city will look and feel as it does for a few more generations, Parklands and all.
"A Transit Corridor will do just that insuring our city will look and feel as it does for a few more generations, Parklands and all."
Just as it has for the last 20+ years. God forbid something change around here.
From Schlepke's article:
"Kellogg, a 3.1-mile-long gondola, the longest nonstop people carrier in the world...."
Just one more example of the disengenuous crap put out by the Gondolists!
I guess in their zeal to put out as much phony propoganda as they possibly can, the Godfrey Group Think choir has forgotten about the trains, busses, and ocean spanning airlines that the rest of the world is familiar with.
All incidently "nonstop people carriers"
They have no shame, they will lie even when the truth is better.
Unfortunately the complex nature of this proposal lends itself to and requires long winded analysis and critique. It's the complexity that, if approved, will have worked in it's favor confounding those with less attention span. I do appreciate your comment though and I will temper my analysis for awhile, at least until tomorrow's installment. I don't think i have pushed anyone out though. there is plenty of virtual space here and you can always skip over my posts. I also have not insulted anyone in an attempt to drive them away. You, Marion, are welcome to dredge up some of your own research to add.
Anonymous, things are changing around here without a gondola or a transit corridor. A transit corridor will assure we continue what the city founders started. A nice tree lined urban setting alive with homeowners and locally owned small business. Ogden is a little older than 20 years.
Rudi, I couldn't believe you weren't making up the part about the Jack Ass Ski Bowl and Jack Ass Gulch, but there it was on their town website! Thanks for starting my morning off with a laugh to compensate for the disgusted feeling I got from Schwebke's article.
It would have been interesting to learn something about the demographics of the 86 people who have bought the luxury condos and those who supposedly have plunked down money for those still under construction. This would be important information to be gleaned from a visit to Kellog, so did anyone bother to ask?
Oh, I forgot, LO people don't ask questions.
If you run the CPI Inflation Calculator on the construction cost of either the Telluride or Kellogg gondola, you get about $21 million in today's dollars. Yet the former is only 2.5 miles long (with two intermediate stops) and the latter is 3.1 miles long (with no intermediate stops). Ogden's proposed urban gondola would be 4.5 miles long with three intermediate stops. No matter how I do the math I keep getting costs in the $30-$40 million range.
"A nice tree lined urban setting alive with homeowners and locally owned small business. Ogden is a little older than 20 years."
LOL no kidding? Older than 20 years? Wow. I must be an idiot.
I only write about the time I've been here.
But you said it best, change is happenig either way. A gondola is not going to stop Ogden from having small business and homeowners either.
I get your point, but you are doing the samething you accuse your oposition of doing just on the flip side of the coin.
Your comments are appreciated, cause I'm striving to not be such an idiot.
If Ogden is going to follow the lead of Kellog, Idaho on this Gondola scheme, then let us be true to their methods.
THEY HAD A PUBLIC VOTE ON THEIRS!!!!!
If Godfrey and the Gondolists truly believe all the propoganda they are putting out, why are they so afraid to put their case to the voters?
If their story is true and makes sense, then the citizens will see the wisdom in the scheme and vote it in. End of debate.
If you put it to a vote I would assume the Ogden public would vote in favor of building the gondola. Did they not vote Godfrey into office 2 times? Although people voted for council members last year who were opposed to many of Godfrey's ideas, I don't see that being a trend. Putting the gondola up to some kind of vote (I don't know what good it would do since the proponents need WSU's and others approval before moving forward) would be a good gesture or a proper thing to do, especially since this issue has divided the community, the truth is the matter the people would vote yes for it. Also, Dan S., based on what I've seen and heard, it will likely cost a lot more than $30-40 million to build the gondola, I'm afraid the CPI you referenced does not take into account actual construction costs these days (which have increased dramatically just within the past year or two). If memory serves me correclty, wasn't there a projected number in the rail study?
Why not stick to that?
below harrison,
we voted in the little mayor only because he was the lessor of the two evils. the first was bobby hunter, and the other was jesse (james) garcia. so don't tell me we voted him in twice. because he will not make it another term.
What makes you so sure that if he runs again that he won't be voted in again. He does have a lot of supporters. Also, what would this blog do with no Mayor Godfrey, I'm sure just the thought of that gives Rudi nightmares.
I agree. If it went to a vote, the public would be in favor of it by a majority. Not because they support godfrey, but it would be a campaign of hope and change. And the promise of a bright future...real or imagined...wins everytime.
More Kellogg links:
Tarnished Luster
...In the late 1980s, local business people in Kellogg tried to rekindle the economy and attract tourists by turning the town into an “alpine village” with faux-Bavarian storefronts and other bric-a-brac. The tacky remnants of that experiment still disfigure downtown...
Kellogg Redefined Spring 2006
...The City of Kellogg began looking seriously at the potential for development of the ski area already established and operated by the Bunker Hill Company on the mountain above the town. One of the advantages for ski tourism was the good highway access to northwestern cities via Interstate 90. The mountain was challenging but offered potential for expansion to include a wide variety of ski runs. The major disadvantage to the ski tourism strategy was the difficult access route from Kellogg and the highway to the ski area. Recognizing this, the people of Kellogg began a campaign to acquire funding to build a gondola lift that would lift skiers directly from the town to the ski area. A gondola was seen as a solution to the problem of difficult access, and a tourist attraction in itself, conveniently located at an entrance to Kellogg from the interstate highway...
KELLOGG RESIDENTS HOPE AMBITIOUS SKI RESORT PROJECT ISN'T A SNOW JOB, 1996
...Part of the money Bartho put into the project represented reservations for 12 or 15 lots in the development, he said, and the rest was investment. He said he was frustrated at the slow pace of the development and displeased that Lane would not give an accounting of how the money was spent.
According to Lane, Bartho converted his equity and investment interests into a note secured by mortgages, and as such was not entitled to an accounting...
so put it to a vote. and we will see how much support the mayor really has?
I think that the mayor dosen't want it to go to a vote, because he will lose it and it will make him look bad. what ya bet i'm right? besides he will say we live in a democracy not a republic. so there.
No offense, but I think he would say we live in a Republic, not a Democracy.
My question to you would be, at what point does an item have to go to the people for a vote? Just the ones that some people don't agree with their elected leaders? Or every decision that needs to addressed?
And right now, the poll linked form both Lift Ogden and Smartgrowth is running about 55% in favor.
Good info, Dian. I have a friend who works in Kellog as a Planner (of all things). He speaks very favorably of the gondola there. I used to live near the area and I agree that it has, overall, been a success in the broadest sense of the term. However, the gondola is significantly different than what is being proposed here and Kellog is a much different place than Ogden, to me the two cannot be even remotely compared. Just because a gondola worked there (which can be debated) does not mean one will work here, especially as has been proposed by Peterson.
On the vote and to Anon:
I have no idea how it would come out. We have to remember that the LO crowd is skilled in marketing campaigns. That's what they are running now for the gondola/Peterson proposals: a marketing campaign, devoid of nearly all hard information and replete with pie in the sky promises of wealth, prosperity and Paris Hilton and her entourage stepping off the Frontrunner to shop Prada and stay in Ogden before riding two gondolas that won't take her to Snow Basin. And they promise it all, again with no supporting evidence, practically for free. Sadly, the SE is helping this deceptive advertising along by returning to its "$20 million" estimate for the cost of building, according to the latest two front page articles, the entire gondola system from downtown to Malan's Basin. Where they got they estimate, they don't say. What it is based on, the SE doesn't say. But it serves the Godfrey Gondola Sales Teams purposes admirably.
The one real advantage of putting the Peterson land sale/gondola proposal up to a public vote, a referendum at some point, is this: this community is badly divided on this matter. It will cost, if it goes through, the city its largest park and most of the city's undeveloped benchl parklands and trails. It will encumber millions upon millions for years to come, and all on a gamble that a Malan's Basin ski resort will be econimically viable. Given that, the decision should not be made by a Council with members serving staggered terms, and for the next year, with one memember not elected at all, but appointed [thanks to the Hon. {?} Mr. Glassman's deciding he didn't really want to be a Councilman after all]. The decision to proceed, if it is made at all, should be made by the people. If that's what the majority of voters approve, then so be it. I think the consequences for Ogden would be bad, both short term and long term, but if the majority supports the plan at the polls, then at least the choice will have been made by the public, not by a thin majorty of politicos.
Anon: you ask at what point do we bring things to the public for ratification. Reasonable question. And I agree that in the normal course of events, government, even city government, cannot be operated by endless referenda. But I also remind you that it was Mayor Godfrey who, not too long ago, insisted that approval of the gondola and Peterson proposals would bring the biggest change to hit Ogden since the coming of the railroad. Taking him at his word, a change that big, with that many potential consequences, it seems to me, calls for clear public approval first, not at one remove. It calls for a referendum so that whatever the results, and consequences, the people will have made the decision. .
Below Harrison: You're right, the best estimate of the urban gondola construction cost is still the one from the transit corridor study. The study didn't look at the exact configuration that's now on the table, but it did look at one that was pretty similar, and the cost should carry over: $45 million, including a 30% contingency.
I brought up the CPI-adjusted costs of the Telluride and Kellogg gondolas merely as an additional piece of corroborating evidence that the $20 million figure being quoted for the Ogden urban gondola is significantly too low.
I wouldn't want to predict how the people of Ogden would vote on a gondola referendum. Would probably depend on exactly what they were being promised and exactly what they were being asked to give up. But...
* The mayoral elections of 1999 and 2003 give us no basis to predict the outcome, because most voters (myself included) thought the tram/gondola idea was dead during both of these election seasons. In 1999 it had been a year since residents loudly shouted down the tram as it was proposed in the previous year's feasibility study. Godfrey revived the idea soon after he was elected, but it then died again when the Snowbasin land exchange took place in May 2000, and there was no further public discussion of it until right after his reelection in 2003. Records show that he was working hard behind the scenes all this time, but he never mentioned the gondola in public during his 2003 campaign, for good reason: he knew it would alienate many of the voters on the east bench which was otherwise his base of support.
* The StandardNet poll tells us nothing because its participants are self-selected, and needn't even live in Ogden.
* The Standard-Examiner did commission a small but scientific poll in January 2004. The results leaned against the tram, but the margin of error left a bit of room for doubt.
* I've heard that a scientific Dan Jones poll was conducted in June or July. I don't know who paid for the poll, or how the questions were worded, or why the results haven't been released. I did, however, hear a rumor that the overall result was a pretty even split. Even this poll, however, probably wouldn't predict the outcome of a referendum because additional facts continue to emerge, and there would be additional campaigning leading up to any vote.
Appropos of I am not sure what, I offer the following item from the just arrived most recent High Country News:
An ad in the Telluride Watch --- not a misprint --- revealed that air pollution is an expensive privilege in a high-altitude resort town: A fireplace permit in Mountain Village was on offer for $75,000.
Good point regarding the fact that anyone can vote in the SE poll.
"What makes you so sure that if he runs again that he won't be voted in again."
LOL. Sorry to butt in but here's this:
Boss Godfrey told me that himself, last year, before the gondola s*** had even started to hit the fan.
Ogden city grownups are now onto his mendacious act; and his only remaining constituency consists of starry-eyed youngsters barely able to vote... not a great voter demographic for a run at another term.
Rudi:
I wish that were true, but I'm not sure it is. I wouldn't count the Chamber of Commerce, enthusiastically pushing support for his friend's real estate specualtion, an organization of "starry-eyed youngsters barely able to vote."
He would have a harder time next election, though, but this normally is true of long-term incumbants in local government. The longer you are in, the more people you tick off, the larger the opposition vote gets. And he can't run as a stealth "sell off the public parks to fund a gondola" candidate next time.
I'll tell ya what, curmudgeon...
I'll betcha a beer and a shot he doesn't even make a run...
Do we have a bet?
Boilermakers? I'm long past those, compadre. You're on for a brew, though.
I can guarantee you that if and when the Little Lord comes before the voters again that they will know the whole ugly disgusting story of his sorry assed reign. What it has cost us, who he has stepped on, and numerous lies he has told the citizens over all these loser projects that have cost the tax payers north of $70,000,000.00 so far.
He and his whold circle of worthless empty suits are soon going to be on the dust heap of history and I am just chomping at the bit to participate in their demise. I owe that much to Ogden.
So anonymous, if you really think this stupid urban gondola idea would win at the ballot box why don't you come out and promote the idea to your LO followers. Otherwise why don't you whip out the old academy ethics manual and refresh yourself. It occurs to me that you may have forgotten a bit here and there.
It seemed to me that todays story on Kellogg was long on comments by the people that went on the trip trying to pump up the gondolas benefits to the community and little on actual effects that the gondola has had on the community. No real beneficial economic effect stories, no job growth stories and no booming real estate market stories other than the out-of-towner condos.
Sometimes what's not said, says alot. Dig a little deeper into Kellogg current economic situation and you'll see what I mean.
Here's a little preview to tomorrow's story. Apparently in Cortez, Co. they explored an aerial tramway link to Mesa Verde National Park. This would allow visitors to the Park to eliminate the 25 mile windy drive to the center of the Park. The Park Service was also cooperating as part of a longterm transportation plan. I guess it all fell through but this could have been a decent project. National Parks such as Mesa Verde have become bumper-to-bumper experiences for a good protion of the year. Anyway here is a link to a National Park Archive. View number 16. It's a PDF file.
Link
ON the SE's visit to Telluride and Kellog:
Only rumor, but I'm hearing that the Godfrey Fact Finding Team [politely so called] , with SE reporter in tow to act as a sounding board for their gondola gushings, spent little more than an hour on the ground at each resort town "studying" the sites.
Again, what in the world possesed the SE management when it sent along a reporter with the Godfrey Gondola Sales team to make a dash-and-run lightning visit to Telluride and Kellog to "study" what the gondolas had accomplished in each of those small ski resort towns? If the purpose was not to have Mr. Schwebke provide space in a supposedly objective [you should excuse the expression] "article" for their unexamined sales pitches [which he dutifully did], then what was the purpose?
I am begining to wonder if we are not piling on Mr. Schwebke unfairly, if in fact the word did not come down from on high at the SE -- where ever on high is at the Examiner...the publisher? --- to pimp for the Godfrey Peterson Real Estate Speculation Gondola Extravaganza, and the staff, Mr. Schwebke included, was simply carrying out the instructions he got.
Do I know this for a fact? No. Only speculation. But I'm finding it harder and harder to explain Schwebke accompaning the Godfrey Gondola Sales Team on these lighting fast visits and the resulting "articles" without factoring in some kind of direction from the top.
Here is another link that gives the feasibility conclusions. I'll take back my previous comment that this may have been a decent project. Checking my Topo USA map shows it is 7 miles from downtown Cortez to the Park Rim. Any way the link is a good read with some lessons for Ogden. Don't be surprised if some of this shows up tomorrow morning. This links to a series of articles related. The top one is the final one.
Cortez Tram
oz...if you were referring to me when you wrote this:
"So anonymous, if you really think this stupid urban gondola idea would win at the ballot box why don't you come out and promote the idea to your LO followers. Otherwise why don't you whip out the old academy ethics manual and refresh yourself. It occurs to me that you may have forgotten a bit here and there."
You are misguided. I have nothing to do with LO or SG. I simply stated that I think if the thing went to a vote it would win because a community that continually has a chip on its should might just vote pro in order to see SOMETHING happen.
You can think otherwise...and I won't feel the need to try to insult you at some level.
Not everything you read is a loaded comment.
I m curious how you came up with the $70 million figure though.
crum-I will say this...Above all, the SE Managment is cheap. And my guess is, that even though they paid thier own way, the price on the chartered plane was cheap. If you can fill your pages witha story that was cheap and people will read it no matter what it actually says, those are dollars well spent.
Anonymous
You are not the only one using "anonymous" It is also the handle used by one of LO's most rabid and mindless promoters. Your post sounded suspiciously like him. If you are not he, my apologies.
As to the $70 million plus, take a gander at the following. This incidently is not a complete list of our public debt. The vast majority of these projects are complete losers and directly attributable to Godfrey's genius:
Mall purchase and demo $12,000,000
Woodbury law suit settle 5,000,000
Rec Center 20,000,000
American Can fiasco 8,000,000
Kiesel Parking garage 750,000
Hampton Inn 1,500,000
BDO #1 6,500,000
BDO #2 850,000
BDO #3 3,300,000
Union Square condos 4,000,000
25th infastructure 4,500,000
Washington Blvd project? 3,500,000
Fresnius 1,900,000
William International 4,750,000
Kemp give away 2,300,000
Total is "some where north" of $70 million bucks. More like $79 million actually. A couple of them are likely good like the BDO, Fresnius and Williams stuff, although they are all now pledged to the mall fiasco (as is every other RDA project in the city) A couple of them pre date Godfrey so to be fair they can't be pinned on him. But all in all the bulk of these Ogden City public debts are thanks to Godfrey and his empty suits. Nothing they have done has succeeded and most likely won't.
These are the same guys that want to sell most of the Mount Ogden Park and take a huge gamble on building an urban gondola with the proceeds. Said Gondola will service Godfrey buddy Peterson's resort. If the resort doesn't succeed then it will all be lost. None of these guys could make it as low level supervisors in private industry with this sorry track record.
They would all be laughed out of any successful corporation. But with our public money they are real high flyers.
Ozboy,
Can you explain how much of this debt is structured and how is it being paid back right now? If not, you are not giving the whole story. You probably don't understand it.
Your own personal economics might still consist of cash, a mattress, and constant mutterings about going back to the gold standard, but that is not the world today.
If debt were always a bad thing, very few of us would be in homes right now or have jobs.
By the way, you completely forgot the IRS blocks, the intermodal hub area, the River Project, and so many more projects that are benefiting Ogden right now. None of those projects is paid for with cash, so to speak.
If this debt were so crushing, awful and looming on the citizens of Ogden, why aren't there massive tax hikes being forced upon us right this minute? Why aren't the banks citing us as a basket case? Why are our interest rates so low? Why isn't the state saying something? Why are those darn businesses still coming in? Where are the Fed's? For %&$'s sake, where are the Fed's?
It is easy to fret about debt without understanding the structure of it. It is easy to not do anything because at least you aren't risking anything. There is no way you are in private enterprise. You are a government employee, or on a pension. The rest of us that have to worry about the economy, job future and security and desire a great future for Ogden are saying, "It's about time" for growth, expansion, and betterment for the city.
Of course there is bad debt. Not everything you list in your post is working like it should. But that is the nature of risk. Most of the things you cite are doing very well and are filling vital needs the community has. If none of these things had happened, what would downtown, the BDO, or the job-base of this city look like today?
I would suggest you stop losing sleep over "debt," and worry much, much more about how the debt is structured, what the pay back is, and what you would do differently to make growth and improvement happen around here and let people know.
If you have a better idea for downtown development---say something! If you have a better way for creating jobs in the west part of town or up north, say something. If you have a better way of beautifying, creating, or generating investment in Ogden, say something.
Criticizing is easy. Understanding and actually making a positive difference is hard.
Anyone have this morning's Cortez installment yet or do I have to trudge out and buy a roll of SlandardExaminus Toilet Tissue
It's coming right up, TOD.
Check back in about ten minutes.
To be fair, I think the Standard needs to do a similar series on streetcars. Streetcars were successful in the early-twentieth century all across America (in Ogden the tracks were everywhere running up and down 21st, 23rd, 25th and 27th streets, up Ogden Canyon, along Washington Boulevard and Wall Avenue) and would still be a success today if not for the priority given to the personal automobile and the intentional shutting down and gutting of city tram systems by automobile, oil and tire interests. How fitting would a streetcar system be in Ogden? Not only would it meet Ogden’s future transportation needs, it would fit with the wonderful historic character of the City.
Anybody else see the last call-in show on Ogden's channel 16 or 17 (I forget which it is)? Among other mistruths, the mayor is saying the streetcar will cost local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Be prepared for next week's transportation open house/meeting where the mayor will likely be throwing around his bias for gondolas.
And speaking of Ogden's own channel, wouldn't it be great if they would broadcast City Council, Planning Commission, and other city meetings? As much as I enjoy watching Wag (is that his name?) interview people at the Newgate Mall over and over and over and over again, couldn't the station be used for something else, too?
To Anonymous that responded to Ozboy with regard to debt,
I too am concerned about the level of debt that the city has taken on.
Responsible debt is not a bad thing and it allows for home ownership and higher returns on investments. Your explanation that without debt most of us wouldn’t have a home is an example of this point. But if a homeowner that has a home mortgage continually takes out second and third mortgages on their home or continually refinances their home to take out the equity, they eventually end up without equity in their homes or at a higher risk of foreclosure should the housing market decline or their ability to make house payments be diminished.
When the city uses the proceeds from one of our financially successful projects to finance or subsidize the short comings of another project then I get concerned. This to me indicated that the latter project couldn’t stand on its own merits and probably shouldn’t have been invested in. The successful project that generate revenue should use its revenues to pay off the debt associated with that project and only after that debt is paid off should the cash flow be applied to other projects. That isn’t what’s happening from what I can tell in the city of Ogden. To suggest that the latter project referred to above will provide other economic benefits somewhere else in the city or will provide some type of synergy to other economic activities is simply rationalizing a bad investment decision. Some conservative amount of these types of investments probably should be entered into by a city for various reasons but Ogden City seems to be committing to more than their fair share of these type of projects and not just small ones either.
My perception is that Ogden has taken on too much debt relative to risk profiles of the things that it has invested in. Risk being defined as investments that will never meet their anticipated financial returns or investments that are an all or none propositions. An example of the latter would be the proposed urban gondola. There’s the potential that this project would not only not make a return but also end up as a zero on the asset side of the balance sheet but still have a debt attached to the debit side of the balance sheet. The risk to the city and the risk to residents being that if these types of investments don’t work out as the city has envisioned then we as taxpayers are on the line to make up the financial short falls, i.e. our taxes go up. Additionally if other investments of the city ends up not performing up to the returns as promised, then this affects our city’s bond rating and once again we as residents end up paying for these poor calls, i.e. our taxes go up.
I’m all for business development but let’s get real, not all opportunities presented to the city are worthy of our participation and yet we continue to commit to anyone that comes through the door. If their investment schemes can’t stand on their own financial merits as an investment, then we as a city should wish them luck and walk them out the door. I almost get the feeling that the management of the city feels that if they bet on enough of these long shots then sooner or later one of them will pay off big. I don’t like the city playing Lotto with my money.
As far as your comments about coming up with better ideas, you obviously must think exactly like our mayor because I can assure you from my personal experience he is not open to others perspectives or suggestions. It’s his way or the highway.
Below Harrison:
You wrote:
To be fair, I think the Standard needs to do a similar series on streetcars.
I think Mr. Greiling's piece in Saturday's paper touting the upcoming gondola articles also said the SE was planning to do articles on other transportation options in the west. Perhaps what you suggestis coming, or something like it.
We can only hope, if so, they will be better done than the recent three embarassing pieces of gondola propaganda thinly disguised as "reporting."
anonymous
Spoken like the Captain of the Titanic!
When this house of cards that Goddfrey and the Empty suits have built crumbles then you will understand.
Neo Con's and unlimited debt advocates like you and the little one never get it until the ship hits the iceberg.
There is no such thing as free money, somebody somewhere is going to pay for all of these failures that Godfrey has created. It will be the citizens of Ogden!
Seems like you as a believer should be informing the citizens about how reasonable this massive debt is and how good it is for their future and their kids future. Common genius, give us the details so's we can be enlightened economists like you.
I would be more than happy to match my business acumen and successes with any one in the Godfreyite movement.
Oh by the way, any successes in the Ogden portfolio actually belong to prior administrations. And, the river project is by no stretch of the imagination a "success".
Hey, check out "Waiting for the Gondola" by Bob Sawatzki in Salt Lake City Weekly, Sept. 28, 2006
Waiting for the Gondola
Thanks, Bob!
We appreciate your contribution!
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