Judging a Wanna-be Developer by His Demonstrated "Performance"

This morning's Standard-Examiner headline, "WSU waiting for gondola plan," suggests the question that many of us in our Emerald City community have been asking with increasing urgency:

"Where the hell is Chris Peterson, and his "plan?"

And the other real estate stake-holder, the Emerald City council likewise remains entirely and completely in the dark, according to this morning's Scott Schwebke headline story.

Mr. Peterson and his Gondola Cult Zombie-henchmen have spent over a year splitting our community down the middle, and subjected us to a relentless military-style "shock and awe"public relations barrage. We've witnessed with painful embarrassment the ludicrous spectacle of our city's #1 elected executive officer behaving as a common huckster, scheduling incessant public and private propaganda sessions, wasting public assets, hanging with a very devious and dubious crowd, and turning the tactic of political arm-twisting into a lower art-form all its own. We've watched as our city council has bent over backwards to demonstrate its "good faith," without even a hint of reciprocity on Mr. Peterson's part. And in the ultimate demonstration of dumb blind faith, our Emerald City planning commission is reportedly on the brink of expediting the process of dis-assembling our existing planning and zoning scheme, just in case Mr. Peterson ever does come through with anything tangible. "We have to get it done before the end of the year, " says, Boss Godfrey's Uncle (Greg) Montgomery. "Time is of the essence," he says.

How embarrassing... for us.

"The ball is in Mr. Peterson's court," we say. "It's put up or shut up time. " It's time either to (do something entirely unprintable on our nice family blog...) "or get off the pot," as the old country folk-saying goes.

Of course, Mr. Peterson "cannot be reached for comment," even by the very tenacious Ace Reporter Schwebke. The closest thing reporter Schwebke can find approaching an actual public Peterson statement for today's article is something said way back in August by by Mr. Peterson's hired Salt Lake City mouthpiece: "A development agreement could come sometime this fall," is what Mr. Ellison said. (We assumed at the time that he was talking about the fall of 2006.)

So what say our gentle readers? Isn't it time for Mr. Peterson the "Show us the Beef?"

And we'll add one more tidbit. This is all rumor; so take it for what it's worth::

We are receiving persistent reports that Mr. Peterson may have already and quietly "pulled the plug" on his ambitious but un-sellable gondola/landgrab scheme. According to one anonymous but heretofor trustworthy source, Peterson has already "called off" his investors. If this is the case, we urge Mr. Peterson to behave in a gentlemanly way, let the citizens of Emerald City off the hook, and publicly inform us that the "plan" is DOA. That way we can get back to the business of reveling in the real economic revitaliztion that seems to be happening all around us now.

So please speak up, gentle readers. Does there really remain any reason to take this Peterson guy seriously? Hasn't he wasted enough of our time and energy already? Is Mr. Peterson's demonstrated performance (or lack thereof) the kind of performance we would expect of the developer-linchpin in any important public-private partnership? Isn't it time that the citizens of Emerald City just cut this sad-sack loose? Isn't it time for Boss Godfrey to cut his losses, and remove this ridiculous albatross from his political neck? Wouldn't Boss Godfrey be entitled to at least a little bit of praise... if he admitted he was wrong just this once?

So many questions... so few answers.

The floor is open.

Happy Monday morning, everyone!

Update 10/30/06 3:01 p.m. MT: There is a Smart Growth Ogden letter circulating via snail-mail regarding the upcoming November 1, 2005 Planning Commission meeting, during which that body has MAJOR CHANGES slated for Emerald City's zoning ordinances.

Although we have Curmudgeon posting here, and other Smart Growth members reading...

We wonder why NOBODY IN THAT ORGANIZATION has published info about Wednesday's critical planning commision meeting here.

Here's the letter we received (indirectly) today from somebody on the Smart Growth list who's a little "pissed" about this oversight:

RE: Wednesday 11/1/06 Planning Commission meeting

Turf battle brewiug here in the Emerald City underground perhaps?

We would think Smart Growth would be wanting to get the message out.

Oh well...