We issue here a gentle reminder of tonight's community meeting, wherein the Emerald City Planning Department will present a digest of the "Mount Ogden neighborhood plan" sessions to date, and allow for more "public input":
Date: November 16, 2006
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location:
Mount Ogden Middle School
3260 Harrison Blvd.
Ogden, UT
Bend your schedule to be there tonight... or be prepared to "bend over" later.
We think tonight's event presents an ideal opportunity for the citizens of Emerald City to show up in force, to take "the process" under their own control again, and to let Boss Godfrey's Uncle Montgomery and other Planning Department staff know who's really in charge in re the ongoing planning/zoning process.
Bring along your torches and pitchforks, fellow lumpenvillagers.
10 comments:
semper fi! hail, torches lit and all that!
Who is really in charge of Ogden? A bunch of misguided bloggers? Self-serving politicians? Disingenuous planners? Gondola bamboozlers? The ordinary everyday folk of Ogden who make Ogden what it is are not going to show up to tonight's meeting and their voices won't be heard because they are ignored and the only the attention they ever receive is mere tokenism.
Go to tonight's meeting, Below Harrison.
Half the people you'll see there will be the little apple-faces, the citizens who've been residing in the MT. Ogden neighborhood since even before you were a mere glimmer in your daddy's eye.
Tonight's meeting will be democracy in action -- attended by concerned citizens who demand a voice in the manner in which our precious Mt. Ogden Park public property is treated -- an event thst will be heavily-attended by everyone with a stake in our very unique Mt. Ogden neighborhood.
I must say as a resident of the Mt. Ogden community it sure wasn't well publicized that the meeting was going to take place tonight.
I sure didn't get any notice from the city about this meeting either. Only saw a small, inside, at the bottom of the page, outside edge of the news paper article today. I can't make it tonight because of previous commitments. This isn't fair.
I think they should have a second meeting since this one was so poorly publicized.
Gee, didn't you get your city paid for, by city employee stuffed water bill insert???
How'd that happen? Do they have your address?
Thanks to all who attended the first Mt. Ogden meeting and to those who served on the committees. Some very good ideas came out of the committees that had the stamp of some very good and thorough thougt processes behind them.
One thing in particular that really started me thinking was the possibility of upstairs residential with lower level retail. This type of development has worked very well in the 9th and 9th and 15th and 15th areas of Salt Lake City. You get neighborhood markets, bakeries, boutiques, and coffee shops next to historical residential. The entire concept allows and encourages greater foot traffic, neighbors getting out and meeting each other, and reduces the need for climbing in your car. I can clearly envision something like this type of development around the university (to increase housing density without large apartment buildings) and in our older neighborhoods to increase the sense of community. It is unfortunate that Mixed Use has become such a hateful word as of late. This is mixed use that I can clearly see working in some of our neighborhoods.
As to development in the city, I do and have seen for a number of years that Ogden has incredible potential. The city did not necessarily need a catalyst as much as it needed to be appreciated. I think the potential is obvious to just about everyone. What I can't understand is the need for a gondola through the center of town. It makes absolutely no sense. There are simply better modes of transportation. Why is it constantly 'my way or the highway' with the mayor? Hasn't he ever heard that there are different ways to increase the vitality of an area? It must be nice to have such a high horse to ride around.
Have just returned from this meeting. An initial presentation by Greg Montgomery was held in the auditorium. This was a power point presentation with recommendations by the various steering committees. A list of who was on those committees was also included.
After this presentation, the power point slides minus names of committee members were duplicated on large posters in the hall. Attendees were equipped with yellow, green, and pink post-it notes and tiny pencils--the golf scoring kind. One was to write comments on these post-it notes and post them next to the points on the big posters. Green was that one agreed, yellow was sort of agree, but caution, and pink was that you didn't like this at all.
I personally found this quite novel and fun and once again will highly compliment the municipal staff who comes up with these things. I do not know, however, whether the post-it notes will stay on the posters when they are removed or whether the comments will be written down anywhere. This could be a downside, because the next step is for the Planning Commission to formulate the Neighborhood Plan, and this meeting was supposed to be for public input as to what the steering committees had done. Also, many were having trouble distinguishing between the colors yellow and green under the flourescent lighting. But this was probably fine, all in all--there was a preponderance of green/yellow notes on the posters.
In a nutshell, the Mount Ogden neighborhood wants to preserve its character. It does not want the golf course sold. It knows that there are sewer and water problems that must be addressed. It seems not to want development of any kind, really, but especially not "cookie cutter development." Many of the proposed changes, such as sidewalks and lighting had "if desired" after them.
Saw the following Ogden City Council members there: Jesse Garcia, Amy Wicks, Dorrene Jeske, Rick Safsten, Susan Van Hooser, Doug Stephens. Also Alan Franke. Members of the Planning Commission were also there, of course, including the two new members--Lillie Holman and Iain Hueton. I did not see anyone from the city administration--not that they were not present, just that I didn't see them.
About 133 people, I think. Actually went over to the door and a staff member did a count at about 8:30 of those who had signed in and that's what it was.
I assumed everyone in the Mount Ogden neighborhood received a mailer about this meeting, but maybe not.
We thot it a very informative meeting! The post-it notes were a good idea...tho unless something was written on them to identify in which area one was commenting, I don't see how they will be useful in the long run. Novel tho.
Wonder if next time, if the same method is used, that a color would denote the subject...(eg) green for Park Complex, yellow for housing, etc...so the notes when jumbled will still contain some relevance.
I didn't attend the first meeting, but if it was like this one I say bravo to the planners!
It was good to see our City Council there, sans Stephenson, and so many members of the PC.
Everyone appeared positive. A good gathering.
The overriding sentiment was: "dont sell our golf course, and park...keep our open space"!
Mrs. Curmudgeon and I were there too. I was impressed. Have to admit, I didn't rally understand all that went into a "community plan" until tonight. Interesting suggestions about archetecture, densities, open space, water and sewer services, side walks, historic preservation and/or districts, parks, traffic, annexations, signage and much much more. The resulting community plan will clearly encompass a great deal more than I was aware of going in. [NB: I did not sit on any of the five citizen committees that produced the reports we all got a look at tonight. My thanks to the volunteer residents who did.]
Thanks, Dian, for the report on Council members there. I saw only two. Glad to know that more were present. And Sharon is right about the tone and feel of the meeting. Lots of conversations going on between residents, and residents and PC members, and residents and PC staff and residence and council members. Glad I went. Learned a lot. Good meeting, I thought.
Dear Anonymous,
In addition to the good examples of Mixed Use you cited from Salt Lake's 9th/9th and 15th/15th, you might want to include Union Square on Historic 25th Street. It already enjoys the perks of gracious living that you enumerate.
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