Weekend Kickoff Bits and Pieces

As we enter the weekend, we submit three print media articles for our readers' attention, as another weekend kick-off potpourri:

First, the absence of a palpable Peterson Plan is again strange Standard-Examiner front page news this morning, with an Amy Stewart headline piece, reporting that key local government decision makers still remain entirely outside the Peterson information loop.

Members of the Emerald City Council and Weber State University officials reportedly met in semi-annual joint session last Thursday to compare notes on the Peterson Land-grab. Unfortunately the information available to share in connection with the Landgrab Scheme amounts to exactly zero, zilch, zip & nada.

All the council has gotten from Chris Peterson so far is dead silence, says Councilwoman Wicks. And the council's carefully-compiled 184 council questions remain entirely ignored. WSU officials stand in a very similar position, of course.

Lacking anything substantive to talk about on the subject, WSU and Emerald City officials apparently reverted to a discussion of comparative bureaucratic plans and procedures to review the Peterson Proposal -- should such a proposal ever arrive at all.

We would consider the current state of affairs nothing more than antic comedy, were it not occurring right here in our beloved home town. Unfortunately, we find it difficult to laugh. The stakes are too high to work up much mirth. And it's discouraging to observe our conscientious public officials being compelled to run around in circles, as they faithfully perform the obligations of their public offices. On top of that, Peterson's secretive and uncommunicative behavior has been quite disgraceful, we think.

It's difficult to imagine the current mind-set of our official decision-makers concerning this topic at this juncture. They have a myriad of factors to consider. Still we think it's fair to speculate about what must be running through their minds at this point in the Peterson melodrama. Surely they must be coming to some conclusions, and drawing common-sense inferences about Mr. Peterson's aptitude for following through with his grand-scale project. And in this connection we think it's possible to consider what we'd be thinking, if we were standing in their shoes. If we were the official decision-makers what conclusions would we be drawing -- so far -- about Mr. Peterson's competence, capacity -- and character?

Our conclusions so far are not at all favorable. In our view Mr. Peterson has demonstrated a continuing pattern of aloofness, inattention, secrecy, duplicity and lack of follow-through. His inability to meet deadlines is demonstrably consistent. We think his continuing failure or refusal to keep our city council and WSU officials informed of his progress, if any, demonstrates discourtesy, at the very least, and outright disrespect, in a less-generous-case scenario.

Our official decision-makers ought to be reaching these same conclusions, we would logically speculate. They're only human, afterall.

And what think our gentle readers? Even assuming for sake of argument that Mr. Peterson has the financial capacity to pull off this project, is Chris Peterson the guy you would choose to ram-rod such a grandiose project? Would he be a tolerable public-private "partner?" Is it reasonable to expect that Mr. Peterson's performance, once he's in the developer driver's seat, would be any different from the level of performance he's demonstrated during the 1-1/2 years he's been in the Emerald City spotlight? So many questions -- so few answers.

Secondly, we move to the first page a link provided yesterday in a lower comments section by gentle reader Curmudgeon. The Standard-Examiner printed a fine article earlier this week, dealing with the topic of street cars and trolleys. We invite reader comments on this article.

Finally, we bring to the forefront a December 1, 2006 Std-Ex guest editorial, relevant to the Parklands Land-grab scheme. We find this article to have been particularly significant, in that it comes from a member of the locally-prominent Goddard family. Susie Goddard Hulet is of course the daughter of Jack Goddard, a well-known local real estate developer and financier. We've been keeping this article on the back burner, and have now decided to throw it out for discussion.

Don't let the cat get yer tongues...