SE Scores Scoop on St. Anne's Story
By Curmudgeon
Now this is a newspaper hitting on all eight cylinders. The Standard-Examiner has a front page story by Scott Schwebke revealing that the St. Anne's board is "not on board" with the move, that it has not told the Godfrey administration that it favors the move or even that it can carry it out successfully, and that it has pretty much been caught off guard by the city's asking for a $1 million state subsidy to pay for part of the move.
Two passages are particularly telling. Here's one: "The council placed the request on the list after being assured by Ogden Chief Administrative Officer John Patterson that the St. Anne's board is supportive of the building project."
Here's the other: "City Councilwoman Amy Wicks, who has asked Patterson several times for guarantees that St. Anne's board supports the project, said the proposal may have to be removed from the city's legislative wish list."
One of the St. Anne's people noted that there is as yet nothing for the board to indicate it favors, since there is as yet "no proposal" on the table. [Hmmmm... sound familiar? The administration claiming support for and asking for action on a proposal that does not yet exist...? Imagine that.]
Looks like Mr. Patterson and the Godfrey administration [aka The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight] has managed to reprise its stirling performance in the Shupe-Williams property sale matter, where it assured the Council the sale was a done deal, the Council approved the sale only to discover the the people the council had approved selling to didn't want to buy the property. And now, the Godfrey administration has assured the Council the St. Anne's board is fully on board and committed to the move, the Council on that assurance adds a million dollar grant to it's lobbyist's want list at the legislature, only to discover that what the administration had told it is not so.
We have to start wondering, and I hope the members of the Council are now wonder, how many times the Godfrey administration is going to hang them out to dry, is going to assure them of "facts" that are not facts, to give them guarantees as a means of urging the council to action that turn out to be worthless. Why would anyone take the Godfrey administration's word, delivered through its spokesmen like Mr. Patterson, as good any more?
Finally, kudos to the SE and Mr. Schwebke for this morning's story. Damn fine work, seems to me. Damn fine work.
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18 comments:
Good on Scott Schwebke!!
WHEN will this Council demand proof before voting for the mayor's schemes?
One would think the wool from their eyes would'v been knitted into several sweaters by now that could be donated to the 'homeless' at Ste Anne's.
How in the world could this Council have sent a 'letter' to the Leg. asking for one million bucks for Ste Anne's WITHOUT PROOF OF STE ANNE'S APPROVAL?? Patterson promised he'd show them the letter of support...just like we're all waiting for the complete answer to Amy Wick's request about gondola expenditures.
What a corrupt administration this is. Isn't this reminiscent of the botched Shupe property sale?
Never let the principals in on the PLAN til the signatures of the fleeced are dry.
As said here before....Godfrey is a small-minded wicked dictator who envisions a 'pure' downtown Ogden. When all those tourists flock here on the FrontRunner, we have to have the 'udesirables' rounded up and put away. Thank goodness the trains don't stop here anymore, or they could be in danger of being herded into the cattle cars on their way to oblivion. Only the fair-haired and blue eyed 'master' citizenry will be allowed to mingle with the visitors in our pristine downtown.
THE TOWN WITHOUT HEART....
That's Godfrey's motto. Come see Ogden...not one undesirable in sight.
Oh, yeah, unless we gaze at the ninth floor of the City Bldg. Plenty of undesirables up there.
I suggest this Council get its collective head together and start using their brain cells...ask questions and DMEAND answers. Stop taking the devious and disengenuous administration's "word" for everything.
Remember Ernest? Expenditures? Shupe Williams?
Go back to the 'old' council and see the dirty dealings that went on during their tenure.
Remember Reid? How many times does this Council have to put their hands on a hot burner before they realize the stove is hot?!
Even a toddler is only burned once before cutting a wide swath around the stove.
I suggest this Council emulate the learning curve of a toddler.
Administration officials only lie when their lips are moving.
A very interesting sideline to all this--
Ogden City would not sell the property on 12th Street to Weber County to build the new jail and Sheriff complex which it now turns out is the spot St. Anne's is supposed to willingly move to.
At that time the Federal government would have paid to build the new complex without Weber County taxpayers footing the bill.
Ogden city elected officials were very aware of this and instead elected to refuse to sell knowing that it was going to cost a million or so for all county taxpayers to foot the bill for the Jail Complex when it could have been built with Federal dollars.
I keep trying to figure out Ogden City's financial common sense. The answer obviously is that there is none.
Or maybe the answer is that the Mayor has more loyalty to the Boyer Company and their business plans than he has allegiance to watching the taxpayers' funds.
The story just gets "crookeder" and "crookeder".
Just a question, is it's St. Anne's intention to start providing vocational training in addition to basic food and shelter? I can see St. Anne's directing individuals to specific organizations for those services and help but I was of the opinion that it was challenging enough just to provide the basic services.
Is this suggestions that these new additional services will be provided at St. Anne's just "fluff" to justify the move by John Patterson?
Just want to chime in with Curmudgeon and congratulate the Standard-Examiner for their great work on this topic. Schwebke's original article several days ago was already good, and the pair of articles in today's paper was, of course, even more informative.
Perhaps someone would care to count up the times that the Godfrey administration has misled the City Council?
DAN,
None of us have enough fingers and toes to do that!
mercy,
Fair enough. But what I actually had in mind was a more advanced technology, along the lines of this web page which was the topic of a wcforum thread a few months ago. Emphasis on full documentation, rather than a comprehensive count.
quit picking on my friend, he just is trying to stand tall, and know will ever notice what he is doing unless he makes a mistake or two. so there......
Dan...thank you for these links. Reading everything in order is so helpful.
The lies and deceptions are staggering. One wonders how the mayor could continue to claim a Malan's/SnowBasin connection when he had to be reprimanded so many times.
Thank you for the 'fact' sheet...yes and no.. again. Certainly points up all the deliberate lies.
Isn't it interesting that Ellison has seemingly kept his client, Peterson and big mouth, out of the public eye and earshot?
Dan, your wonderful ability to set out the facts in such understandable and readable form is appreciated!
Thank you so much. You are an invaluable resource.
Since we seem to be on gondolas again, this morning [Sunday], the SE humor columnist M. Saal has a tongue-in-cheek take on the gondola. Hoot and a half. If you're looking for s spirit-lifting chuckle while thawing out after shoveling the walk and driveway, I recommend it....
What makes the Shupe Williams non-sale, the Saint Anne's non-move, and the golf course -gondola/Peterson situations especially sad is that, instead of spending time on these fiascos, so much could have been accomplished that would truly benefit the city.
Keeping things running properly isn't sexy, but bettering the working conditions for police and firefighters, maintaining city infrastructure, and NOT making us the laughingstock of the State would have been steps in the right direction.
City Council agenda came out today in the news paper.
Peterson resolution is on the agenda for this coming Tuesday night meeting and so is a new one. The urban gondola!
Why do we need to develop a go forward resolution on the gondola at this time? Besides isn't the city building it and Peterson to operate it per the mayor's plan? Since when do we need resolutions to tell our own city employees to do their job? What's really going on here is the mayor wants to start spending our money on the gondola and can't with out City Council buy in. The resolution would provide that buy in and I think its premature. We don't know anything yet about Peterson project as to its viabilitiy or the city's desire to proceed with it.
We have a City Council that has an extremely busy agenda as it is now, do we need to additionally burden them with any more work since this project shouldn't be decided until after a decision is made on the Peterson project? Also should we be authorizing the mayor (thru City Council resolution) to spend any more of our money until we have a decision on the Peterson project?
Curm, Can't find the Saal article, have a link? Or is it one of those stupid subscription-only pieces.
Gondola Goofiness reaapearing. I realized that Godfrey must be getting nervous as the Junction comes together and the Urban Gondola has all but dissappeared from the local conciousness. Critical design requirements on the proposed hotel at 23rd/Washington likely depend on the gondola getting a firm go ahead. In fact, I would not doubt that the Junction is now far enough along that to retrofit a gondola to pass over it and through the hotel will now require some huge cost overruns just as happened in Portland where after the initial proposal, they built a tower right smack on top of the best terminal site requiring many millions in tricky highly engineered workarounds. As I look at the Junction site I do not see how a Gondola could span it without some non-standard tower placement. The span between towers can be 400 feet or more but on the approach to a terminal there are usually more towers to assure a proper cable alignment, tensioning and stabilize the cabins as they swing into the terminal building.
As for the hook that ski companies will be luring clients to ski between meetings and to test product, This was the Giger Mantra, I can say that I have yet to spot the Geiger-mobile in the Snowbasin parking lot this season. I haven't been there every day but I have been there first thing for every powder day when the real passionate riders show. Haven't seen them in Gondola line at opening or hiking the gnar off John Paul when the tram opens.
Seems Bob and Curt can't hang in the powder. Maybe they showed up for the icy mess between storms. If so, they skied over the chop my friends and I created days before. So satisfying to be the first tracks. I relish knowing the snow conditions only get worse on the days after I've had mine and the rest are left with the "spoiled" Snowriding is an inherently selfish pursuit. Nature's gift of fresh powder is only for those willing to make the hustle to eat early, java up, and get the mountain cut up before 11am. A commonly heard theme is "there are no friend's on powder days" Love to take a run or hike a chute with you, Bob. Hold on to your rug...it's windy up on those ridges.
Cheer's also to Dan Schroeder. I have neither the patience nor the evening energy to make endless meetings. Dan, you stand to be the local hero if this Urban Gondola nonsense could somehow be relegated to the dungheap. I talk to skiers and riders on my gondola rides up the mountain and I have yet to find anyone the least bit interested in it.
Saal piece probably is behind the subscription wall. I read it in my hard copy, thrown on the porch this morning. News stories and op-ed pieces come under the heading of promoting civic discussion, and so I post links to them since that seems part of what a newspaper's role in a community is, but Saal's pieces are more in the way of creative writing for entertainment's sake, and I'm leery about posting a free link to something like that without the author's permission. Sorry.
I keep forgetting to leave props to Amy Wicks. When my buddy slid his reliable and shabby Subaru into a snowbank heading down from Hidden Lake Lodge at Powder Mountain, She and her friends stopped immediatly and helped us dig out and drag the Subee back onto the road with their hefty truck. Thank you Amy and friends. Wonder if the mayor would get his hands dirty in similar fashion.
How about waiting until there is a proposal on the table from Peterson? Note how the potential sale of the Ben Lomond Golf Course property was handled: a developer submitted a hard money proposal, the shareholders evaluated it, and they voted against the sale.
It warms the cockles of me heart to see the octogenarians standing up for the rights of property owners like 87-year old Norm Steele who has been the Ben Lomond Golf Course Board President for quite a few years.
And 78-year old Dorothy Littrell who is still taking on the politicians regarding the constitution.
Hopefully some of the young folk will catch the same disease these two have regarding the role of elected officials in government.
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