Strike Three

By Ogden Red

In baseball, three strikes and you’re out. Within Ogden City three strikes and the City Council should rein you in. The Ogden City administration in my book has now taken that third strike with our City Council. But to recount how we got to strike three please remember that strike one was the botched Chianti/Shupe-Williams land sale in which the administration told the City Council that they had a completed deal to sell the Shupe-Williams land to Chianti so the council needed to approve the sale. Chianti then publicly stated that they had no interest in the transaction as the City had proposed it and weren’t buying the property. Strike two was the St. Anne’s Shelter move in which the administration assured the Council that the Shelter wanted to move from their current location and that the Council needed to request money from the State Legislature to assist with the Shelter’s move. We have since learned that the Shelter’s Board of Directors didn’t even know of the discussions with the City and yet the City is still asking the State for money for people that don’t want the money. Now we go on to strike three as presented below.

Once again our administration is up to no good and most people would call this a definite strike three. It has just come to light that the Ogden City RDA has recently sold a very desirable piece of property on Wall Ave. to a crony of the administration for $270,000. The property was sold under an option agreement to Bootjack LLC which turns out to be none other than Chris Peterson and company. A true copy of the operative December 22, 2006 option agreement is linked here.

This property was sold without any public bidding process and involves a piece of land approximately an acre in size, which has tremendous retail and commercial value once the Frontrunner comes to town. It is located on the same side of Wall Ave. between 21st and 22nd Street as the Frontrunner terminal. Of course the excuse that the administration will put forward is that the money was needed for The Junction (cost overruns, which the administration won’t acknowledge) but why aren’t the residents able to bid for these prime pieces of Ogden real estate? Why are these sales made in private? Is the city getting the best price; and why aren’t the same demands being made of this purchaser as with others?

Point in fact is that Bootjack LLC has no stated viable use for the property or timetable for developing this property. More than likely they will just profit off of Ogden City’s administration’s generosity with the residents' money. Remember that when the Union Station Foundation wanted to bid more money for the Shupe-Williams property than the next closest bid by more than, something like 50%, they were told that their bid was no good because they could not give a timetable for the development of that property. Bootjack LLC has neither plans to build nor any timetable. Clearly this lack of consistency in reasoning is an example of how this administration is operating. This latest land sale, and the land’s huge potential for appreciation with the coming of the Frontrunner, appears to represent the administrations subsidy of Mr. Peterson’s development efforts with our money. With the Frontrunner so close to arrival, why did the city sell this property now? Why didn’t the City get a loan against the property to meet any short term requirements or open the sales up to the public that would have realized the potential of the location and possible offered a much better price to the City than it received from this sale? A public sales process would have only taken 30 to 45 days to complete and this option agreement allows the buyer up to 90 days to close the deal. This sale reeks of favoritism and there is a high likelihood that the City did not get the best price for the property.

Rumor has it that Peterson has suggested that he will offer this property to Weber State University in exchange for property behind the University. Logically one would find it hard to see why the University would find one acre isolated 5 miles from their main campus of much use. The property would need to be much larger for any use other than retail (its highest value usage) and in order for that to happen the city would need to exercise eminent domain on all the houses behind this property. Not that the current administration is above doing that, but one would still have to feel that the University would not find two separate campuses so close together and yet so far apart, to be of much benefit. As such Mr. Peterson’s or the administration’s use of this excuse as to the potential use of this land is to say the least once again lacking for reasonability. Secondly, if the University doesn’t show any interest in the property, then we have squarely placed an administrative crony in the middle of any future real estate dealings involving property on that side of Wall Avenue.

What is very apparent here is that as a friend to the administration, the City is for sale and as a resident you are expected to pay for that friendship. It’s about time that the residents of the City start expressing their discontent with this out of control administration that operates behind the closed door, under the table and has excuses for everything after the fact.

It’s about time that the City Council starts counting up the strikes and starts to meaningfully change the way that they conduct business with this administration.

The administration shows no respect for the City Council’s authority in their dealings with the Council and shows no intent on changing that either. This administration has shown that they cannot be relied upon to operate within the legislative intent of the law, something that has worked with prior administrations. The current administration feels that the end justifies the means, so if the Council interferes with the administration, the administration simply goes around the Council, or doesn’t provide the Council with the needed information to make an informed decision or doesn’t tell the Council about something until it’s a done deal. The Council needs to start enacting resolutions that require their approval before things happen in this City rather than after they have happened.

It is each City Council Member’s responsibility of office to be the checks and balances to the administration and it is each City Council Member’s responsibility to write if needed or to amend the City Laws to make sure that the administration operates within the City Laws and their intended meaning.

The Council should consider their staffs as assistants to that purpose but understand that they can only provide a basic frame work for any resolution that needs to be amended. Any Council Member that expects anything more from their staff is shirking their own responsibility of the position. The Council Members need to be the ones that generate the amended language to any modified resolution and the Council need to discuss these proposed additions to the resolution with other Council Members in order to arrive at a majority agreed upon intent and wording. Council members are the checks and balances, not the staff. The City Council cannot allow these recent types of actions by the administration to continue.

The Council needs to add stronger language to all our City Laws that in effect will require the administration to fully inform and seek the Council’s prior approval before the administration makes any moves that involve the Council's involvement or consent, a modification that wasn’t needed with previous administrations.

This is be the only way to safeguard our community from the administration's uncontrolled actions and the only way to protect the Council from further administration actions that end up as a Council embarrassment.

The City Council cannot consider that they are doing their job if they allow these types of actions by the administration to continue. This property sale to Mr. Peterson can only be called one thing, strike three.