Little Bobby is Back

The Standard-Examiner provides a special treat this morning, as we drop into another Emerald City weekend. This morning's edition features a nasty bullet-point rant by Lift Ogden Windbag Bob Geiger, raging against our Emerald City RDA Board of Trustees, which is now preparing to call Boss Godfrey on the carpet with new procedures guarding against future insider transactions, such as the now notorious Bootjack sweetheart purchase option. We'd recently thought Tom Ellison and the Peterson crew had wisely and cautiously kept the flamboyant Junior Geiger under careful wraps. That's all changed utterly. Little Bobby is back.

The facts surrounding this transaction are quite clear. We've discussed the situation thoroughly here, here and here. In point of fact, Boss Godfrey deceitfully concealed and suppressed the fact that his croney Chris Peterson was the true owner and principal of the Bootjack shell entity, prior to the transaction. Yes, The RDA Board had previously asked for disclosure, but approved the transaction anyway, in spite of the administration's continuing and wilful failure and refusal to disclose Chris Peterson's identity. As we've learned subsequently in our below threads on this subject however, the RDA Board was pressured into going along with Boss Godfrey because the transaction was characterized as a financial emergency. Cost overruns were jeopardizing the Junction Project timetable, the Board was told by the administration. The RDA Board, in its incessant effort to be cooperative, thus opted to drop its request for disclosure. In its effort to be a "team player," the Board ultimately found itself with egg on its face. In the aftermath, this lapse in judgment proved to be most imprudent, as the Board has learned during this past week. Looking at the situation from the Board's viewpoint, it's hard to conceive, however, that any one of them might have imagined, at the time the purchase option was approved, that Boss Godfrey would have had the audacity to flagantly pawn off three parcels adjacent to the FrontRunner terminal in a stealth transaction to a close associate like Peterson.

Mr. Geiger complains that the RDA Board would discriminate against Boss Godfrey's croney, that Chris Peterson's money is just as good as anybody else's. Boss Godfrey's cronies should be able to benefit from secretly-arranged deals. Economic perks are, after all, one of the prime benefits of being a Godfrey croney. That's how it works in our Brave New MattGodfreyWorld. Mr. Geiger thought everybody already knew that.

Mr. Geiger lays in particularly brutally upon council members Garcia, Wicks and Jeske this morning. The whole brouhaha is politically motivated, he says. This is of course the accusation that Boss Godfrey always drags out, whenever our conscientious council resolves to do its duty, and possible ethical or criminal breaches on the part of Boss Godfrey become part of the public discussion.

We were admittedly a little overly hard on the RDA Board over the past week or so, after first learning about this "smelly" Bootjack transaction. Our email box had been crammed with angry reader missives. It was the same in our comments sections. We weren't the only ones who experienced a visceral reaction. In hindsight we stand chastened, and applaud out RDA Board, who've tried over past months to adopt a posture that would seem co-operative and progressive. Hard lessons are the best lessons, however; and hopefully the Board has now learned that the RDA Board of Trustees simply cannot fulfill their primary roles (as public trustees,) and trust Boss Godfrey simultaneously. If Boss Godfrey says the sky is blue, we're sure that our RDA members will now have learned to take a peek out the nearest window. If Boss Godfrey shows up to the next RDA meeting and sits down in the RDA Director's chair, we do hope Chairman Garcia will instruct the Board Sergeant-at-Arms to check the Boss's ID.

The floor is open. Who amongst our gentle readers would like to comment on the latest Bob Geiger lunatic rant?

We always appreciate a good red-meat article to chew on as we move into the weekend; and we thank the Standard-Examiner for providing us just that.