Weber County Forum Sunday Sermon
By Forbes is Right
Interesting that Forbes likes Ogden for a lot of reasons that won't exist within a short period of time as Ogden catches up with the rest of the state and nation.
Affordable housing and office space; cheap labor; low taxes and quality of life (which won't exist if Gagfrey is successful in his over the top gondola gimmick).
Ogden doesn't suffer from low self-esteem, but has suffered from an image mis-perception problem originating outside the community. That's all changing however, as a result of outsiders actually coming to Ogden as opposed to just passing on the perception. Ogdenites generally like their community for all of the reasons that Forbes has illuminated.
The question going forward is, will Ogden be able to maintain that quality of life -- or will the residents allow Gagfrey to recreate Ogden into just another expensive nondescript community, devoid of the things that make Ogden Ogden?
Ogden residents need to get involved -- and stay involved -- in order to ensure that any future development of our city protects these qualities rather than reinvents our city.
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20 comments:
Well, as I said earlier....Forbes digs Ogden...and no mention of the gondola.
THAT should send a loud messge around these hills.
It appears that the City Council will be discussing the next big promise Godfrey and Brown and cabal had offered as bait to lure business relocation. Expansion of the 21st. pond, to accomodate powerboats for Goode, exclusively for Goode. Unconscionable, as these pieces come together there appears more than a little insider trading going on here. Last week, discussion of rezoning Gadi's property that is in the same area, now spending fund to destroy the very nature of river and pond setting. This area I want to point out, is a integral part of the countywide river trails network, not to mention spending tax payer dollars to enrich one private entity. Something smells quite foul with regards to how these guys are operating.
Important City Council meeting this week.
Administration wants the Council to approve its capital budget plan for years 2008 thru 2012.
These are the dollars spent within the city for infrastructure upgrades but also for the mayor's business development projects. This meeting may provide some incite as to what additional dollars will be spent at the Junction, provide indications of dollars set aside for other pet projects (the gondola for example) and should indicate where the funding for these capital budget programs will come from, i.e. taxes or bonding.
If you can make it, this would be a good one to attend.
The Council should allow themselves several weeks to digest this authorization because it has a long term impact on the city and prior to authorization the Council needs to have a better understanding as to where the city currently stand with our existing projects under development. This is needed before any future budgets are approved as this may actually result in a higher budget commitment being made by the city (or than the city can afford) if current projects are under funded today.
Refusal by the Council to approve this future budget may force the administration to finally provide the Council with the information that they have been requesting relative to the Junction for some time now.
Ogden's quality of life is being destroyed on a daily basis. So is the quality of life in Utah.
Ogden's RDA and the Governor's Office of Economic Development on a weekly basis give away millions in tax increment or other tax giveaways to wealthy individuals or companies to entice them to come to Ogden and Utah because it is supposed to create more jobs.
In the meantime, doctors are having conferences about the quality of Utah air. It is so foul it is killing us.
Ogden Police Chief Greiner made headlines a couple of weeks ago talking about the problem of illegal aliens flooding our system of police protection.
We have had to collect over a hundred thousand signed petitions to ask for taxpayer's rights in the matter of school vouchers.
Developers are putting up instant ghettos with the junk that is being constructed in the apartment complexes that are being allowed to go up.
The greed to be the fastest growing state in the nation has clouded the common sense needed to stop what we are doing to our city and our state.
What we are doing to ourselves is criminal and the politicians are responsible for the problem.
Is a copy of the capital budget recommendation available on line to the public yet? If not, when will the administration's budget recommendation become available? Do you --- does anyone --- know?
If the Council is to vote on it, up or down, this Tuesday, then presumably, there must have already been a work session on the capital budget.
Kind of important to get a look at it with time to study it some, since as we have come to learn over the past few years, the major substantive check the Council seems to have on administrative actions is the power of budget review and approval.
Good points, one and all.
Unless public comments come up for some other agenda item BEFORE the budget aproval....then we won't have any say on it....again.
We need to email the Council to do what "Important meeting....." suggests...take several weeks to study and get some answers this time.
I've been out of the loop.
Did anyone ever find out the deal on the property across the street from the Municipal Building that was sold for $250,000.00 on January 16, 2007 to an LLC owned by Richard C. Strohm from Scottsdale?
To Catch me up,
the long and short of it is not entirely.
we still don't know the true name of the purchaser or the trus price (though we know someone got a hell of a deal).
we do know that it was sold without formally notifing the city council, which is against the law. but we also know that the city council has once again not taken the proper action against the administration for breaking the law.
Re: approval of the capital budget plan for -08 through -12.
We can only hope that the City Council will insist on having enough time to thoroughly look over the proposed budget and ask questions. They also should receive decent answers to those questions.
The days of trusting Godfrey, Patterson, and Cook should be over.
How would you like to speculate?
A search on Google shows a Richard Strohm who is a Scottsdale attorney and former Arizona Lottery Commissioner.
He advertises online as Law Offices
of R. Strohm PC, 8121 East Indian Bend Road Suite 128, Scottsdale, AZ 85250.
He specializes in Medical Malpractice, Civil Rights and Wrongful Death with rates of $175.00 per hour for senior partner and $150.00 per hour for partner.
That doesn't sound very high powered for a Scottsdale attorney.
Is this our new property owner in downtown Ogden?
I suspect that Strohm is not the real owner, he's only the front man that is there to conceal the real owner.
On the Capital Construction Budget:
I'm not at all familiar with Ogden city procedures for considering the Capital Improvements budget. But if Tuesday's Council meeting is the one at which the Council is being asked to vote on that budget, then I think it highly likely that a great deal of consideration has gone into it via work sessions, etc. and a great deal of informational consultation between the administration and Council leadership at least has already happened. It would be deeply foolish of any urban administration to simply spring a budget on a Council and expect immediate approval. [Yes, yes, I know: good faith communications with the Council is not a Godfrey administration long suit, but still, it would be so detrimental to the administration's goals not to keep the Council informed in timely fashion of a proposed five year capital improvements budget that I find it hard to believe that even this administration would do something that counterproductive.]
I suspect what will happen is the administration Tuesday will formally present the budget to the Council, and it will then schedule a date for a hearing and action on it. Unless that has already happened, in which case the Council will have been considering the budget already for some time.
If there is a former council person, or a sitting one, or anyone else who knows the usual procedure for considering capital improvements budgets and knows where Tuesday's meeting fits into the process, maybe they could post that information for the benefit of myself and anyone else who is as clueless as I am about the customary way of proceeding on these budgets.
Is Strohm related to Scott Brown?
To Just Wonderin'...
I doubt Scott Brown's genetic poll is stong enough to support any intellect as requiring of an lawyer. Besides we all know which head Scott uses to think with.
Actually Scott Brown is the most intelligent operator in the Godfreyite movement. He is the architect of all of this extremely complicated financial house of cards that the city finds itself in.
Unfortunately he is also very corrupt, just like the rest of the Mayor's inner circle.
Marv,
You may be right that Scott Brown is the smartest of Godfrey's inner circle, but he is the most devious and deceitful. Don't ever turn your back to him.
In reading the agendas for tomorrow's meetings, it looks like his lordship is asking the Council to approve a 3.5 million dollar bond for another RDA project. I'd heard the RDA budget was almost at the limit. Is this more of Godfrey's and Brown's creative moving of money from this fund to that one and from that one to another one? I think we all need to attend BOTH the Council and special RDA meeting.
Goofed about the mayor asking the Council to approve the 3.5 million dollar bond -- it would be the RDA Board he is asking. Too many hats worn by the same people!
What will the 3.5 million RDA bond be for? The River Project?
Godfrey wants a million here and 2 million there until it gets to be a huge debt. Didn't he just dump another $2 million into the WRECK Center by putting a lien on the newly renovated Justice Court?
We can't handle what we owe already.
Wasn't the Junction or a portion of it scheduled for a May opening?
Anyone know the official opening?
Drove by yesterday and it looks like it's a little more than a few weeks before it's ready for public consumption.
What a mess down there. If the reains come on opening day...people will sinking in mud.
We still don't know which, if any, stores, restaurants, etc are occupying space down there, do?
Godfrey's Goof should be the name on that wreck of a place.
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