News is a mite slow so far this week on the Emerald City home front, so we thought we'd set up an open thread. In that connection we'll reel off a few suggested topics, just to get the ball rolling this morning.
First, the Standard-Examiner reports that the school voucher repeal petition which we discussed in March has been officially certified to be placed on the ballot. Although recent polls suggest most people oppose the voucher law, our enlightened legislature isn't making this ballot measure simple.
During the 2007 legislative session, our legislature actually passed TWO school voucher bills. Unfortunately for the petition proponents, who gathered a total of 124,218 certified signatures, the petition addresses only one of these bills:
The certification puts the voucher law, House Bill 148, on hold until the election, although a second voucher law not targeted by the petition could let the program move forward.We'll certainly be sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to see how it all works out; but in the interim, the Salt Lake Tribune editors propose a very practical solution:
The second piece of legislation, House Bill 174, contained amendments to the original bill and as such should not stand alone, Burningham said.
“When the trunk is uprooted, the branch engrafted then, too, must undoubtedly fail,” he said, quoting an unrelated decision by former Utah Supreme Court Justice Dallin Oaks.
But those who support school vouchers say the second bill contains enough of the language found in the original bill that the second bill can stand on its own — even if the original bill is repealed. That opinion is shared by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.
So, what now? Well, here is what I call on Gov. Huntsman and my fellow legislators to do: The governor should call a special session (he likely has to anyway to put the referendum on the ballot for the February Western States Presidential Primary) and put on the call a bill to suspend any taxpayer-funded private-school voucher program, i.e., both HB 148 and HB 174, until after the referendum.Whether Governor Huntman has the political juice to arm-twist our largely neoCON legislature into bundling school vouchers as a general ballot issue is questionable; but we do like the SLTrib's suggested approach.
The bill would instruct the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel to write ballot language for the referendum explaining that the referendum vote is on the broader question of vouchers.
This would make it crystal clear that the referendum is about vouchers in general, a popular up-or-down vote on taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.
If the referendum passed, the issue would be settled and the bill would bar the implementation of HB 148 and HB 174. If the referendum failed, then the game would be on; Utah would have a voucher program. My fellow legislators should support this proposal. This is what was intended in seeking the referendum on HB 148 all along.
Next, foul odors are front page news again in the Top of Utah Section. Emerald City officials are now calling for a few good noses. And in an extreme example of diligently digging out the facts, the author of today's Std-Ex story has spared no research effort in providing us a Nasal Ranger Field Olfactometer link.
And last but not least, we link this very interesting Wall Street Journal story, dealing with luxury golf courses, political cronyism, broken promises and criminal investigations. Whether there are any lessons in this story pertinent to our situation in Emerald City we do not know. This story does however provide food for thought, we think.
That's it for starters.
Let the games begin.
Update 5/1/07 7:45 a.m. MT: Gentle Curmudgeon has just now graciously furnished us tonight's council agenda, which includes the proposed final approval of last week's Mixed Use Ordinance agenda item, on the "common consent" calendar. Perhaps a few of our gentle readers will show up tonight with their steely-eyed stares. Pitchforks and torches are NOT recommended.
Update 5/2/07 5:33 p.m. MT: In response to some discussion in the herein comments section, we provide a link to today's Std-Ex article, which reports, among other things, Boss Godfrey's purported "plan," to pay down 20% of Emerald City's current $100 million direct or contingent debt within nine years.
37 comments:
Lynyrd Skynyrd -
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you
If you take a mountain hike during an inversion as you pass from the hyperthermic (warmer) layer above into the hypothermic (cooler) layer below there is often an incredibly foul odor at the top of the inversion zone.
I suspect it may come from the dog food plant, but if it does, it ain't food cookin' in there!
P.S. If you happen to be following me on the hike . . .
. . . IT WASN'T ME! :)
Since it's a slow news day, here's a notice from the Ogden Sierra Club that may be of interest:
In April 2001, the Utah Sierra Club began encouraging our members and others to support clean, renewable energy in the form of the "Blue Sky" program offered by Utah Power (now Rocky Mountain Power), as well as other similar programs. For a small extra fee on your electric bill, you can ensure that a portion of the electricity on the grid is generated by clean, renewable sources--primarily wind.
Today, six years later, renewable energy is growing faster than ever. Thousands of residential customers and hundreds of businesses in Utah have signed on to the Blue Sky program. In addition, three Utah cities (Salt Lake City, Park City, and Moab) have become Blue Sky Visionaries by purchasing Blue Sky credits and encouraging their residents to do the same.
We are now delighted to announce that Ogden City has recently become Utah's fourth Blue Sky Visionary community. The city has purchased enough Blue Sky credits to offset 19% of the electricity use of municipal buildings and facilities. To celebrate this commitment, a ceremony will be held on Tuesday, May 1, at 10:00 am on the front steps of the Municipal Building, 2549 Washington Blvd. The public is invited.
We hope that this decision on the part of Ogden City signals a more general recognition that protecting our environment is good for our citizens and good for our economy.
If you haven't already, please sign up for the Blue Sky program. You can sign up online (click on the "Renewable Energy" link), or by calling 1-800-842-8458.
Finally, remember that the most effective (and cheapest) way to reduce your energy impact is to use less of it. We encourage you to be aware of your energy use and to reduce this use when possible through conservation and efficiency. For energy-saving tips and resources, a good place to start is the Utah Clean Energy web site.
Ms. Jeske emailed that Jeffrey Boothe will be speaking on TRANSIT issues tomorrow evening. She didn't say where or when.
Does anyone know?
I attended his lecture when he was here last. It was extremely interesting. That one was held at the WSU Alumni Center.
I have another engagement, darnit, or I'd go. Hope lots of you can make it , tho.
So, how did Mara Brown and her smell-o-meter committee come to know that only 4 noses are enough noses to nose around the city sniffing out foul odors?
Do the noses sniff an area at a time, together? Does one nose sniff the south side? Another nose sniff around the sewer plant? Ewww...who would pull that smelly job?
Does the nose committee draw straws...are assignments given by seniority?
Big noses get the bigger jobs, like the dog food plant?
Sharp noses get the sewer plant?
Does Ogden have a turkey farm? BOY, THEY REALLY STINK!
These stink detectives are only volunteers. It does seem that they should receive some compensaton.
Maybe Ms Brown could lead her odiferous odor-meters around to various bakeries?
Top Hat Bakery smells GOOD! Most all donut shops are delightsome to the sniff.
I wonder if the Council could throw a few bucks into the budget to take the odor-meter maids and men to a bakery or to the perfume counter at Dillards after they've had a snoot full of sewer and dog food sniffing? (Probably a snoot full at the local pub would be welcomed).
Ahhhhhh. I'll drink to that.
Boy I sure hope they don't take that fancy and expensive "Nasal Ranger Field Olfactometer" any where near little Lord Godfrey! Damn thing would sure to blow its guts out and then we would be out the big bucks it cost and the goods that the thing is supposed to deliver.
Speaking of which, just what is it supposed to do that a bunch of people smelling stuff can't?
I would guess if this was some little ski oriented shop putting out the smell bad's, that Lord Godfrey wouldn't be doing a damn thing about it other that telling us that "some people just got to suffer for the common good"
But hey, it aint a high falutin glamourous deal like that 3 man snow board company he makes such a big deal over, it makes dog food for hells sake! So watch the dipsoid screw around with them until they pull up stakes and take their 150 employees some where else.
Paris and Brittany ainta gonna be coming to town for some damn dog food! Nope, they be comin here cause of the Gondola and the purdy people magnet we are going to be once we become first in the whole world at hookin up planes and trains and gondolas with empty rich folks houses, colleges and castles in the sky.
the nose is the thing that can find offences in oders but what the real problem is that the nose does not smell the money that is coming into the city as revenue.
maybe it is time that the city put together a group to bring business to ogden and not ways to push them out.
FLASH! Hizzoner announced at the CC meeting that 'this city will be out of debt in nine years'.
Then.." the gen'l fund debt will be retired in 9 years."
He told 3 of us in the parking lot later that Ogden is TWENTY FIVE MILLION in debt.....any of you believers in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny buy that???
The ledgers need to be gone over by an auditor that doesn't eat creamed chicken on toast with the mayor.
I'm hitting the feathers.
Sharon:
According to the SE story this morning, Hizzonah says he will submit his plan to get us all out of debt in nine years, and that the debt is twenty million. But his plan has not been submitted yet. As is almost always the case in such matters, the devil is in the details. And any such plan inevitably relies on predictions about the state of the economy and public revenues [tax revenues are tied very much to the state of the economy, particularly sales tax revenues]. The Council [and voters] will have to look carefully at the assumptions built into the projections on which the Mayor's plan is to be based.
I'd hate to look at the details and discover that it all depends on a huge bump in sales tax revenues coming from the Paris Hilton entourage buying Prada and Armani in Junction shops after taking the Frontrunner from its non-existent stop at the SL Airport to Ogden to ride a flatland tourist sky ride to Weber State. But we shall see.... If he has a plan, grounded on reasonable revenue projections over a decade ahead, and the Council and he and subsequent mayors and councils have the discipline to stick to it, it could be good news.
Waiting on the details before drawing any conclusions. The Mayor's promise of a plan to eliminate the debt does suggest to me that he thinks the size of the city's indebtedness looms as a significant election issue, and he's taking pre-emptive action to address it before voting starts.
OK, the campaign has begun, it is now clear. In the SL Trib this morning, there is a story [link here] headlined Ogden mayor announces city's investment in renewable energy .
Good illustration of how incumbants can [in Nixon's phrase] "maximize the effect of their incumbancy." Being public officials, they automatically command press attention and can use it to frame the agenda and manage their campaign image. We are seeing the Mayor do it now. He's ruffled environmentalist feathers with his "pave the benches" real estate specualtion deal for his friend and co-conspirator, Chris Peterson. Today's public event, touting his committment to green energy [for which he deserves credit; not many Utah towns are making that committment yet] will mend a fence or two in that direction. His announcment last night at the Council meeting of his plan to retire all city debt within the decade frames the coming city indebtedness election debate as he wants it framed. Some weeks ago at a city council meeting, he responded to a complaint about unfilled potholes by dispatching his chief aid, Mr. Patterson, to take down the locations, and by asking anyone else who had a problem pot hole on his street to contact the Mayor's office right away.
If you have a pot-hole that needs attending, now is the time to call the Mayor's office about it. Do not wait until the day after the election.
Be interesting to see over the next several weeks what other fences the Mayor thinks need mending.
The mayor's environmental priorities are clearly reflected on the Ogden City home page, where the Blue Sky initiative is announced immediately beneath the Peterson land-grab.
Curm-
Speaking of mending fences reminded me of this: some great fence mending
Did you notice tonight's (Wednesday) Planning Commission meeting at 5:00 p.m. to rezone the area between 21st and 22nd Streets from Wall Avenue to Union Pacific Railroad tracks?
This is where Chris Peterson did have and probably still has options on Wall Avenue.
The meeting is at 5:00 p.m.at the City Building 2549 Washington Blvd.
I just don't trust the buzzards trying to grab that land from the long time home owners.
This is the area where Godfrey tried to subsidize Wal-mart $2 million to come to town by using eminent domain to kick lifetime home owners off their property.
We now have a new eminent domain law so he will probably try it again.
Good news for citizens of Ogden.
Friday was Scott Brown's last day of employment with Ogden City.
Any ideas of who is going to replace him to do Mayor Godfrey's intimidation of property owners?
If they'd had the XMission free downtown wi-fi the night of the bootjack vote it would have taken less than a minute to determine the principals. Information, and the unfettered timely access to it, is power in the hands of anyone interested.
TC
"Information, and the unfettered timely access to it," is not a priority of the City Council, it would appear.
That's why they have no power. It's really hard to navigate the maze of chicanery and obfusction thrown up by this administration without an inkling of how to get thru it.
It was apparent again last nite that this Council seems to be lacking in energy.
Do they have too many meetings and work studies, too much material produced by the administration...REAMS of it to absorb?
Is this why they are so lethargic that they let their little mayor PUSH (like the turtles, the Slowsky's...'push it!' You push it, you push real good!'??
Instead of tabling the rest of the MU zoning ordinance last nite, they were assured by Montgomery and Godfrey that it's only an ordinance, and ordinances can be changed, and, any developer has to bring his plans before the Council, and, THEY have the last say...so what's the big deal? So PUSH IT!
If that is true, why have an ordinance at all?
AND, if the developer has to have his plans okayed by the Council...why haven't we seen Peterson, Lesham and the other 'developers' who are grabbing our land at reduced prices WITHOUT A PLAN BEFORE THE COUNCIL, and getting that prime land before anyone in the puclic has an opportunity to bid??
HUH?
BTW...Godfrey's "gen'l fund debt of 25 million that he will retire in 9 years"....conveniently excludes the massive RDA debt of MANY millions!!!
"Here, honey, chew on this little candy. That will satisfy you".
How dumb does Godfrey think we poor dumb taxpayers are - - -
The RDA debt on the Rec Center alone totals as much as the General Fund debt of 25 million he is talking about.
And now he is starting the River RDA Project which will not be cheap.
I know - he thinks RDA debt is not about real money so it doesn't count as debt.
I have news for you, Mayor,
the H--- it doesn't!
All debt is paid with the same thing - money which comes from taxes from poor dumb taxpayers!
How did this guy ever get a degree in anything financial! Has anyone asked to see the actual diploma?
I hear that Attorney George Handy found the right records in the Weber County Recorder's Office to prove the gift of the land from the Malan family.
Three Cheers for George Handy!
Only now the Mayor is mumbling something about that doesn't count because the City bought the land at some point????
Does this mean that the City bought the land from itself? That sounds like a Godfrey plan.
Has anyone noticed that Matt Jones' civil service appeal was dismmised for his failure to show up to any hearings? Could it be that he knew it was a lost cause if he had to fight with facts in a courtroom instead of allegations in the pressroom?
May I See:
If he failed to show for his CS hearing and intends to preoceed in court, not showing up may have been a mistake. Sometimes courts ask, when a government body is being sued, as a prelude to deciding whether to hear the case or grant relief, whether a plaintiff has exhausted the non-judicial remedies available to him. And sometimes courts will refuse to proceed until all the non-judicial remedies have been exhausted. Don't know if that's relevant in this particular instance, but it might be.
Matt Jones probably just decided he didn't ever want to go near the Ogden police force again.
Wise Choice as long as Greiner is Chief and Godfrey is Mayor.
As long as we are handing out "hoorays",
why not give one to Basil Beech for his presentation of George Handy's letter to the Council and Mayor last night.
Good job, Base.
Poor Dumb Taxpayer
You ask "how dumb" Hizzonah thinks the voters are.
PD, if one in thirty citizens in Ogden, if you stopped them on the street and asked them, could come within 5 million dollars of the right number for Ogden's indebtedness, or could come within shouting distance of the difference between general obligation debt and RDA bonded debt, I'd faint dead away. Come to think of it, I'd faint dead away if one in fifty could. If one in ten regular voters in local elections could, I'd still be surprised.
Have to remember, regular readers/posters at WCF tend to be policy wonks to some extent. Most folks don't follow local news much, and are not particularly well informed about anything but the most hot-button issues -- and they're informed about them only in the most general way. [Want to take a poll on how many Ogden residents know Hizzonah's "gondola" scheme involves two gondolas, not one, and that neither one will take people from downtown to Snow Basin? I'd bet baby's new shoes money that the number wouldn't hit 20%.]
I don't think Hizzonah is betting on a dumb electorate. But I suspect he is counting on an un-informed one. And he may be making the right call on that, absent a very good, very smart and very well-run campaign by his opposition.
Sharon:
Do you have a copy of Mr. Handy's letter presented to the Council last night, and if so, can you post?
Rudi, are you about 100,000 signatures off on that total for the petition?
The letter, Curm, was posted in the SE on 2-14-07.
It gives chapter and verse about the Malan Family deeding that park and golf course to the people of Ogden.
I have no earthly idea how to link anything. Perhaps Rudi could help out?
After Base read the letter....guess who denigrated him for 'bringing up that urban legend again'. then went on to harangue abut the fact the a'city bot the land'. Of course, he proferred NO proof.
When I asked the mayor (in the parking lot) to produce the proof of HIS allegations and bring them to the Council meeting next week...he sneered that I shuld look up the deed! Or get George Handy to do it.
Interesting discussion! He claimed 'your seething hatred of me!' several times. So, I asked him, 'do you LOVE me?" "yes, Sharon, I do".
Oh puhleeze!
Oh, he claims he really does love me!
"you sound like Ed Allen", I told him. "It's true", said the mayor.
He said he won't name the retail stores at the mall, ( I asked him to ),because apparently there aren't any. Just Miller's Movie House, the gym and fun rides, and bowling alley. Don't forget the condos and apts.
Go figure.
Well, at that rate, I guess the Newgate Mall won't go out of business after all, eh?
Peterson is getting first and only dibs to buy up that land from 21st Street on Wall to the Union Station. For $270,000.!!
Any appraisers out there who can hazard a guess of the real market value of those properties?
Also, a little bird is not only dropping 'droppings', but dropping some big news that that paragon of virtue, INTEGRITY, honesty and business acumen, one Gadi Lesham, is lapping up the riverfront properties.
Understand he's hungry for Moyal's property...and not just for Indian cuisine.
CRONYISM, CHICANERY, CORRUPTION!
"Perhaps Rudi could help out?"
At your service, Sharon.
Here's the letter.
And here's the Ogden City Council ordinance to which Mr. Handy's letter refers.
Both documents are embedded in this earlier WCF article, BTW.
Boss Godfrey's snarky retort to Ogden icon Mr. Handy is particularly shocking, in our opinion.
We eagerly look forward to Godfrey's anticipated political horse-whipping in November.
Somebody say "Amen"!
"Seething hatred." Yeah, at least Little Matty Gondola Godfrey can aptly characterize his constituency's opinion of him. We (5,000 strong of us) hate the Lilliputian bastard. Although I better be careful about making sweeping generalizations like that or Good Old (?) Curmudgeon might lecture me about the power of incumbency and use italics to drive home his point. Since this is an open thread, here's some things to ponder since Little Matty Gondola Godfrey's grade-school rant in the WSU English class that he hijacked to retort to intelligent adults who told him that an "urban gondola" is about as smart as New Coke: Little Matty made reference to "The Plan," and Teeny Matty said it was available on the city web site and that it has been displayed at various dog-and-pony shows with lardass loser Wayne Peterson; this is the same plan that gondola freaks (GTrain Wilkerson, Gondola Boy Mike Dowse, jackass!, Geigers [THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE], gravy-trainer, dimwit heir Johnny Lindquist, Embarrasing Bernie Allen) have referenced and it is nothing more than the six pages of poorly constructed PR pages and maps (which were paid for by the taxpayers) that have been on display since Little Matty and Wayne began touting their larcency; that's their "plan"! Do they really think UDOT is going to allow them to string a circus ride over their street? Do they really think that Wayne and his Squirrel Patrol (Nuts! Get 'em!) are after nothing more than our land? I hope people in positions of authority (read: Local Oaf and total Clown, Rick Safsten) will do a double-take when the Wayne Peterson (who cannot even disclose his real identity) "proposal" is limited only to the theft Mt. Ogden Park Lands at pennies on the dollar. Moreover, the "private investment" that is supposed to make up the $40 million urban gondola shortfall after Wayne and the Squirrel Patrol steal our land is based on $35,000 gondola car sponsorships by people like Curt "THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE" Geiger, Homer Cutrubus, silly never-worked-a-day-in-his-life Johnny Lindquist, et. al. That's going to draw $40 million? That is your "private funding"? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I'm tellling you, these people, led by Little Matty Gondola Godfrey, are jokes. Jokes.
For the record to keep the saga of the Ogden Planning Commission foul ups before this body:
I went forth at 5:00 p.m. to attend the Planning Commission meeting which according to today's Standard-Examiner would cover, among other zoning changes, rezoning the area from Wall Avenue to the Union Pacific Railroad between 21st and 22nd streets.
I had called residents in that area to be there so half a dozen residents were there at 5:00 p.m.
Several took time off from work to attend.
When I looked at the Agenda and saw that it was scheduled for 5 hours to be dismissed at 10:00 p.m. I started looking for the rezone item I was interested in which was for the area between 21st and 22nd streets.
There was an Item 14 scheduled for 9:00 p.m. only the address on the Agenda was for 20th to 21st streets.
There was no item scheduled for rezoning 21st street to 22nd street.
I spoke to several planning commission members seated on the dais. One said to come up when Item no. 3 was to be discussed and state my position which was that any discussion on this address be tabled until the confusion was cleared as to what piece of property was being rezoned.
I did that and Mr. Montgomery came up and said that the notice in the paper for the last few weeks had listed 20th to 21st street but the information send to the Standard for today's notice had the incorrect address listed.
One of the residents, Mrs. Marti, came up and asked how property owners are notified about a zoning commission hearing because Mrs. Rodriguez had received a notice of tonight's meeting but no one else had gotten a notice.
Mr. Montgomery himself stated unequivocally that any property owner living within 300 feet got a notice but no one farther away than 300 feet got a notice. It was to be spread by work of mouth from one neighbor to another.
Mrs. Marti informed him that it is not the responsibility of neighbors to do the City Planning Commission's job of notification. I heartily agree with that concept.
So those of us who went at 5:00 p.m. to discuss the area between 21st and 22nd streets from Wall to the Union Pacific Railroad got to leave at around 5:15 p.m. and the other poor souls will be there until 10:00 tonight - or later.
And for the record ---
Before the Planning Commission meeting scheduled for 5:00 p.m.,I again went with Rulon Yorgason to the City Recorder's Office because he has still not received a proper answer to his GRAMA request of several weeks ago.
This is the GRAMA answer that Mayor Godfrey announced in a Council meeting several weeks ago had been complied with. For the record, it still has not been complied with properly.
Oh, and I forgot that Wolfgang Puck (re: THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE Curt Geiger) is going to open a restaurant in Wayne Peterson's fantasy castle (guarded by magical dwarves and Gondola Boy Mike Dowse, jackass!), if we build Little Matty Gondola Godfrey's gondola(s).
Jason W:
You wrote: Good Old (?) Curmudgeon . No need whatsoever for a question mark after "old" in that phrase. But I can introduce you to severl people who'd argue, vigorously, for placing it after "good" instead.
Well, so long Scott Brown!
It will be interesting to see where stuff goes in Econ Development now.
Brown was hands down the brains of the organization. Possibly the only one to boot! He is the architect of all this madness and massive debt that the citizens of Ogden have had placed around our necks. He of course will not now have to be around in the event it all collapses and drags Ogden into debtor's hell! Yes, cities can and occasionally do go into bankruptcy when they are highly mismanaged and abused, and when the leaders take wild and crazy fliers with public money.
Now I am hopin that all this doesn't happen, and that Brown is the genius he fancies himself to be. It would be a real tragedy if Ogden, Inc. was the shaky house of cards that it appears to be. If this thing crumbles in a year or two or three, we will all pay the price in a very big way, and meanwhile Scott Brown and Shorty G. will be cruisin down some palm tree lined highway without a care in the world, their pockets full of money,and this debacle way in their past.
So Brown is either the genius and somehow all the balls in the air of this high risk high wire act comes down in perfect order and every thing is sunny and bright in Emerald City,
or
Brown is very bright but way off his nut and out of his league and this monster called Ogden, Inc. that he created runs amouk and destroys the next twenty five years of Ogden's financial viability,
or
Brown aint as smart as he and every one think he is, and the feds step in and starts perp walking this gang who's finger prints are all over the crime scene.
I'm hoping for the first, fearing it might be the second and would be sadly amused but not surprised to see the third.
What would really be keen is if the citizens ever find out just where the money went, and how much of it ended up in participant's pockets or friends and relatives of said big operators, if any.
In other words, who got fat with all this high stakes gambling, and who got burned.
Speaking of getting fat..didn't I see Matty being measured for a bigger suit? One with even deeper pockets?
This is why we need to elect Neil Hansen for mayor. This way we won't have all this negative back door deals going on.
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