Playing It Fast and Loose With Legal Definitions

Boss Godfrey henchman squirms at the prospect of refunding a $900 thousand state grant

By Curmudgeon

This morning's Standard Examiner bumps the $900K grant story to the first "Top of Utah" page, promoting it from the side bar of the previous day. And it's also on the free Std-Ex site.

As for the assumption made by some that Ogden will be found in violation and have to repay, the article says this: GOED spokesman Clark Caras told the Std-Ex the fact that the Governor's Office of Economic Development is looking into the matter "doesn't mean GOED suspects the grant funds have been handled improperly." "We haven't seen anything wrong," he said.

Further down, the story quotes Ogden's director of community and economic development, Dave Harmer. He is, he told the Examiner's Scott Schwebke, "confident that plans... to transform the complex into the North American headquarters for Amer Sports Corp. fulfills the intent of the grant."

"The original purpose of the grant," he told Schwebke, "was to help the city save a historic building ... for productive economic use." Harmer also said that "the definition of what constitutes a high-tech center is vague, adding that Amer, which uses cutting edge technology, enables the complex to meet the intent of the agreement."

I don't know if the city's use of the grant followed the terms of the grant or not. But I do know this: the kind of breezy sophistry Mr. Harmer peddled to the Std-Ex is exactly the kind of thing that undercuts public confidence in government --- all government --- and leads to the kind of democracy-crippling cynicism about government I see in students every day.

If Mr. Harmer's view is right, that "high tech center" doesn't really mean "high tech center," that the term is so vague that it can mean virtually anything... or nothing... that "hey, the building will have some machines in it, some of them new. Close enough" is a significant and truthful response to the questions raised, then we have to wonder what the point is of the Governor's Office of Economic Development granting money for any particular purpose at all. It might as well just hand bundles of cash over to cities, regardless of what the cities claim they will do with the money, and say "Here's the loot. Do whatever you like."

Of course, Mr. Harmer may not be entirely objective about all this, since he signed the grant approval when he was working as executive director of the state Department of Community and Economic Development.

Which leaves Harmer in the interesting position of arguing that that Harmer guy working for the state signed a grant so vague and full of terms so ill-defined, that that Harmer guy working as Ogden's director of economic and community development, can recommend the City's doing pretty much anything with the building the grant helped pay for, so long as it has some new machines in it someplace.

Becoming clearer by the day why Mayor Godfrey thought Mr. Harmer would be a good fit for his administrative team.

And in Mayor Godfrey's Ogden City, the beat goes on....