If you believe Bert Sperling, Provo is a better place to live than Salt Lake City, Logan is better than Provo, and Ogden is better than all of them. Sperling is maybe the best-known publisher of books ranking American cities according to such criteria as climate, cost of living, cultural opportunities and easy access to the Osmonds. (Just kidding on that last one.)Further on down the page, Griggs devotes a special paragraph to our fair little city:
That brings us to Sperling's Utah champ: Ogden, which the book calls "the unassuming, shy but quietly prosperous little sister of booming Salt Lake City." To Sperling, Ogden is the sixth most livable city in the country, helped by high scores for its affordability, its job growth and, frankly, its proximity to Salt Lake. Way to go, sis.With the string of flattering articles which have appeared recently in the national press, Emerald City is clearly on the public radar screen. Now that we're attracting public attention, lots of folks are checking us out.
In that connection, Ace Reporter Schwebke reports this morning that the long-silent Emerald City suitor, Ernest Health, has again raised its head, and is also giving us a "second look." Frankly, we're wondering what's taken them so long, inasmuch as we're the most livable city in their whole danged entire western U.S. operations region.
Curiously, the Standard-Examiner is still clinging to the the same knuckleheaded yarn that the newspaper mercilessly hammered for a full month during early 2006 -- i.e., that the then wet behind the ears and newly sworn-in 2006-08 RDA Board (the city council) ran poor old Darcey Brockette out of town with rude questions, the first time Ernest Health publicly expressed interest in locating to our city.
"Aggressive questioning" is what the Std-Ex (and Boss Godfrey) stubbornly continue to call it:
In January 2006, Ernest Health abruptly canceled its plans to build a $17.5 million hospital in Ogden after the RDA board, made up of city council members, aggressively questioned Brockette about the company’s finances and investors.Those of us who actually attended that January 10, 2006 RDA session of course had a completely different take from that of the Std-Ex, about the events which transpired that night. What members of the RDA Board did that evening, as it has done many a night since then, was to ask (quite politely we thought) whether the Ernest Health folks would be willing to 1) disclose the identities of their principles, and 2) provide some basic financial information. The atmosphere was very cordial, according to our recollection; and Mr. Brockette agreed that his company would do so, mentioning that he "expected the Board to do its due diligence," and adding that his company itself was yet to complete its own due diligence.
The real problem, of course was the usual problem: Boss Godfrey. The RDA board had asked for certain information necessary to an important decision; and Boss Godfrey had refused to provide it behind the scenes. Thus the Board had to ask its questions in open session. At the time, our gentle readers will recall, Godfrey's lame excuse was that the new RDA Board had failed to put their information request in writing.
What developed subsequently was a month-long anti-council harangue from the Standard-Examiner, and an extended and petulant Municipal Government Academy Award performance from Drama Queen Godfrey, blaming Ernest Health's failure to abandon its ongoing due diligence, and to immediately sign on the dotted line, on RDA Board over-aggressiveness. Blaming the victim has of course always been Godfrey's strong suit.
This ludicrous meme is just flat wrong, as we pointed out in a series of concurrently-published WCF articles. Our own Dian Woodhouse even managed to have published two rebuttal articles on the Std-Ex pages, one of which still survives online.
Now that the smoke has cleared, and Ernest Health is again publicly expressing interest in our city, we hope that Boss Godfrey will cooperate with the RDA Board. Ernest Health would be a great asset for our city, we think. However, it can't happen unless all the key troops are marching in the same direction.
And while we're still on the subject we're going to say one more thing. Ace Reporter Schwebke's morning article characterised the Godfrey adminstration's efforts as "continuing productive discussions with Ernest Health aimed at persuading the company to build" its hospital in Emerald City.
We think that's the wrong attitude for these negotiations.
We suggest that Godfrey and his henchmen read Mr. Griggs' above linked article, and some of the other recent pieces which have appeared in other media, all touting Emerald City as a danged fine place to live.
If Ernest Health is now finally aware of the ample benefits of moving their company to our town, it seems to us that it's "they" who ought to be doing the "persuading."
