We'll direct our gentle readers' attention this morning to two Emerald City-centered articles appearing in today's Standard-Examiner. Each addresses a topic previously discussed on our Weber County Forum pages.
First, Scott Schwebke reports on a main item of last night's city council meeting agenda, wherein the council at long last approved a resolution approving the sale of the fire-ravaged Shupe-Williams property, adjacent to Emerald City's Union station.
OGDEN — The Union Station Foundation got a sweet deal Tuesday night, receiving approval from the Ogden City Council to purchase the former Shupe-Williams Candy Co. property for $510,000, which is $5,000 below the appraised value.We'll assume, at least for the time being, that the Union Station Foundation has plans for this property which go well beyond the establishment of a new parking lot.
City Councilwoman Susan E. Van Hooser said she is pleased the property will be sold to the foundation because it will allow Union Station to grow.
“The thrilling thing is that it allows them to fulfill their mission to expand their facilities,” she said.
The two-acre parcel is valuable because it keeps the station from being land-locked, said Jack McDonald, president of the Union Station Foundation’s board of directors.
The foundation’s purchase of the property should be finalized by the end of the month, he said.
The property has been vacant since a March 2006 fire that destroyed the Shupe-Williams building.
The sale agreement calls for the foundation and the city to share the cost of establishing a parking lot on the property at 2605 Wall Avenue adjacent to Union Station.
The city will be granted an easement across the property to reach the parking lot.
If the Union Station Foundation fails to make substantial building improvements on the property by April 30, 2012, the city will have the option of repurchasing the land at the original sale price.
A new museum perhaps?
For those readers interested in a little recent but labyrinthine history about this subject property, we link our past Shupe-Williams articles here. We do hope you'll enjoy the trip down memory lane.
We'll also note in passing that our city council still hasn't gotten the concept of relying upon the free market to dispose of surplus properties. Once again, another city-owned property winds up in the hands of an arranged buyer, without the benefit of any competition from prospective buyers in our currently robust Utah real estate market. Take note that even Ace Reporter Schwebke refers to this, in double-entendre, as a "sweet deal."
Significantly, this percipient transaction comes in at nearly the full appraised value, raising the question of what price this property would have fetched, had the council NOT disposed of it by the methods of Joseph Stalin, or even worse -- Boss Godfrey.
Secondly, this morning's Standard-Examiner lead editorial is a good one, we think, "sticking up for UTA" as it does, during a time when that quasi-public agency wears a target on its back. We think the Std-Ex "nails it" perfectly in the final paragraph:
Tension between the Legislature and UTA is nothing new. A few years ago,lawmakers erupted in a spasm of righteous indignation* after finding out that transit-authority executives are very well paid. Before that, in 2003, there was talk eerily similar to this year’s powerplay: giving UDOT authority over UTA. As we wrote at the time, the lawmakers’ inability to direct the operations of UTA seems to be the source of conflict — the Legislature covets what it cannot directly control. Lawmakers always say the reason they want consolidation is to better control costs and to streamline coordination between mass transit and roads. But they eventually come to their senses, because the fact of the matter is that the act of folding UTA into the state’s transportation department — the highway builders — would harm rural Utahns. As we’ve noted during previous skirmishes on this subject, UTA is funded with local taxes. It does not operate outside the urban Wasatch Front. In the Top of Utah, for example, people who live in Rich and Morgan counties don’t have to pay taxes that fund UTA operations they’ll never see within their boundaries Sponsoring lawmakers should consult planning committees like the Wasatch Front Regional Council — it already does an excellent job of transportation and transit coordination; legislators would also find out that the WFRC is unanimously opposed to HB 166. We second the sentiments of the Wasatch Front Regional Council: UTA should remain an independent entity. [emphasis ours.]
For a sampling of the kind of complaints which UTA has been drawing, check out this Salt Lake City blog.
We were on the verge not long ago here at Weber County Forum of having our own beef with UTA, as our gentle readers will recall, over a purported $200 thousand secret gondola study which Boss Godfrey ostensibly commissioned on UTA's dime. Fortunately our concerns about possible UTA financial imprudence were put to rest, in large part because of the ferocious investigation and reporting of the Standard-Examiner's Ace Reporter Schwebke. Stumbling across this crucial document of course, didn't hurt that effort either.
Like the Std-Ex editors and the WFRC, we have continuing confidence in the UTA.
We thus join the Standard-Examiner in urging our meddling legislature to keep your danged grubby mitts off the UTA!
So there!
-----
*Pure poetry
