With his job approval numbers plummeting below 40%, and the citizens of Emerald City now on the verge of civil war, Boss Godfrey made a stunning announcement on Saturday, demonstrating, much to our surprise, that he's not entirely devoid of political sense. In his
OGDEN — The city won’t sell Mount Ogden Golf Course to pave the way for a gondola and resort project, Mayor Matthew Godfrey said Saturday.The ever-elusive Chris Peterson, who has been unavailable for comment for the last 10 months, did manage to crawl out from under whatever rock he's been hiding under to register to Mr. Schwebke his "disappointment." We suppose we would be a mite disappointed too, if we were to learn that our bestest mayoral buddy had unilaterally decided to throw us overboard, with a sudden announcement that he didn't intend to deliver on our hard-plotted and schemed $200 million real estate windfall.
Godfrey told the Standard-Examiner he believes the project may still be possible, but added developer Chris Peterson, who has been working on a proposal for more than a year, would have to determine how it could be funded.
"It doesn’t mean the project will stop from moving forward," Godfrey said. "It may happen, but it will require Chris to go back to the drawing board."
Godfrey said concerns from residents who fear the city’s trail system in the foothills along the east bench would be adversely affected persuaded him not to sell Mount Ogden Golf Course.
Many of those residents offered to support the gondola resort project if the city retained ownership of the golf course, Godfrey said.
"This is a great way to compromise to help people feel better about the project," he said of his decision not to sell the course.
Godfrey said he has also determined there isn’t excess land at the golf course to accommodate a 200-home subdivision that Peterson wants to build on some of the property.
"I came to the conclusion we need all the existing area (that Peterson wanted to build homes on) for the golf course," he said.
Councilman Safsten, who at least had the good sense to avoid the humiliation of being ousted from his municipal ward 4 council seat (by taking himself out of contention for re-election in the upcoming November election,) nevertheless offers this boneheaded comment, adding new meaning to the term "political lame duck":
City Councilman Rick Safsten wonders, without the gondola resort proposal on the horizon, what will be Ogden’s next big economic development project? “This is the worst possible time to stop the momentum and take a breather,” he said.We extend to lame duck city councilman Mr. Safsten our profound sympathy for this unfortunate development, which deprives the good comrade of the opportunity to stick it to the citizens of Emerald City this one last time.
Notably, the Geiger boys, who are normally available to squawk into whatever microphone is placed in front of their noses 24 hours a day, were inexplicably unavailable when Scott Schwebke called for comments. Perhaps Mr. Schwebke forgot to look for them at the footings of the nearest tall bridge. Saturday's news most surely dampened the spirits of those remaining few who still linger in the gondolist cult camp.
We'll avoid the near-irresistible compulsion to wax on with our further analysis; and will instead now turn the floor over to you, our gentle readers.
Before we do however, we'll just volunteer one final closing comment:
The November election can't come fast enough for us. Happy days will soon be with us, once the lumpencitizens of Emerald City have snatched the opportunity to install a new government -- composed of actual adults.
