Burger King Mogul Draws More Standard-Examiner Ink - UPDATED

School board member John Gullo expounds upon his seemingly sudden financial prudence epiphany

Interesting development in the arena of Emerald City school board politics, with this morning's Amy K. Stewart article, reporting on the latest public statements of recently-dissident school board member John Gullo:

OGDEN — Ogden School Board member John Gullo has a lot of questions when it comes to the district’s numerous construction projects — but it may be a while before he gets any answers.
Gullo believes there are problems with how the school district conducts its bid process. He wants to know exactly what the procedure is and why things are being done the way they are.
And he has dozens of other questions regarding the district’s school building projects."At the end of the day, my confidence level is low," Gullo said. "And I want to check this out."

Of course this is not the first time Mr. Gullo has raised questions about school board procedures for the bidding and approving of school district construction projects. Mr. Gullo (who has held a seat on the school board since January 2005) has been speaking out publicly on this subject since -- well -- late last week, to be exact.

Although we don't know what has caused Mr. Gullo's seemingly sudden awakening to the recognition that school board construction projects should be very carefully examined, we are at least tentatively happy to have Mr. Gullo now apparently "on board" with us in our constant WCF crusade -- aimed at subjecting ALL ambitious and expensive government plans and schemes to the most strict possible scrutiny.

At this point we're going to confess that we may indeed be reading too much into Mr. Gullo's public statements. When it comes to the reporting Mr. Gullo's specific concerns, today's article is actually fairly thin on the facts. We did nevertheless find some further encouragement in these additional Gullo remarks:

"I don’t think we should trust anybody," he said.
Before any other district projects go to bid, Gullo wants to go through financial details line by line.
"The $40 million (shortfall) may be right. This all may be good," he said, "but I owe it to the taxpayers to do this right."

Having said all this, we have not overlooked the possiblity that these "apple pie & motherhood" statements on Mr. Gullo's part may have at least something to do with our upcoming Emerald City Municipal election. As our regular readers will recall, Mr. Gullo has at least once in the past expressed interest in serving on the Emerald City Council.

So what about it, gentle readers? Has school board member John Gullo truly experienced a finance-prudence conversion? If so, the Emerald City school board my have something akin to an Emerald City tiger on its tail. In support of that proposition, we cite the September 26, 2005 WSU Signpost comment from somebody who knows much about such matters:

"When John Gullo gets a good idea, get out of the way," said Ogden City Mayor Matthew Godfrey. "He's tenacious, hardworking, and absolutely passionate about improving Ogden."

And speaking of Matthew Godfrey, we admit we had earlier considered John Gullo to be a dyed-in-the-wool Godfreyite. But we wonder -- now that the "tenacious, hardworking, and absolutely passionate" Mr. Gullo has publicly advocated the concept of subjecting government-funded projects to careful examination -- whether he'll also be bending the mayor's ear on this subject.

So what do your think, ever-gentle readers? Will John Gullo suddenly start hammering Boss Godfrey about the taxpayer's fundamental interest in keeping a close eyeball on Emerald City projects and resources?

Or are Mr. Gullo's recent statements mere pre-election political posturing?

Update 7/3/07 10:12 a.m. MT: We were delighted to find an email missive from Mr. Gullo in our Weber County Forum inbox this morning, responding paragraph-by-paragraph to yesterday's article text. Our readers can read Mr. Gullo's retort here. We thank Mr. Gullo for his gracious, candid and timely response.

We also had a short but cordial telephone conversation with Mr. Gullo a few minutes ago, during which he confirmed that he does NOT intend to run for an Emerald City Council seat, and further agreed to hook up with us later in the week for an exclusive follow-up interview.

We'll keep you all informed as this matter progresses.