Shining the Light on the Roaches at City Hall

Extra: Read Dan S.'s expanded 29-page GRAMA document collection below

By Curmudgeon

The Standard-Examiner this morning has a story based on the administration’s emails obtained by Dan S. via GRAMA request and made public last week on Weber County Forum. [The Std-Ex, churlishly, simply says the story is based on ”according to e-mails obtained by the Standard-Examiner.”] Still, it’s a remarkable story.

Several notable things in it. For example, it discusses the Mayor's retroactive waiver of the competitive bidding requirements for hiring Lewis, Young, Robertson & Burningham to do a financial analysis of the now defunct [the Mayor says] Peterson proposal. About which Hizzonah has this to say:

"I sign dozens of documents every day," Godfrey said. He said he is unsure why Patterson requested the waiver more than a year after the city commissioned the study. "These kinds of things are brought to me routinely," he said.

Huh? Have I got this right? The Mayor is saying he was not aware of what he was signing? That somebody, presumably Mr. Patterson, just stuck it in front of him and he signed it without knowing what it was or why he'd been given it? That's what it seems to say.

Sort of make you wonder what we are paying the Mayor his hefty salary to do, doesn't it? I wasn't aware that blindly signing whatever anyone of his staff puts in front of him constitutes responsible governance. But apparently the Mayor does.

By the way, I hope Mr. Patterson noted that the finger pointing has begun, and the Mayor is pointing at him. You're not working for a stand up guy, Mr. Patterson. In fact, watching all the Godfreyistas scamper for cover, the Godfrey Gang is beginning to look a lot like the Tweed Ring.

It hardly needs to be pointed out, I think, that if the Mayor... or anyone who slides a piece of paper before him for his signature... can retroactively grant waivers to the city's competitive bidding regulations, then those regulations have been rendered entirely meaningless.

Other elements of the story suggest that instead of a new incarnation of Boss Tweed's ring, the Godfrey Administration should instead be called "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."

From the story: “I have never been a part of a mess like this project has become,” Patterson wrote in an April 13 e-mail to Arrington and copied to Management Services Director Mark Johnson, Community and Economic Development Director Dave Harmer and former Business Development Manager Scott Brown. “It is an embarrassment to the city.”

Indeed it is, Mr. Patterson. Indeed it is. But you'd better get used to this sort of thing. You work for Mayor Godfrey.

Overall, the frantic scuttling here and there trying to cover the city's tracks on this ---- reminds me nothing so much as the frantic scrambling of roaches living under a flat rock in a damp place when the rock is turned over and the sunlight shines in --- is yet more evidence, as if we needed it, of the Godfrey administration's preference of operating out of sight and in the dark, and its dislike of open government. Makes it hard to arrange sales of public land without bidding and at a lower price than others offer for it if people are actually allowed to watch what you're doing.

Rep. Hansen ought to ask the State Auditor to widen his investigation beyond how the Godfrey administration handled its grant money. Perhaps an audit of the Administration's general business practices could use a little sunlight... and disinfectant... too.

Remarkable story, even if the SE didn't credit Dan S. or WCF for breaking it. Don't miss it.

Editor's Note - Special GRAMA Document Collection: We are pleased to announce that we have uploaded the full 29-page Ogden Sierra Club GRAMA document production collection, discussed in our previous article on this topic. Chairman Dan S. has taken additional time to carefully "scrub" the data of private contact information, and has selected and provided the most interesting and relevant documents, which we link for our reader's attention: July '07 GRAMA Document Production Collection.