One state legislator responds decisively to the taxpayer heat
By Curmudgeon
$700 a Month Residential Property Taxes? A month?!?!?!?
Yes, that's right. Some homeowners in Ogden's Hole [aka in realtor-ese "The Upper Ogden Valley"] have seen their property tax assessments soar to $700 a month... as much a month as their mortgages cost. From a story in today's Standard-Examiner:
The largest tax increases in the county have occurred in the Ogden Valley area, particularly Huntsville, Liberty and Eden, he said. Some property owners in those areas are paying taxes of about $700 a month, which nearly equals their mortgage payments, he said.
When Mayor Godfrey and his Lift Ogden Amen Chorus [blessedly silent of late except, it seems, for Mr. Royal Eccles, candidate for the Council] was in full-throated roar, they assured us that the gondola/gondola scheme would make Ogden "the next Aspen" or "the new Vail" or "the new Park City." The claim changed a lot, as Lift Ogden claims have a habit of doing. When next a promoter or politician dangles a silver-bullet quick fix for Ogden's imagined ills before us, we ought to think about consequences beyond promises that Paris Hilton and her entourage will stroll the Junction browsing the Prada and Gucci shops until her next gondola ride. We ought to keep in mind that recreational residential real estate booms can, and for some, do have disastrous consequences. [Yes, being forced out of your home by ballooning property values in a fevered market is a disaster for those forced out.]
The Std-Ex story recounts State Rep. Gage Froerer's [R-Ogden's Hole] call for property tax rebates for those hardest hit. Earlier this week, Rep. Froerer, accompanied by a Weber County commissioner and county tax staff, took part in a public meeting up in the Valley to explain to angry residents why their taxes had soared so far so fast. Rep. Froerer got his ears pinned back. The residents were in no mood to listen to accounting explanations. They were angry and frustrated and afraid of losing their homes and they let Rep. Froerer know it.
Apparently, Rep. Froerer then did something very strange for a Republican office holder: he listened. [What would the President think if he found out? Happily for Froerer, the President is on yet another paid vacation and so is unlikely to learn of Froerer's apostasy.] Rep. Froerer, according to the Std-Ex story, is advocating a tax rebate for those hardest hit, modeled on a similar plan in Davis County.
Ed. Note: For robust and thorough coverage of the percipient tax revolt now brewing in Ogden Valley, be sure to check out the most recent articles in Ogden Valley Forum.
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
33 comments:
This is not exactly on-topic, but something has been bugging me the last few days and I finally had time this afternoon for a little research project.
Mayor Matthew Godfrey says, on his webpage, that crime in Ogden has been reduced by 23% since he became Mayor.
Now, I'm not a criminal justice expert like Jon Greiner, but I can read data tables. I know that may experts tell us that crime is primarily a function of the 14-to-24 year old male demographic, and not the result of law enforcement efforts, or their absence.
So I made a bet with myself that crime stats are down in the entire state of Utah since Matthew Godfrey was elected Mayor of Ogden.
I won the bet with myself.
Here are the numbers, which I have in a spreadsheet and graph if anyone cares (I hope the formatting is not horribly munged as you read this on your browser):
Year Crimes % %
per change change
100K prev yr vs running
pop. 5 yr ave
1994 5300.9
1995 6090.8 13.0
1996 5985.9 -1.8
1997 5995.5 0.2
1998 5505.9 -8.9
1999 4976.5 -10.6 -16.1
2000 4476.1 -11.2 -27.6
2001 4243.0 -5.5 -27.0
2002 4452.4 4.7 -13.2
2003 4475.9 0.5 -5.7
2004 4271.9 -4.8 -5.9
2005 4096.1 -4.3 -7.0
(It's munged on mine, but the columns from left to right are: year, crimes per 100,000 population, percent reduction on previous year, percent reduction on running 5 year average.)
Source: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
Amazingly, then, we conclude that the election of the dynamic crimefighter Matthew Godfrey as Mayor of Ogden has reduced crime in the entire state of Utah.
I wanted to tell his campaign manager this right away, but the name of his campaign manager is a secret, so I'm doing the next best thing and posting it to WCF.
I would write the S-E with this information, but I've already used up my letter for this month. If someone else wants to do it, have Rudi contact me (he knows who I am) and I'll share my dataset.
The property tax issue in "Ogden's Hole" has reached emergency levels. While our County Commissioners and Assessors experienced tax in creases of 14-16%, Huntsville resident's average increase was 116% (the largest average increase in the nation.)
There were even greater inequities with some Wolf Creek properties increasing by only 22% while one Huntsville Property increased by a whopping 800%.
Contrary to the County assessor's office opinion, we are not all "rich anyway."
href="http://ovstandard.blogspot.com/2007/08/class-action-lawsuit.html"
monotreme...
I think that Rep. Hansen and candidate for mayor, should take credit for the states crime being down. After all he is in the legislature and that is where it all begins. Great Job Rep. Hansen pat your self on the back just like Godfrey does.
OK you people in Huntsville, and everywhere else, listen up.
If your taxes went up 100% or 800% then file a complaint about it. They mail out the complaint form with the tax notice!
If you can show by assessment or some other objective method that the county has overvalued your property, then the county will lower you valuation, and your tax. (They’ve done that with me before.) But if your property has really gone up that much, then suck it up, and pay up! (I’ve done that before too.)
Why should you Ogden Hole dwellers get a lower TAX RATE than me? And as far as Froerer and the other politicians kissing your butts, congratulations, now you know you are a bonafide SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP!
Try to get the message – we have all these candidates running for office who say they want to “bring people and business to the area,” and “grow the economy.” OK, have you heard of “supply and demand”? If the amount of real estate is essentially static (supply) and there are more PEOPLE (demand), then the PRICE must go UP! That’s why they call it the LAW of supply and demand!
For developers, contractors, newspaper publishers, bankers, brokers, and real estate people that means more MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS! Why do you think those people spend so much time with politicians?! But if you are somebody who just wants to live here, GROWTH only means that means YOU GET TO PAY MORE TAX, your water is less pure, and when you want to go somewhere you get stuck in traffic! Is this really so hard to understand??
If you’d stop electing these jerks who try to make this place GROW, who try to make this place GET NOTICED, you wouldn’t have this problem. But since you keep voting for GROWTH MONKEYS, then you get your WISH! Grab you wallet and pay, pay, pay baby.
Please forgive me for being strident, but I hate it when people SCREW THEMSELVES then look for somebody else to blame.
Danny:
A little overstated. There's growth and then there's growth. There's speculative real-estate-bubble "growth" which tends to bring with it some often unconsidered until it's too late collateral consequences. Then there's sustainable growth, which is a very different thing. Or can be.
However much you may dislike it, our national economy and most state and local economies are geared to some level of continual growth in order to sustain themselves. What matters, in down to earth terms, is how that growth is managed to maximize the public good, and minimize unexpected and unwelcome collateral consequences. The problem, I think, with the "Godfrey Lift Ogden silver bullet if-we-just-build-a-gondola-and-then-another-gondola-to someplace,-anyplace we'll all have great jobs and drive Porches and none of our kids will move away, and everyone will be happy forever" scheme is that it would, if it worked, produce the first kind of growth: unsustainable real-estate-bubble growth. And it will --- on this the Godfrey Gondolistas are right --- permanently change the nature of Ogden City. The question is, will it change it in ways the present residence would rather it not be changed. I think it would.
But arguing for no-growth, as you seem to be, is akin to trying to sweep back the sea. It's pointless.
Curm,
We agree on the idea that if there must be growth, then at least we should choose what type of growth we have, and we agree that the growth promoted by the Godfrey Ring is the worst possible kind.
The problem is that most politicians (and the public) respond to the money spent to control them by thinking all growth is the same and it's all good, because the cement and asphalt boys, the real estate people, and the bankers tell them so. Then they complain when they wake up one morning and the place is starting to look like LA.
The primary target therefore, must be the notion that all growth is good. Before we can reason on one type of growth or another, we must first defeat the primary target.
Regrettably, as usual, you seem to shrink from the battle, by conceding the reasons that growth must happen anyway, and that it is therefore futile to fight it. It’s really very uninspiring.
As far as your analogy, I would remind you that people have held back the sea all over the Earth for decades. These people were told it was impossible, but they were indomitable, and they succeeded.
You are at your best when you fight the battle. People dislike you when you surrender, and particularly, when you give aid and comfort to evil by suggesting that resisting and confronting it is futile.
Danny
Curmudgeon's predictable correction aside, you hit the nail right on the head with your analysis of this bull shit mania about growth growth growth just for growth's sake!
The real growth that is killing us all is in government. Especially in our local governments and school districts. They are both great, huge and mostly incompetent vacuums that suck up way too much of the public's wealth. They are for the most part evil hungry demons that have taxing authority to perpetuate their own unchecked growth.
All great empires eventually collapse in on themselves because the bloated bureaucracies end up consuming ever larger amounts of the common wealth and recources as they get further and further away from the welfare of the masses.
The United States is no exception and eventually will crumble under the weight of the non performing manipulators, politicians and other scum gaining ever more control over the wealth of the nation.
The NeoCon movement in this and other western countries is a good example of this decline. It is people with the arrogance and mentality of Bush and Godfrey that are at the heart of the decay of all great empires. In their greed, incompetence and never ending quest for individual glory they end up destroying the goodwill of the citizenry that is necessary for a great empire to prosper.
Meanwhile the only real solution is to smile and be happy, it is all really only a game that man kind plays anyway. We have become so good at controling the environment that we no longer have to spend all of our time just to survive. Therefor we have lots of spare time on our hands and most everything mankind does is really only a game, dontcha know!
Danny:
Three points:
First, you wrote: As far as your analogy, I would remind you that people have held back the sea all over the Earth for decades. These people were told it was impossible, but they were indomitable, and they succeeded.
As a 31 year resident of south Louisiana with many colleagues who lived [past tense] in New Orleans, I'm not prepared to accept your argument about the success of holding back the sea .
Second: You wrote The primary target therefore, must be the notion that all growth is good.
Nothing... absolutely nothing... I wrote challenged that statement in any way.
Third: To your claim that we have to fight and throttle that idea first before we can start thinking about, and campaigning for sustainable and community-enhancing growth, I'd simply reply that if those who want sustainable growth and growth not mindlessly destructive [to the community] permit themselves to be labeled "anti growth," they will have lost the battle before it has begun.
Yes, given the current mindset of most Americans, and the current configuration of the economy [national and local], I think it is futile to fight "growth" per se --- meaning all growth or the very idea of any growth. But it absolutely is not futile to fight mindless growth, unsustainable growth, or growth that will alter in unhappy ways the nature of Ogden. And nothing I posted suggested otherwise.
MY! my, my, oh how these people obfuscate and ramble. Suddenly George Bush is at fault and in a conspiracy with God---frey! I prefer to think in terms of something we can actually do something about. Like putting a hault, for example, to some of these evil and dastardly leeches on our lives in the here and now. The subject is proposition 13 'type" legislation to force these same blood sucking bureaucratic scum from forcing old people out of their homes...Danny boy.
Don't know if you can get this or not but the reason and only reason for the 116% property value increases are as follows: first an unscrupulous real estate broker comes into town and creates a false property market value by getting his out of state friends to offer hundreds of thousands of dollars over actual market value. He virtually turned real estate into a ponsi scheme. The authorites are onto him now and he will likely do the shackles two step fairly soon. Remember a guy named Milkin who falsely inflated stocks and served about eleven years or are you too young?
For example a local hermit bachelor lives in a family house alone until he dies. The house built in 1920s has literally floor to ceiling cow manure and piles of newspapers with only tow-sacks on which to walk over the manure. He dies and the place sells for $389,000 because this nefarious jerk has been going around Town doing this to falsely inflate property values. All the alleged properties this character had any dealings in are currently in foreclosure.
Now: Old Doug gave me this analogy the other day. See if it breaks through your cranium...
Barry Bonds hit a home run which broke a record. He hit that home run using a $3 ball from a fresh case of balls each costing $3 bucks. But the one $3 ball caught by some kid is suddenly worth $500,000 just because it happened to be the one hit by Bonds. The tax assessors insist that because that one ball is valued now at $500,000 then every ball has to be worth that much.
This insanity is the essense of the problem here in Huntsville and the Ogden Valley now. Soon it will be the problem with Ogden's East bench unless insightful and intelligent people like you wake the F___ up and help solve the problem by demanding tax payer protections against these buffoons who will continue to bleed us all dry unless we put a stop to them. Get it? God-frey and George Bush have nothing, repeat nothing to do with it so get a life.
Sometimes I think Ogden is snake bit... just a little.
What's it been now? Nearly six or seven weeks without appreciable rain? And on both nights of the XTERRA event downtown, the skies opened up and rain poured down.
Mrs. Curmudgeon and I went downtown to support the general [and all-American]principle of public beer drinking at civic events in downtown Ogden. That is, it might be argued, one of the fundamental liberties for which the Revolution was fought. Sam Adams was a brewer after all; according to the menu at Squatters, Ben Franklin said "Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy;" and Jefferson is known to have sold slaves to restock his wine cellar.
It was a nice event. Fun. [Mrs. Curmudgeon was carded, which made her happy. The fact that they were carding everyone she dismissed as irrelevant. ] We both received our Bracelets of Shame [red Budweiser wristbands given to the carded to Let Everyone Know they were intending to imbibe]. Good crowd, good feeling, lots of chatter, kids on the climbing wall, and scooting around. A happy ambiance at the awards ceremony. Ran into many WCF posters, SGO people, and lots of out of towners.
The lots of out of towners may explain why the organizers clearly underestimated the demand for suds. Loooooong lines and waits to get a brew. Lots of good food available from The Bistro, Roosters, The Athenian etc. Many many kids, and whole families there. None seemed to be visibly corrupted by the presence of the red-bracelet contingent. Crowd included geezers to young folk athletes to children, and all seemed to be enjoying the night. Mrs. Curmudgeon was looking forward to sticking around for the highlights film and the music. Just an all around fun evening in the making it seemed to me.
And then the skies opened up. A true deluge. And the lightning started. People sheltered on the stage. Some folks thought outside the box, removed the Pacifico table umbrellas from the tables so more people could shelter under them.
And the kids, of course, were dancing in the rain and sliding on the wet grass.
Really sorry to see the rain come down and the place clear out. It was, I thought, shaping up nicely as a fun evening. And I'm rethinking my grinchy view of the amphitheater design. For an event like this, the area worked really well.
So, overall, I hope the XTERRA folk come back. We'll go back downtown probably both nights next time if they do.
Thanks for checking in, Machman.
And you're right. Current happenings in Ogden Valley are like the proverbial "dead canary in the coal mine" for Emerald City residents, assuming the very EVIL Boss Godfrey gets re-elected, and succeeds in transforming our nice little blue collar town into some kind of weird amusement park/tourist trap.
You're right in your "home run baseball" analogy, too. That was very good, and we all ought to contemplate it.
A taxation system which pegs property values according to prices paid by greed-head investors, in a Bush-gummint/Greenspan economic environment of historically abnormal, ultra-inflationary low interest rates, perpetrates a fraud upon stable citizen-taxpayers who merely wish to reside in particular areas to raise their families, or live their lives out peacefully in their retirement years.
California's Proposition 13 looks tempingly better and better with each passing day, we confess.
Our vaunted Utah "truth in taxation protections" didn't protect stable Ogden Valley residents very much at all, did they, in a landscape of wild real estate speculatation and greed.
Welcome. Hope you'll check back. We think you'll fit in well here.
Curmudgeon
The rains were sent by God to show his displeasure at the sinfullness of you corrupt beer swilling naysayers.
God and Godfree hate it when their children imbide in alcohol. The red bands that Mr. Godfree dictates is merely the modern day scarlet letter so that the real God will know who to throw those lightening bolts at.
Sure wouldn't want to be in your shoes Mr. Curmudgeon sinner.
Republicans created this tax mess in Utah. Stop voting Republican. Their not going to solve it until the Republican Elected Officials own all the land. Then they will lower the taxes.
I was just over on 'Royal the Godfryite's' website and found this:
'I am a fiscal conservative...'
Since when do 'fiscal conservatives' advocate massive public borrowing for public projects, as Godfrey has done these past seven years?
There ought to be a 'truth in labeling' law for political candidate websites.
Royal 'Royal' wouldn't recognize a 'fiscal conservative" if he tripped over the dead body of Ludvig von Mises.
(Google it, Royal, you dummy)
"We both received our Bracelets of Shame [red Budweiser wristbands given to the carded to Let Everyone Know they were intending to imbibe]. "
My muse told me to tattoo all beer drinkers, Curmudgeon, but even my loyal personal lacky Gary Williams told me that would be illegal.
Consider yourself lucky... this time.
He he he.
This card-carrying liberal Democrat is eally enjoying hearing all these Utah Republicans complaining about Utah's tax-and-spend legislature. He he he. Love it.....
A couple of interesting letters to the editor in this morning's SE (Sunday)
The first from a Mr. Wilson that is in answer to the idiotic, rambling and dissembling piece of shit propoganda put out a couple of weeks ago by John - the fired from WV City for sexual improprieties - Patterson (now chief apologist for the Godfreyites since the Midget in Chief's midget B. Geiger has had a sock stuffed in his large and stupid mouth)
This letter can be seen here:
Ogden CAO's comments further bewilder
The other letter is from some moron who obviously discounts integrity and morality in city government, and who apparently believes that the ends justify the means no matter how illegal or immoral the means are.
This ridiculous babble can be seen here:
A new Ogden Council should be pro business
The second letter mentioned by Carl Rove's Conscience just above deserves, I think, more comment. It is truly remarkable. The letter is signed "Cameron Greener, Ogden."
Here is the most remarkable paragraph in it:
While ideas like improving administrative accountability, or asking tough questions and getting to the bottom of core issues are great platforms for towns with nothing at stake, Ogden residents cannot afford to be apathetic about the issues at hand. Tea and cracker parties at the top of the city building will not bring the needed revitalization. Ogden needs more businesses in order to continue going in the right direction. We need a City Council of educated, capable professionals in order to build the foundation for this to occur.
Has it truly come to this in Ogden? That the business community believes that holding government accountable for its actions is an anti-business policy? That asking questions of government proposals is an anti-business policy?
I can understand why businessmen like Ken Lay and his co-criminals at Enron might consider elected officials asking questions to be "anti business." But can that possibly be the view of the Ogden business community? Does the Ogden Weber Chamber of Commerce [which purports to speak for the Ogden business community in general] think accountability in government is an anti-business practice? Does it think, as Mr. Greener alleges, that Council members asking questions about proposals means the council is anti-business? Has it really come to that? I certainly hope not.
In fact, seems to me about now the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce and the business community it claims to represent should have learned how valuable the council's asking questions can be. After all, the Chamber's leadership [politely so called] in the person of Mr. David Hardman, its president and CEO, led the Chamber to blindly endorse the gondola/gondola park sale plan, which the Mayor himself now concedes was not feasible from the start. Surely the Chamber is glad, now, that the Council and others began asking questions about that plan. Surely the Chamber's members are now inquiring of Mr. Hardman why he was not asking questions of the Mayor's proposal before he led the Chamber to endorse it... questions like "is this plan feasible?" Or "are there market studies that support the various elements of this plan that have to succeed for the plan to work?" We know now that the answer to those questions was "no." And we know that, in part, because the Council refused to be steamrolled into hasty and imprudent action, that it insisted questions like those be asked and answered first.
[Note: on its web page, the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce still endorses the sale of Mt. Ogden Golf Course and adjacent lands to Mr. Peterson for real estate development... the very plan the Mayor has now pronounced not feasible.]
But Mr. Greener thinks the Council's ,"asking questions" is an anti-business policy and wants a new Council majority that thinks so to. And one that will avoid the whole principle that government should be accountable for its actions as "anti-business."
My god, has it really come to that in the Ogden business community? Is there really where the Chamber stands? Does Mr. Greener speak for the Ogden business community when he opposes accountability in government and elected Council members asking questions?
You've injected something new into the conversation here Curm?
Is Mr. Greener a spokesman or member of the Chamber of Commerce?
His letter certainly doen's say that, does it.
Curm, I too was astounded by the false dichotomy put forth by Mr Greener -- a government that is accountable or a government that is pro-business. But my favorite line in the letter is as follows: "Its unfortunate that many residents are unaware of the effort it has taken to encourage this growth." I can only say, "yes, it is unfortunate." Of course, Mr Greener doesn't really want the residents of Ogden to know what had to be done to encourage this growth, because then the Mayor's office would be on the side of accountability, and not on the side of business growth.
Rudi:
I didn't say Mr. G. was a Chamber Spokesperson, or even a member. I asked whether his attitudes... that asking questions and accountability in government constitute anti-business activities... were the attitudes of the Ogden Business community as well. He was, in his letter, telling us what he thinks needs to happen to improve the business climate in Ogden: that we abandon the idea of accountability in government and that Council members stop asking questions of the Administration's proposals. Seems fair to ask if the business community agrees with him on that.
The Chamber purports to speak for that business community. And the Chamber jumped aboard the Godfrey/Peterson Proposal with no evidence that it was feasible, no market studies in hand to support its probability of success, no thorough cost/benefit analyses, etc.. In short, it went leaping blindly over the cliff without asking questions first. So it seemed to me... still does... that asking the Chamber if it agrees with Mr. Greener that asking questions is anti-business was a fair question. And since it still is endorsing the now-abandoned and declared not feasible by the mayor Peterson Proposal on its website, it seemed fair to ask as well if the Chamber thinks accountability in government too is an anti-business activity.
I don't believe it does. Certainly many of its members don't. But given that Peterson Proposal endorsement still up on its website, I thought it fair to ask.
Mr. Greener does not appear as a Chamber member on its website members search list. You are right that I should have checked that first, and stated the results in my first post.
Cato:
You wrote: Of course, Mr Greener doesn't really want the residents of Ogden to know what had to be done to encourage this growth, because then the Mayor's office would be on the side of accountability, and not on the side of business growth.
Nice catch. Very nice. [Still grinning.]
I'd like to thank Carl Rove's Conscience for those two great links showing a big problem we have in this city - the Don Wilsons who know what's going on, and the "Cameron Greeners" (name probably fake) who either don't know, or who are part of the insider crony crowd and of course, will never admit it.
Also we have above another brilliant comment from Rudi (the first one above.) When Rudi is as his best, he is the best there is.
Just two cents. . .
Forgive me if this has been discussed, but I caught wind that Godfrey has had his "life threatened" once while out on the trail. He has also had his ass threatened by a boot twice while out on the trail. Did either of these stories make it into the SE?
I would just like to make it clear to everyone that I find this behaviour deplorable and unnecessary. Although I am not entirely shocked that three residents have reacted in such a disgraceful manner, consider the odds. He visits a thousand neighbors, and three react poorly. What are the chances? Not zero. This is a tough, pissed off town.
If Godfrey were to ring my bell, I'd serve him lemonade and give him the time of day.
Native.... it was reported in the paper that he was threated. But so what, he threats all the employees about their jobs if they don't do his bidding just ask Cameron Greener. I think that this is just has harsh as your life being threatened, after all it is their lively-hood.
'Danny said' questioned the veracity of Cameron Greener's name.
Cameron Greener is real according to the internet. He is the leader of Ogden's Neighborhood Council #12. His email address suggests that he is affiliated with J.D. Clark in Ogden, which is a "full-service administrative, accounting, and advisory firm serving the hedge fund industry since 1991." Just another member of the Amen Chorus singing the same tired tune.
This Greener dope says:
"While ideas like improving administrative accountability, or asking tough questions and getting to the bottom of core issues are great platforms for towns with nothing at stake, Ogden residents cannot afford to be apathetic about the issues at hand."
It seems to me that he is in fact advocating that the council be "apathetic" and ignore the very most important issue facing Ogden city government. That of course being integrity, and the lack of it in the Godfree administration.
It is truly amazing how these Godfree sycophants can twist logic around and try to make a case using the very arguments that prove the opposite of what they are trying to do.
Not only are they pretty stupid, but their arrogance apparently blinds them to their own dumbness.
bum buddy,
your point is well taken, but I don't think being fired from a municipal corporation justifies going homocidal on Godfrey. I mean, it wouldn't shock me if he fired some City employee and then they went postal on his ass. But it's not right.
But look, when you go to work for the government, expect to be fired for political reasons at any time. All government employess understand this, or they should. You want to avoid this? Work for yourself.
Are we going to feel sorry for Greg Montgomery when he gets shitcanned the day after Godfrey loses? No. But believe me, Montgomery knows it's coming. He won't go postal, he'll start sending out resumes.
Native:
I'd be willing to bet that nearly any mayor of any city as large as Ogden or larger for at least four years has had some threats made. Sadly, these days, holding any substantial visible public office draws the whackos: judge, congressman, governor, mayor, you name it.
And no matter how pissed off a voter might get, responding with threats is wrong, not to mention illegal. On that you are absolutely right. The remedy for Ogden's Godfrey problem is the ballot box. And if we re-elect him, he gets to make another four years of poor decisions with the full authority we, the people, will have given him.
We really do get the government we deserve. Or rather, we deserve the government we get. God help us....
We seem to do a lot of newspaper gazing, critiquing and such like here, so I thought this might be of some interest. It's a long column in Monday's Washington Post about the future... actually, the digital future... of daily newspapers. The writer is not happy about it, but resigned. Anyway, FYI. I found it interesting, and am mulling over what it will mean for the SE if true.
Curm:
Along with Sam Adams and Ben Franklin, let us revere A. E. Housman, who wrote, "Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man."
MM:
Well, of course he was a Brit, but with sound ideas like the one you quoted, I'd be for granting him honorary Ogden citizenship.
Thanks for the pointer. It's one I'd never heard. Mrs. C. just read it over my shoulder and is chuckling still.
Ogden, Godfrey, Ogden Godfrey, Ogden Bush - Ogden Rove/Bush Ogden, Ogden...do you guys ever get on and stay on subject? This is about gross tax abuse from three (3) Commissioners and a Tax Assessor's Office (Cheryl Madson), who are trying to force many old people from their homes in Ogden Valley. These Commissioner people include a rude cretin Conflict of Interest (which is a felony in Utah by the way) whose son apparently got special favors in the Ogden canyon, a buffoon ex cop Commissioner who is steering a major project of a "first ever and one of a kind" SWAT Team Training Center into a budget, at last report vaguely 126 million dollars ($126,000,000). His justification, "Think of all the travel expense money the County can save by not having to send our SWAT members to the East Coast for training?" YGBSM! Davis County has an 87 million dollar budget by the way and that is due largely to a Jail which does not pay its own way as promised the Davis County taxpayers by Sheriff Cox and the Commissioners.
And then the third Commissioner and her Assessor friend Cheryl, are apparently vying for the National Title vacated recently by Leona Helmsley, The Queen of Mean, "Only the little people pay taxes". The three Commissioner stooges are literally uprooting little ole lady widows from their traditional family homes by raising their taxes by 200% and more a year...yet you clowns prattle on and on about George Bush, Godfrey, and Carl Rove like you think you can make a difference by excoriating them.
Gentlemen you have brilliant minds and the talent few have to express those minds. You also have three of the most abusive and careless, ignorant and irresponsible people imaginable right here in River City. Yet you chose to ignore them and skewer Godfrey...the little dolt and pea brained mo mo, as if he mattered. The Strong Mayor-Council form of government is supposed to give you Ogdenites the legal checks and balances via the elected City Councilmen. Who protects the entire Weber County (and that is all of you) from these three (3) count'em three buffoons, who at a whim can obligate tens and hundreds of millions to such ridiculous nonsense as a "Swat Team Training Center"? Or abusing an entire two-thirds of the landmass of Weber County using gross and untrained off the street assessors to falsely inflate property market values in the Ogden Valley while charging Charlie Trentelman< and perhaps you guys?, literally $1.39?
Clue for Dearden...why has no other State or City spent the money on such a facility if it is such a great idea? Duh...because they can easily and cheaply use buildings for lease...like the old Fred Meyer on 12th street for example. The biggest problem is communications...getting everyone on frequencies that work without audibly stepping on one another. Paintball guns are relatively cheap and common when compared to lazers and expensive computer modeling equipment only us taxpayers can afford via the military and DOD budgets. That is why only the military facilities, instructors, etc. are generally used for such specialized training.
This morning enroute to Karen's Cafe for Jim's famous breakfast burrito, my wife and I counted seventeen (17) Weber County Sheriff's Dept. vehicles headed up the Canyon Road toward Ogden Valley. For what? A paddling and kayaking event? Last Exterra and Marathon Race all sponsored and PR'ed by Realtors and Ogden Chamber of Commerce, we were treated to nine count'em (9) cops wallowing in overtime in the middle of the intersection where the Monte Chisto Rd. intersects Hwy 39 just outside Huntsville. They were literally ganging around gorging on boxes of ....you guessed it... donuts. What a photo op! Point is the County is not being efficiently managed by anyone...no one is minding the store - owned by us tawpayers. But hey! You guys just keep on carping about Mayor Godfrey, President Bush, and Carl Rove...bet they are the ones who are at fault?! Sometimes I wonder if some folk's brains were grease there wouldn't be enough there to grease a mosquito's ass.
The subject...please, "Honor...get honor and stay honor."
Post a Comment