By Curmudgeon
Mayor Godfrey is a seasoned campaigner, who knows how to use his incumbency to good advantage, to win him good ink the papers, and to shift the public's focus off topics he'd rather not have people discussing over their morning coffee -- like his attempts to have the taxpayers pay off a quarter of a million dollars in development costs for his crony Chris Peterson, involving the failed real estate development scheme intended for Ogden city parklands on the benches.
Good examples in this morning's papers here and in Salt Lake City.
First, in this morning's Std-Ex, there is this story headlined "Godfrey, vets lobby for nursing home." Here are the opening graphs:
SALT LAKE CITY — Mayor Matthew Godfrey and a contingent of veterans lobbied state officials Monday for $19 million to construct a long-awaited nursing home in Ogden. The group wants Gov. Jon Huntsman to include the allocation in his fiscal 2009 budget request to be submitted to the Legislature next year, Godfrey said.Then there's this story from this morning's Salt Lake Trib, headlined "Ogden to crack down on gangs." The story combines a report of the latest gang violence in Ogden [more yesterday] and reports of a new initiative by the Mayor to deal with it. From the story:
OGDEN - Police plan to double their efforts to crack down on gangs in the wake of a double homicide Sunday that punctuated a recent spike in gang-related violence. And Mayor Matthew Godfrey is preparing to announce several initiatives today to battle the crime wave.Police and politicians alike say that seven gang-related shootings in a month are unacceptable in a city that has touted its decline in crime over the past eight years.
"We're going after [gangs]," Godfrey said. "We're not going to wait around and see if this subsides. This kind of increase happens in Salt Lake County, but it does not here, so we will be putting a stop to it."[The Std-Ex has three gang-related stories, but nothing yet on the Mayor's new gangs initiatives, though once he holds that press conference, it too will be front page news.]
Now, let me say that of course, the Mayor of Ogden supports the building of a veteran's home in the area. It's a good idea, long overdue, and would help the area's economy as well, and I do not doubt for a second the sincerity of the Mayor's support for it. Similarly, of course he wants to cut down on gang violence, and eliminate it if possible in Ogden, and sincerely so. No sane public official would want to do anything else --- though it might be suggested by some, myself among them, that the Mayor seems a little late focusing on gang-violence in the city and coming up with initiatives to deal with it. And he is coming very visibly on board as the election approaches. But that, really, is the point. He is a seasoned campaigner and an elected official and he knows how to use the fact of his being Mayor to generate press coverage and move the public's focus in directions favorable to him.
The Mayor was working the crowd at the "night out against crime" event downtown yesterday evening. Shaking hands, talking to voters. Big signs announcing his presence. I'm not sure how many other mayoral candidates were there, if any. If they were, they were not nearly so visible as the Mayor. He knows how to do this, has a record of doing it successfully and is, reportedly, well financed. All this by way of suggesting to those who think the Mayor is done [and some who think that post here regularly] that such assumptions are risky when the guy you think is done is an experienced, successful and now well-financed candidate.
Finally, there is a Std-Ex piece on transit, pretty far back in the paper that it might not get noticed much, so I thought I'd link it here. The headline is "Fresno mulls a return to streetcars." From the story:
FRESNO, Calif. — Fresno leaders are looking into an old idea to deliver new life downtown. Think streetcars. That’s a key element of the latest revitalization plan from Mayor Alan Autry’s administration....Pity the poor people of Portland, and now Fresno, who have Mayors who support investing those cities' transit money in to streetcars instead of gondolas. Think how angry all those people in Portland who invested billions... yes, with a "b" ... in trackside commercial and residential development are going to be when they realize they could have had a gondola whizzing overhead carrying potential customers and residents past their businesses and apartments and condos with no way to get down to them instead.... Think how lucky Ogden is to have a mayor who thinks differently.
Streetcars are being used by more than two dozen cities across the United States as a way to jump-start development and reduce air pollution.
Fresno hopes to follow suit. About 30 city officials, elected leaders and local developers are traveling to Portland, Ore., this week to look at its streetcar system and the residential and commercial development that has sprung up around it. The city is picking up the group’s $20,000 airfare and lodging tab.
In Portland, they will examine a 7.2-mile streetcar loop that links downtown with several neighboring districts. It cost $100 million, and another mile will soon be added to the route for $14.5 million.
Since it opened in 2001, more than $2 billion in development has occurred within two blocks of the streetcar rail line, Portland officials say. This includes about 7,200 new homes and 4.6 million square feet of offices, stores and hotels.
[Sigh.]
