Like the Hollywood "B" grade horror-movie monster that never has "the stake" quite driven cleanly through its evil heart until the end of the last reel, Boss Godfrey's strange gondola obsession arises once again as headline news this morning, with this Scott Schwebke story, reporting that the Godfrey administration and the Utah Transit Authority have reached agreement for disposition of the $247 thousand in Federal Transportation Administration grant funds that have been languishing on the UTA books for over a year.Yes, gentle readers, the secret gondola study is once again back on the WCF discussion front burner, right back where it belongs, with a municipal election approaching in a mere 46 days.
As is the usual circumstance in anything involving Boss Godfrey obsessions, opinions differ about the operative facts. Whereas Boss Godfrey contends that the expenditure of these funds will be for the benefit of the UTA, rational spokesmen for the Utah Transit Authority have previously expressed a drastically differing opinion on the subject:
Godfrey said transportation information from studies funded through the contract will benefit UTA, not Ogden, because the city wouldn’t own, operate or maintain the urban gondola.Boss Godfrey of course resides in his own private gondolist universe, and is no stranger to drastic differences of opinion, especially among rational, non-sociopathic people.
“They (UTA) requested the contract,” he said. “They need to find out if it (the urban gondola) is viable to get people from point A to point B.”
However, a July 20, 2006, letter from Mick Crandall, UTA’s deputy chief for planning and programming, to John Arrington, the city’s finance manager, indicates at the time the municipality was interested in using the $247,500 allocation to further study the gondola proposal.
“Ogden city has determined that its preferred use of the funds would be to refine the proposal for the aerial cableway which the city is pursuing as part of a public-private cooperative endeavor,” the letter says.
Among the details nailed down in the UTA/Godfrey agreement are these, according to this morning's Ace Reporter Schwebke story:
"UTA will allocate a portion of the funds to pay Salt Lake City-based Lewis, Young, Robertson & Burningham $16,250 for a gondola fiscal impact study completed in November 2006...And there's also one additional element of the story that we find curious:
"With the exception of the Lewis, Young, Robertson & Burningham bill, UTA will be responsible for all contracts financed in connection with the agreement...
In addition, the city and UTA will jointly develop a “scope of work” for gondola studies that maximizes “benefits to the constituents” of both entities, the agreement says...
The city and UTA will also designate an equal number of representatives to a committee that will review gondola-related study proposals, according to the agreement...
In addition, UTA will review all invoices submitted by each consultant to determine eligibility for payment.
"After UTA pays Lewis, Young, Robertson & Burningham, the balance of the funds available through the contract won’t likely be expended, unless Peterson finds a way to fund the urban gondola, said John Patterson, the city’s chief administrative officer."
We're not sure what the above language means, although it might suggest that UTA will not be required to disburse any funds under express terms of the agreement, until Chris Peterson comes up with a viable mechanism to fund the whole crackpot scheme.
Is the production of a viable financing plan a condition precedent to the implementation of this UTA/Godfrey agreement under its own written terms? Will the UTA be legally required to hold off on wasting these grant monies, until the gondolists produce a plan on paper that passes the "sniff test" -- or is Mr. Patterson merely suggesting that this probably won't happen as a practical matter? There remains a large hanging question in the possible interpretation of Patterson's above statement.
Frankly we do not know. Unfortunately Ace reporter Schwebke apparently didn't ask the obvious followup question. This, buy the way is not intended as a slam on Scott Schwebke, who played perhaps the key role in publicly exposing the Godfrey administration's earlier devious misbehavior in connection with this matter, and whose article today is otherwise very revealing.
We'll attempt to reach a UTA spokesman this morning. If we can get some clarification on this, we'll put it up by way of an article update.
And what say our gentle readers about all this?
Update 9/20/07 11:45 a.m. MT: One of our gentle readers has kindly forwarded to us a full text pdf version of the above-mentioned 8/29/07 UTA/Godfrey Administration agreement, which we've uploaded to our storage site and now make available for our readers' inspection here.
Update 9/21/07 9:05 a.m. MT: Scott Schwebke provides a followup story in this morning's Standard-Examiner, fleshing out yesterday's story with the added information that UTA officials are also dealing directly with the city council and its legal representatives, regarding the ultimate disposition of the Federal Transportation Administration funds.
