Over the course of the past week, there have appeared several election news pieces in the northern Utah print media, consisting of relatively shallow overviews of 2007 mayoral and council candidates and their respective campaign platforms. All of these have been tangentially discussed in lower article comments. However we have previously chosen not to spotlight them, mainly because they came up "short" -- both in length and useful content. If our gentle readers would nevertheless like to peruse these articles, we've made them available in our "Elections Module" in the right sidebar.
This morning however, the Salt Lake Tribune's Kristen Moulton offers us an article with a little more reportorial depth. This morning's report, offering a more fleshed-out view of our 2007 mayoral candidates than in previous articles, goes beyond mere press-release journalism, and actually provides Kristen's own canny and independent analysis.
Among other things, Ms. Moulton implicitly rejects Boss Godfrey's recent claims that his policies have "reduced Ogden City's overall crime rate by 23%, and violent crime by 43%." We thus incorporate below the pertinent parts of Ms. Moulton's text concerning this topic, for our ever-gentle readers' attention:
Matthew GodfreyIt is our understanding that Ms. Moulton received last week a press release transmitted from Boss Godfrey's campaign office, touting the unsubstantiated figures which have appeared on Godfrey's campaign website, and in Thursday's Standard Examiner. Notably Ms. Moulton apparently rejected the suspiciously "outlying" figures presented by Boss Godfrey, and instead did her own calculations, relying on statistical data contained in the FBI's usually-reliable Uniform Crime Reports. And equally notably, we find that Ms. Moulton's calculations reveal disparity in Godfrey's figures even more striking than those presented by gentle reader Monotreme in two earlier articles previously published here and here on this very blog.
Godfrey said the fruits of his eight years in office are becoming more evident - safer neighborhoods, more jobs and a revitalizing downtown - and voters can expect more good news if he's re-elected.
Eighteen police officers have been added, and it's having an effect on crime, Godfrey said.
Ogden's total crime dropped 12.8 percent and violent crime dropped 5.1 percent between the two six-year periods of 1994-1999 (before Godfrey took office) and 2000-2005 (the six years after), paralleling a trend in the rest of the state, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.
Ms. Moulton also makes note that the reduced crime rate which is manifest in Ogden, during the course of Boss Godfrey's mayoral tenure, is nothing particularly remarkable, inasmuch it reflects the same decline in crime rate which has been documented all across the entire Beehive State.
The balance of the article is likewise informative as to the other mayoral candidates, and is the first news article during the 2007 election season which in any way differentiates the "pack" of Emerald City mayoral challengers and their views. It's an interesting article, we think; and we thus recommend that our election-minded readers take a close look.
As a second matter of business, we would like to highlight two Standard-Examiner letters to the editor which appeared during the past several days, but which got crowded off the WCF front page due to other competing news and information. In this connection we refer to yesterday's letter by David Smith, and Saturday's letter by Tom Owens.
Each of these letters is a cogent and rational response to earlier letters by Godfreyites Thomas, Cameron, and Justin, three hopelessly-deluded (but entertaining and lovable) Godfrey lemmings who apparently compared notes and concluded that Ogden City is not actually a mid-sized Wasatch Front city at all, but rather a giant corporate megalith, which can only be successfully managed by by a political tyrant whose most recent previous long-term paying gigs were Ogden City slumlord and pizza delivery boy.
Three Weber County Forum Tips O' the Hat go out this morning -- to Kristen Moulton, David Smith and Tom Owens -- three dedicated local folks with obviously well-functioning gray-matter.
And stand by, gentle readers. We expect more fine number crunching on the "Godfrey the Crimefighter" topic from gentle monotreme in the early days to come.
Update 9/3/07 1:54 p.m. MT: It has come to our belated attention that we failed to spot a third letter appearing in the August 31 Std-Ex edition. A special Hat Tip to Ogden's Dorothy Littrell for yet another editorial page appearance. We swear that after Boss Godfrey is kicked to the curb in January 2008, Dorothy deserves her own ticker-tape parade for all her many contributions to honest and citizen-friendly government!
Keep those mails rolling in to Don Porter. The pre-primary letter deadline is September 4.
