And various election 2007 tidbits - UPDATED
We were shocked this morning to learn from the Standard-Examiner that there are already 150 surveillance cameras scattered all over Emerald City, monitoring the lumpencitizens' every move 24/7, from downtown's Two-five Drive to our east-bench trailheads. And according to this morning's front page story, Boss Godfrey's administration plans to add 22 more surveillance devices very soon. And for those readers who may leap to the conclusion that the situation is more than slightly Orwellian, we submit that it's merely Godfreyesque. If this technology had been available to Boss Godfrey in 2006, he could have saved himself lots of trouble and bad publicity, we think. How incongruous it seems, gentle readers, that the mayor who operates under a constant cloak of secrecy finds it entirely appropriate to monitor the activity of the lumpencitizens night and day. Watch your step, citizens of Emerald City. Big Brother Godfrey is watching YOU.
And speaking of secrecy, we'll highlight this morning's Robert W. Belka letter to the editor, which expands on the subject of Godfrey's secrecy and deceit. Among other things, Mr. Belka includes a link to the Ogden Sierra Club website, where readers can find a fine collection of well-documented articles chronicaling Boss Godfrey's history in this regard.
Notably, Mr. Belka also chides the Standard-Examiner and several Godfreyite letter contributors for their false accusations about mayor candidate Van Hooser's willingness to debate. As we are well aware, Van Hooser has already debated Godfrey once already, and has calendered two more such events within the upcoming two weeks.
While we're digging through the letters column, we can't fail to mention this Jason Wood masterpiece. In a marvellous display of journalistic craftsmanship, WCF's own Jason W. efficiently hammers four separate election issues in this morning's letter: 1) the "gondola," 2) the $50 million downtown "renaissance" bowling alley/pizza joint, 3) Godfrey's mendacious "crime fighting" statistics and 4) Vangate. Nice work, Jason.
Having mentioned a couple of today's anti-Godfrey letters above, we'll also highlight a couple of pro-Godfrey ones -- in fairness -- and this morning we have two real "gems."
First, we find this letter from gondolist Mike Gale, who chants the Godfrey the Economic Savior mantra. Gale's company fled Ogden City like a rat off a sinking ship at some unspecified time in the past, according to Mr. Gale. Now that Emerald City is basking in the economic revival that's being experienced all up and down the Wasatch Front, Mr. Gale is bringing his company back to Ogden, to "cash in."
Secondly, we'll put the focus on this letter from Blake Fowers, the penultimate Emerald City gondolist. Mr. Fowers is apparently a little bit peeved that he had to cough up a measly ten bucks when he "crashed" a Van Hooser fund raiser. Mr. Fowers of course, like Mr. Gale above, is a credentialled member of the gondolist "A" Team. Most recently he became semi-famous in "Captain" Geiger's 9/1/07 "lawn-sign caper." He's the fellow, according to our ever-reliable sources, who uttered the now-infamous words, "dude, there's no way she's going to believe that!" This is not to suggest in any way that Mr. Fowers might be biased, of course.
Before closing, we'll also highlight this most excellent Curmudgeon comment, gleaned from one of the lower comment sections. Gentle Reader Curmudgeon has been regularly monitoring the Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce website, which finally (and belatedly) "got the memo" that "gondola" is a forbidden word for any person or entity on the re-elect Boss Godfrey team.
That's it folks. The floor is all yours. Last one out -- please turn out the lights.
Update 10/22/07 12:12 p.m. MT: One of our alert readers has been prowling the Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce website this morning, and has discovered that all the original information about the so-called Ogden/Malan's Basin Development Project (the "Peterson Project") remains on the site intact and undeleted. The Chamber webmaster has merely removed (temporarily?) the link to these pages from the Chamber's home page, in which connection we suggest, quite reasonably we think, that Chamber leadership knows this project is far from dead. The undeleted material can be viewed here. Imagine that....
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43 comments:
On the Security Cams:
I think we need to take a wait and see attitude towards the cameras [so long as the public ones are located and focused exclusively on public places]. If they result in a significant reduction in crime or a significant increase in the apprehension and conviction rate for street crime, then I think they're probably a good idea. I understand the uneasiness about "Big Brother In Utah" and the concern that it involves some diminution of liberty in the abstract, and creates an opportunity for abuse if its management falls into unethical hands. But being able to walk and drive around, and leave a car at a trailhead for a day's hiking without worrying about street crime or car break-ins involves an increase in liberty on the other side.
So, I think, prudence calls here for a little "wait-and-see." I'd also wonder if anyone knows of any research from other cities that have done this. American cities. Have public space security cams lowered the street crime rate significantly? Have they increased apprehensions and convictions? In short, have they worked?
Tha alleged sign vandal accomplice, blake fowers seems to have a selective case of amnesia.
He's accusing Van Hooser of acting godrfeyesque, winging it.
Lets see, winging it, 2 years promoting a land grab gondola scheme, with no research or facts to back it up. Rushing the City Council into approving a land sale aight after the suspicious fire at the Shupe Williams Building, one the purpoted buyers claimed they had no interest in. Demolition of some one elses building,(Woodbury) and the costly settlement that resulted. Trying to secure tax dollars to funnel to chris peterson thru UTA, thinking UTA would not seek an accounting. Drasticly trying to alter zoning at the behest of peterson's lawyer, trying to adopt a specific ordinance written by that lawyer that resulted in a 6 month moritorium on the River development. This list goes on and on.
I hope the people in Ogden can see these ridiculous letters for what they are, an insult to the intelligence of every person in Ogden.
Big Brother Godfrey is watching YOU
Creepy.
Jeeze, Jason W. can write a comprehensible and thought provoking piece without the usual invectives!
Who'da thunk it?
Curm, cameras are a good tool for catching perpatraters after a crime has been committed, but do little in prevention.
If the purpose stated in the article is to deal with gangs and violent crime, manpower is a much more preventative weapon.
I wonder if the mayor really knows the correct amount of cameras the city has, like he knows how many cops we have? Lets see, 160, 150 or 140?
His stategy might be that he doen't have to train or pay cameras after they're purchased, and they can't leave for better employment opportunities when they arise.
"The figures appear to confirm earlier studies which have thrown doubt on the effectiveness of CCTV cameras.
A report by the criminal justice charity Nacro in 2002 concluded that the money spent on cameras would be better used on street lighting, which has been shown to cut crime by up to 20 per cent."
Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved
In all seriousness, capture and conviction vs. prevention.
Curm, if you were killed in a mugging would you be happy to know they caught the killer and executed him, or would you prefer it never happend?
Jason
Your stuff is way more effective when written like the one in the Standard, as opposed to the rants about potato noses, squirrel patrollers and blue ski. You could actually smarten up this site instead of dumbing it down like you occasionally do - if you wanted to that is.
Jason: A toast to the continued excellent health of your eardrums. You snagged the scoop-of-the-year last Fri. when you overheard Gadi and his conspiring hangers-on at that Two-Bit Street boite. At the very least, Dorothy Littrell has seen it and may even now be gearing up for the next Wal-Mart apocalypse that is surely to come.
As well to your constantly diverting and side-splitting posts. You should be syndicated.
Bill:
The presumption is... and this is why I asked if there were any studies of how this has worked in other cities... that increasing apprehensions and convictions removes criminals from the streets and so necessarily will result in a decline in crimes for that reason [all the crimes they were likely to have committed if not apprehended and convicted]. It also presumes that at least some criminals, aware of the surveillance, will be less inclined to commit crimes. All this is supposition, which is why I wanted to know how it's been working elsewhere.
Rudi:
Ah, thanks for the update on the Chamber's keeping its support for the gondola and parklands sale on its website, but under the radar and harder to find. A tactic much favored by the Godfrey administration, as we all know [recall the emails Dan S. unearthed with Administration officials speaking of the importance of keeping what they were doing hidden from the Council], and apparently now adopted by the Chamber as well. Good catch. Thanks for the correction.
just cause you think they are out to get you doesn't mean they aren't.
this blog gets more amusing everyday.
Googleboy:
Thanks for the link on the British experience with public security cams. [If anyone out there has a link to something on how they've worked out in the US for cities that are using them, please post.] Particularly interesting was the comment by the people who did the study that the cams in England were a kind of knee-jerk reaction to rising crime stats. NYT said the same thing happened with "zero tolerance" laws to deal with gang violence, and that places that instituted them, like LA, after some years of experience, concluded that they were not working effectively to control gang violence, and that other approaches seemed to get better results.
I'm perfectly willing, and so should Ogden City Government be [Mayor and Council], to consider any serious suggestion for dealing with crime in general, and gang violence in particular. But then, being the good New Deal Democratic Liberal that I am, I'd want them to be clear-eyed and stony-cold pragmatists in evaluating those suggestions. I expect them to look for examples of what works, not what "feels right" at the moment or what comports with some ideological stand. We need, I think --- at all levels --- a great deal more pragmatism in our governments, and a lot less emotion-driven ideological quick reacting.
Be interesting to know if the Mayor and Council had access to studies showing the cams reduced crime in places where they are now being used.
The more pragmatic we are as a people, the better we seem to do. The more ideological we are, the worse we seem to do. I have on my desk now a flier announcing a pot luck supper and craft sale to raise money for a four-year old local girl fighting leukemia. People telling me that providing public funding for her to be treated as necessary is "socialism" is a good example of how ideology-based arguments often lose sight, in my view, of pragmatism and common sense. Whether a child of four can get medical treatment should not depend on how many people show up at a pot luck supper and craft sale. Not in my country, it shouldn't.
Sorry. End of rant.
You naysayers just don't get it!
There is no crime in Ogden since Mayor Godfrey took office. Why he even goes out on patrol himself on occasion in order to run desperados to ground like he did with that nefarious criminal Matt Jones who was masquerading as an Ogden cop.
The camera's are only so the mayor can enjoy the people rejoicing in the safety of our streets over being beneficiaries of his magnanimous magnificence and crime fighting prowess.
Maybe the Mayor can put a camera in his car so when he follows someone around that he won't have to call the chief with the plate number.
Watching the Ogden Chamber of Commerce go into stealth mode makes me literally sick to my stomach.
The sheer audacity of these people, who claim to represent the interests of Ogden City businessmen like me, who are so far out into left field makes me wonder:
How in the hell did this small group of basicly dishonest people like Dave Hardman ever grab the reins of Ogden City in the first place?
Did the majority of Ogden business people who didn't join the Ogden Chamber Sorority fall asleep at the wheel? As for me, I'll be voting for Van Hooser this year. I hope other independent businessmen like me will also resist the efforts of the Godfrey Chamber of Commerce, and reject Godfrey at the ballot box in November.
This isn't a hard sell, by the way. Real business people of Ogden already know that Godfrey is extremely unfriendly to the small, existing businessman.
Vote No on Matt Godfrey.
Curm, I wasn't being snarky towards you, capture conviction vs prevention.
I just get so damned upset when ever I hear political candidates respond to crime issues with that guliani like assinine statement,"ZERO TOLERANCE". Particularly when addressing issues as complex as the gang problem.
All that response tells me is that they haven't really explored the issue at all, and they believe the public expects to hear that response. Tough talk.
Three candidates has used that term all ready, in public, and appeared ridiculus as a result. Lying little matty, royal eccles and kent peterson.
There are effective ways to reduce gangs and gang violence, zero tolerance is not really one of them. The Council has been in communication with Colors of success and the Ogden City Schools, after scool programs for youth and providing opportunity for youngsters to have positive role models and constructive activities.
Don't sound macho sexy or tough, but has a real track record of effectiveness.
High tech surveilance cameras sound "real cool", but can't even compete with a neighborhood cop, that knows the people in the neighborhood, kids and parents.
Oz, I am ging to have to disagree with you about the purpose of the cameras that Matt the Magnificent is placing around town,
I think he's going to use them to monitor people as the devious little pervert he is, as in peeping Tom, or should I say peeping Matt. I 'm pretty sure he'll have a jolly time if you catch my drift.
Curmudgeon said...
"NYT said the same thing happened with "zero tolerance" laws to deal with gang violence"
Actually, the NYT only reported it. It was "said" by the Justice Policy Institue (www.justicepolicy.org)
Perhaps could have a camera mounted on his segway, and zoom around town in tights and a cape as a one-man crime stopping machine. Just like Barney Fife.
Yea, I saw the little weiner zipping around my neighborhood the otherday on a Segway, I wonder if he borrowed from the police department.
Is she running FOR mayor or FROM mayor?!
Just received word that Van Hooser has backed out of tomorrow night's "Meet the Candidates" night that was organized by a few of Ogden's pivotal non-profit organizations at the Eccles Art Center...GOAL Foundation, Weber Pathways and Ogden Nature Center. Even though she personally agreed to the format, date and time over a week ago, it seems her advisors have let her know that she fares poorly in head-to-head, issue-for-issue discussion.
It's too bad, because with Mary Hall's heavy involvement in Pathways and ONC, it's unlikely Susie would ever find a more receptive and sympathetic crowd.
What is she so afraid of? A room full of open-space loving, trail building souls who would loft softball questions about the golf course and disdain for the gondola at her would have been a fantastic chance to redeem her showing at the WSU debate.
Can someone...ANYONE please mount a campaign!!!
Did she really just back out of another debate?
Well, Once again here is Mary Hall answer to Godfrey! Susie is the best thing for our city. Well Mary why is it you couldn't back Neil Hansen? I at least knew what Hansen stood for, which is for the little guy and has all the answers that the little man didn't have. Now that is in the past and I hope that Mary will tell Susie to get off her cabos and go fight the mayor the dweeb the way Hansen would of. I hate to tell you so, but smart growth back the wrong candidate and they are the ones that have wrought this whole election. Good going Mary.
VanHooser needs a crash course in how to handle herself at the podium. There are several qualified people who could help her.
Is she too obtuse and arrogant to ask for help and rehearsal?
Or, is she still planning on shwoing up?
I hope she shows up. Hall and SVH's 'handlers' need to get SVH in a room for several hours and teach her how to respond and dish it out.
Be teachable, Sue.
Hold your horses, people. Your blogmeister just received a call from someone very closely connected with the Van Hooser campaign. Although we are informed that there still remain some unresolved problems with the rules of the debate, our source informs us that the debate has not been called off.
Stay tuned. We've been promised we'll hear from someone in the Van Hooser campaign about this shortly.
Southsider:
Thanks for the link. You're right, it was not a NYT editorial statement. But as I recall the statements were made, in the story, by police chiefs from cities, like LA, that had already introduced the kind of crack down/no tolerance policy Ogden is apparently about to try. Several of them. But appreciate the link. That source may be what triggered the Times story. Will visit the site tomorrow. Thanks again.
Young Idealist:
You might want to get out the old dictionary, Young Idealist, next time you decide to post. Words have meanings. Usually it's wisest to know what those meanings are before you use the words.
You wrote: Did she really just back out of another debate?
"Another" impies she had "backed out" of a previous debate. And which one would that be? Not, surely the Chamber of Commerce proposed debate, to which she never agreed [for good reason, I think, on grounds that it was not likely to be a level playing field with Chamber of Commerce leadership --- politely so called --- running things.] Since she had not agreed to it, it cannot possibly be one she "backed out of." Making things up is not generally an ethical way to engage in political discourse. I understand why Godfreyistas feel the need to make things up in this election, but even so, young idealists shouldn't do it.
I do note Ms. Van H. did agree to a debate jointly sponsored by the League of Women Voters, a truly non-aligned group, and the OWCC.
Should Ms. Van Ha. withdraw from the Non Profits "meet the candidates" event, it would be the first one she has withdrawn from. And I don't know that she's withdrawn from that one either, or if she has, why. Did the event change in nature between the point at which she agreed to attend, and subsequently? [I don't know, but that is one reason, sometimes, people withdraw from these things: when the event they agreed to take part in turns out not to be the event that will actually take place.] We'll have to await developments. At this point, neither of us seems to have enough information to draw conclusions.
But please do look up "another" in the dictionary before you use it in a post again. You really should.
There won't be a debate Wednesday because the Court Case being heard tomorrow afternoon will remove Matthew Godfrey from the ballot.
There won't be a debate tomorrow because the crusading caped crusader mayor of Ogden received a higher calling from a higher authority and has departed to Hollywood to find the truth about these scurrilous accusations against the true savior of Ogden - Ladi Gesham.
The Governator of California stated: "with the brilliant investigative skills he demonstrated on the complicated, dangerous and difficult Matt Jones case I firmly believe that no one else could ever solve this puzzling Gesham case but the Gondola Boy from the land of Oz."
Gondola boy stood beaming by the Governator's side and pledged: "I will seek out the truth wherever it hides and I will kill it!" he further proclaimed: "I know Ladi Gesham, Ladi Geshem is a friend of mine, Ladi Gesham would no more steal $11 million dollars from California than I would lie to the people of my town. I have the highest integrity of all and Ladi Gesham did not steal no $11 million dollars". He further added as he swirled his cape around his shoulders so it covered his front: "there are important things in this world and then there are real important things. I have more important things to do than squander my valuable time and precious bodily fluids on some malcontent school teacher. The savior of Emerald City is calling and I'm a going!"
Tomorrow night is when the City Council is scheduled to give their final approval to the Mt. Ogden Community Plan. I would encourage all residents of the Mt. Ogden Community to attend. I'm hoping they've made some small but important revisions to the last version of the plan that we saw. In any case, this is the moment many of us have been waiting for.
The meeting begins at 6, and the mayoral candidates' debate is scheduled for 7:30. Then there's a closed executive session on a pending lawsuit, and a work session on the water rate study. Could this be a conflict for Van Hooser?
It won’t be the city putting up those cameras nor will it be the police. It will be a private company that has given Godfrey thousands of dollars for his campaign. It won’t be the police monitoring those cameras either. It will be a private company, because Godfrey is against “Big Government.” But his understaffed and underpaid police department will have to answer the phone calls from the private company that received our tax-dollars to monitor us.
A DesNews article from a couple days ago, in case you missed it. I didn't see it on this forum (if it was posted, sorry).
Des News Ogden Mayoral Race Story
Ed:
Thanks for the heads up. I don't usually monitor the DN and missed this completely. Appreciate the link.
Democrat, Godfrey is against Big Government, but he is for Big Government debt and cronyism.
Ohhh, when is Matty leaving for CA?
I hope he will take me too. I'm just dying to get out of this one-horse town and be a big star in Hollywood. I know the governor of CA is in the movie business too and he will be pleased with my, uh, talents.
Oh, Please, Matty, take me with you. I can be so good, if you know what I mean. And, I think you do!
Speaking of the Governator and California naturally raises the mater of the fires... 300K people evacuated. 300,0000? My god.
Which has me wondering if that could happen here, a fire of such proportions that it would require mass evacuations in Ogden. I look at the images of those burning neighborhoods and I see highly developed streets, with house after house after house, not houses off in the middle of the woods. Could something like that happen in Ogden? A mountain and bench brush fire of such proportions that massive [for Ogden] evacuations would be needed and whole streets and neighborhoods might burn? Or are conditions here different enough --- wind, humidity, temperature, terrain --- that such fires here are unlikely? Does anyone know?
Curmudgeon
The main thing that drives these southern California fires are the annual Santana winds that blow this time of year. They blow in the opposite direction of the normal sea breazes, that is they are hot and strong and come in off the desert. Sometime they are sustained winds over multiple days and reach 70 MPH or more.
I lived in the Hollywood hills for a decade and saw many fires over many years, although this appears to be the most damaging of them all. My old house at the top of Laurel Canyon even burned in one of the fires a couple of years after I moved. There were a couple of fires that almost did the job while I lived in it. Pretty Scary stuff to be standing out in the yard with a garden hose wetting down the roof and looking at a hundred foot tall wall of flame a few hundred hards away!
I have three friends that live in areas currently effected. I checked with them this morning. One lost his house in Malibu yesterday. Another is a refugee at a Stadium in San Diego with his wife and three kids and suspects that his home has been consumed but doesn't know for sure yet. The third is safe in Malibue - so far but she told me that it is awfully spooky with the sky full of smoke and ash and with an eerie red glow day and night.
The conventional wisdom when I lived in LA was that it was the Lord's annual purging of sinners, which of course LA has the world's largest collection of!
Curmudgeon
Here is a link that explains the Santana (Santa Ana) winds.
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~fovell/ASother/mm5/SantaAna/winds.html
It could happen here, and where would we run to?
Oz:
TY
Oz:
Lots of talk on the Santa Ana winds on the web right now. This from Kevin Drum on the Washington Monthly website:
SANTA ANA WINDS....This post is for readers in Southern California. A couple of hours ago Jeralyn Merritt put up a passage from Joan Didion's "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" about Santa Ana winds, part of which I excerpt here:
"We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks.... The heat was surreal. The sky had a yellow cast, the kind of light sometimes called "earthquake weather." My only neighbor would not come out of her house for days....In Los Angeles some teachers do not attempt to conduct formal classes during a Santa Ana, because the children become unmanageable.... It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination....Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The winds shows us how close to the edge we are."
I'm curious about something. I've lived in Southern California my entire life [Kevin Drum writes], and this just doesn't bear any resemblance to anything I know about the place. Santa Ana winds are just....Santa Ana winds. They do whip up brush fires, as Didion says, but otherwise her description seems way, way over the top. Sure, the weather feels a little weird when Santa Anas kick up, but teachers don't cancel classes, pets don't go nuts, people don't stay inside their houses, and Los Angeles doesn't get gripped in crime waves. At least, not as far as I know.
So what's the deal here, fellow Southern Californians? Is Didion being overdramatic? Or is the drama really there and I've just been oblivious to it?
And of course the famous Raymond Chandler description:
In Raymond Chandler's story Red Wind, the title being one of the offshore wind's many nicknames, the Santa Anas were introduced as "those hot dry [winds] that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen."
I always figured the winds were just something Californians used to explain left coast wierdos like Charles Manson. Thanks again for the web addy.
Curmudgeon
I lived in the Hollywood hills for 12 years and I have to agree with Drum, I think Didion over dramatized the Santana winds by a huge amount.
"Santana winds" incidentally was the original name for them. It means Devil winds in Spanish. Somewhere down the line the name morphed into Santa Ana winds, most likely by gringo's who thought that was what the locals were trying to say when they said Santana. Santa Ana is actually a canyon and town in Orange county that has nothing to do with the winds or their causes.
I wrote an explanation of my personal experiences with the Devil winds and fires, and life in Laurel Canyon, yesterday and posted it here on the blog. Evidently Rudi didn't like it and it never appeared. Strange that he would censor something so innocuous and non inflammatory - no pun intended!
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