All That's Fit to Talk About on an Emerald City Friday Afternoon

Bits and pieces from dang near everywhere
As this morning's headline Standard-Examiner story reports, the Emerald City council is barreling full-steam to solve a problem which has plagued our community for years. Our water infrastructure is worn out. Our culinary water stinks; and it tastes like the water from a Japanese-style Carp Garden Waterfeature. Our city water infrastructure has been regarded as a "deferred maintenance" item by by Boss Godfrey since "day 1" of his administration. Thanks to the city council, (if all goes according to the plan) we lumpencitizens of Ogden City will no longer have to hold our noses when we open our water faucets; nor will we feel like we need a shower -- immediately after we've taken a shower. We incorporate here Ace Reporter Schwebke's lead paragraphs:

OGDEN — After reviewing a flood of data, the city council decided Thursday night to pursue a scenario that includes $51.6 million in financing to upgrade Ogden’s antiquated water system.

The scenario was among three options considered by the council during a work session to review results of a $67,000 draft study completed by Lewis, Young, Robertson and Burningham, a Salt Lake City consulting firm.

The city council plans to present the scenario to the public during a meeting later this month and may adopt the option by the end of the year.

The scenario calls for the issuance of $51.6 million in bonds next year to complete all necessary water distribution and sewer projects, purchase equipment to correct water odor and taste problems and partially fund stormwater projects.

For those who haven't been closely following this story, we'll provide a little background. As many of you will recall, Mayor Godfrey announced last summer that the city would be imposing a flat 13.4% water rate hike, because current rates were not sufficient to support the water utilities expenses of the Emerald City Public Works Department. The chief source of the revenue shortfall (aside from the dilapidated water infrastructure itself) was water conservation. In short, the citizens of Emerald City were not using enough water to cover the water department's expenses, so Boss Godfrey decided, with no studies or data whatsoever, to just jack up everyone's rates across the board.

In June of last year Council leadership (Garcia and Wicks) began their own initiative to craft an intelligent solution to the water infrastructure/rate problem, and in the intervening period have commissioned and received an expert's study, specifically identifying the costs necessary to rehabilitate our aging water system, and formulating a specialized rate structure which will not unfairly penalize those of us who practice responsible water conservation.

Today's Scott Schwebke article reports on the current status of this council project, in which connection we offer today's Weber County Forum Tip O' the Hat to the Ogden City Council and especially Chairman Garcia and Vice-chairwoman Wicks. There will be no hat tip of course for Boss Godfrey, who has dragged his little feet throughout this whole process.

On a second topic, we link today's Scott Schwebke story, in which he reports that House Representative and former mayoral candidate Neil Hansen has joined with council members Garcia and Jeske in endorsing Susan Van Hooser's mayoral candidacy in Tuesday's municipal general election. As our readers will recall, Hansen and Van Hooser together pulled nearly 60% of the anti-Godfrey vote in the primary election, in which connection we strongly urge all former Hansen supporters to get onboard the Van Hooser bandwagon.

In the event that the voters of Ogden City show Boss Godfrey the stage door exit on Tuesday, we'll be lobbying here at WFC for a full-blown ticker-tape parade in January. Consider the possibilities, former Hanson supporters. We know none of you would want to miss a landmark community event like that.

And in closing we'll highlight a couple of today's Std-Ex letters to the editor, and one other interesting item.

First, we direct our readers' attention to today's Christopher Bentley letter, in which he references the much ballyhooed Godfrey "declaration," whereby mayor Godfrey purportedly imposes legal restrictions upon his evil self, which would prohibit his selling of our Mt. Ogden Parkland to Chris Peterson (or any other of his cronies, we presume.) We've had numerous requests for the publication of this document; and as luck would have it, one of our alert readers sent us and electronic copy this morning. Here it is in PDF format, gentle readers. Decide for yourselves the meaning of all this.

Next, we'll spotlight this Tom Owens letter, in parable form, which presents an interesting analogy to the financial predicament in our beloved Emerald City. We found this letter to be particularly delightful, a true example of Mr. Owens' unique literary style.

Finally, we'll note that the Standard-Examiner webmaster seems to have given us something of a sneak peak at the newspaper's upcoming mayoral "recommendation". The Godfrey and Van Hooser video interviews are now up on the Std-Ex website, which can be accessed from our own video interview archive page. We hope the Std-Ex editors will get on with their endorsement. Time is running out; and frankly, the suspense is killing us (wink). How much longer will we have to wait before the Suits from Sanduskey will do what we already know their Godfrey House Propagana Organ will inevitably do, i.e. endorse Boss Godfrey for a Third-term Reign if Terror?

That's it, gentle readers. We'd appreciate your taking the wheel from here. Unlike our city council, we're running out of steam.