By Curmudgeon
My my my, what is going on at the Standard-Examiner? The editors seem to have emerged from seclusion, looked over issues of the Salt Lake Trib now five days old, and been shocked... shocked, I tell you!... that the Godfrey administration has been again secretly transferring Ogden RDA owned properties to an administration crony. And so this morning's front page lead story. Here's the headline: "Ogden deal questioned -- Transfer of options to Leshem done without RDA board’s knowledge"
The story is by the oft-here-maligned Mr. Schwebke, and it's a good one. Adds considerable detail to the Kristen Moulton story that ran in the Trib five days or so ago.
From Mr. Schwebke's story:
So, Mr. Harmer "forgot" to tell the Council. The same Mr. Harmer, I believe, who refused to tell the Council who the Mayor wanted to sell the Bootjack properties too... which turned out to be another Administration crony buying city land not offered to others [and in that case, land someone had offered more for]. Now we learn the Administration made a secret arrangement with one of the Mayor's cronies to covertly act as his agent in acquiring options for him on 38 parcels in the River Project RDA. No one other than the Mayor's crony was permitted to make offers for those options. Imagine that. And all kept secret from the public and the RDA Board (City Council.)OGDEN — The city obtained and transferred 38 purchase options for property within the second phase of the Ogden River Project as part of an exclusive deal on behalf of a private developer. Dave Harmer, the city’s community and economic development director, said he initiated an informal agreement in fall 2006 with California businessman Gadi Leshem to transfer the options. ...
The city used earnest money provided by Leshem to secure the 38 parcels, Harmer said. Harmer was unsure of the amount of earnest money provided. ...
City Council Chairman Jesse Garcia said the city’s RDA board, which is made up of the city council, didn’t learn until October that the options had been transferred. ...
Harmer said it was an oversight on his part, and he assumed that the RDA board was aware the options could be transferred. ...
It made sense to assign the options to Leshem because he was already acquiring a significant number of parcels in the second phase of the project on his own, Harmer said. ...
Eventually, three developers, Leshem, Michael Moyal of Ogden, and Jeremy Bell, a project manager for Orem based Sandstone Development, began acquiring land within the project’s second phase, Harmer said. Since Leshem was already a “key player,” the city transferred its options to him and didn’t consider offering them to anyone else, Harmer said. ...
Moyal, who owns the Ogden River Inn at 1825 Washington Blvd., said city officials promised in 2006 they would transfer to him options for three parcels on Kiesel Avenue off 18th Street. “They said I was best suited for them,” he said in a phone interview. However, the RDA instead gave them to Leshem. Moyal described the move as “disappointing but not surprising. ...”
Moyal said Leshem asked him to contribute the River Inn property to the Renaissance Village development in exchange for financial interest in the project.
And the Mayor had the audacity to complain to the Standard Examiner last week that the Council was not communicating with him and that he couldn't force the Council to communicate with him?
Have to wonder if the dunderheads on the Std-Ex editorial board that decided to endorse the Mayor for re-election are now embarrassed at the revelations appearing on their own front page. If, that is, they are capable of embarrassment, which is at least open to question. And we can wonder as well, I think, whether the election might have been affected had the paper done its damn job and ferreted out this story long ago. [According to Mr. Schwebke, the secret deal between Lesham and Godfrey was brokered in 2006.]
I recall last year attending a Council meeting at which Mr. Moyal complained about the Administration's lengthy attempts to block granting him a business license to open a restaurant on his River Project land. In the course of his comments, he said the administration was trying to get him to sell his property to "one of the mayor's friends" instead and he did not want to do that. The Mayor replied that Mr. Moyal was mistaken, that no one was trying to get him to sell his land to an Administration crony. Mr. Schwebke's story this morning makes it pretty clear, I think, that Mr. Moyal was speaking honestly at that meeting, and that the Mayor was... hmmmm, how to put this delicately, it being Christmas and all... well, let's just say the Mayor was being less than completely candid.
Back door deals with cronies, sale of public properties without public notice of same, and stonewalling the press, public and council about what's going on, all hallmarks of the Godfrey administration, endorsed for another term by the Standard Examiner editorial board.
Imagine that.
30 comments:
I truly think the S-E editorial board is somehow "afraid of playing politics".
Now that the election is over, they perhaps think they can return to their proper function of being a watchdog of city government.
Next thing you know, they'll "discover" that a truckload of crime statistics were simply made up out of whole cloth to support the Mayor's re-election campaign.
From today's Std-Ex article"
"City Council Chairman Jesse Garcia said the city’s RDA board, which is made up of the city council, didn’t learn until October that the options had been transferred.
“I was bothered by it, but the RDA board is planning to adopt a policy to address that issue in the future,” he said.
IF the RDA Board is really serious about adopting new policy to address "that issue in the future," the solution is simple and obvious:
FIRE THE RDA DIRECTOR (GODFREY) AND REPLACE HIM WITH SOMEBODY THE BOARD CAN TRUST.
How many more times will the council be made to look like fools?
Sheesh.
Mono, you're one of the funniest folks around,"afraid of playing politics". You and I know that's exactly what they did.
Schwebke new about this long before the election, so did Moulton. Both have had contact with Moyal from the very begining. I recall Kristen did an article sometime back with interveiws of residents and one particular business owner.
Maybe the editors will discover some other goodies they've ignored along with the real crime stats. Details of Envision Ogden's political fundraiser, on the city's dime, Scot Brown's ownership of properties negotiated by him as an RDA official, the real history of Riverside Technology Foundation and the fraudulent dealings with the very unethical Ogden Community Foundation. So much fodder entering a new year, same ol', same ol' paper.
Great story this morning Curm. I have to feel bad for the Council, how many more times are they going to be snookered by the carpet bagger on the ninth floor?
I am afraid we are in for a helluva four year ride.
I would hope that there is some way to throw the bum out of office before the next fiasco comes to light.
Good read, Curm!!!
The mayor must be replaced...and IMHO...Harmer needs to be shown the door!
What a sleaze ball. Rmember what he said about keeping the identity of Boot Jack from the Council after they ASKED about it?
"I didn't want to have a controversy...so I din't tell the Council who was behind BootJack....I rezalize now, that i should have told them".
Gee, mom, I shouldn't have gotten into the cookie jar, but, I thot you wouldn't want me to pester you for a cookie"
Godfrey, Patterson Harmer, evil threesosme. Scott, you did a good job....one thing...you wrote that Lesham did'nt elaborate about his deal....did you ask him for further clarification? In which cae, you would have written that Lesham "refused' to elaborate....right?
If shame were still an appropriate reaction in this world...the SE should be ashamed and apologize to the citizens of Ogden for endorsing this little crook and his merry band of fellow thieves.
Sharon, the Standard will never apologise, they cant remember all of the controversary created by the little rat they endorsed, they do everything they can to kepp him squeeky clean. We are all going to have to face the fact that the Standard is a low budget crumby paper.
Wouldn't it be something if the guy indicted for the mega million dollar frauds actually turned out to be the good guy, and the un-indicted criminal on nine turns out to be exposed and jailed!
Hey, I can dream can't I?
There is no authority in Utah with the balls, integrity and authority to bring Godfrey and his circle of sycophantic criminal partners to justice. As long as the secret handshake society controls the true power in Utah there will be no stopping these criminals.
So here is hoping that Gadi, the only indicted one in the mix, turns out to be true to his word on this project and does something really nice and classy like he talks about. If he does it will be the only project that Godfrey, Patterson, Harmer, etc have ever been connected to that actually succeeds.
My advice to Gadi, strictly unsolicited of course, is to break the Godfreyite pattern and practice of sneaky secret dealings and practice full discloser with the citizens of Ogden. He will have a heck of a lot better chance of being embraced by the local folks if he does.
Gadi - we are not against you or progress. We are just totally fed up and disgusted with all the behind closed door dealings, arrogance from the Godfreyites and all the loser deals they do with our tax money. Good luck and remember this, be straight and respectful to us Gadi and we will accept and respect you - win lose or draw.
Ace:
While I've had a lot to say about the SE's shortcomings, Mr. Schwebke's story today was a good one [and no, not because it raised questions about the Administration's actions. It's a good story because, as a follow-up to a story another paper broke, it moved the story forward and included information the previous story did not, and because it contained sufficient background matter to put the main story in context, and because it was clearly written.] The SE was late out of the gate on this one --- very late, since the events it describes happened in its own backyard, and began over a year ago --- but when it finally got off the dime and into the game, it got there with a good entry. Credit where credit is due.
Excellent post Curmudgeon. Mr. Schwebke wrote a great article. Well done sir!
And the Mayor had the audacity to complain to the Standard Examiner last week that the Council was not communicating with him and that he couldn't force the Council to communicate with him?
Mayor Godfrey apparently prefers mendacity and hypocrisy instead of honesty and integrity.
Back door deals with cronies, sale of public properties without public notice of same, and stonewalling the press, public and council about what's going on, all hallmarks of the Godfrey administration, endorsed for another term by the Standard Examiner editorial board.
The Standard Examiner editorial board acts, too often, like a group of press agents masquerading as a newspaper.
Oz:
As for your recommendation that Mr. Lesham break from Mr. Godfrey: highly unlikely, I think, Oz, though Mr. L. may have realized by this time that Godfrey's public relations sense is damn near non-existent and so he might want to carve out his own PR operation separate from Hizzonah's.
But Mr. Lesham's plans still depend, heavily, on cooperation [if not manipulation] from the Mayor's office, the planning staff, the Planning Commission and in the end the Council. And Hizzonah has an impressive record of getting what he wants from the Council in the end. His MO is to go ahead and do what he wants to, and leave it to the Council retroactively to try to plug holes in the ordinances and procedures to make sure he cannot do those particular things again. That's what he did with the Reid handshake termination bonus when Mr. Reid voluntarily left his city job; that's what he did with not telling the Council in the bootjack matter; that's what he did on the Lesham options. In the first two instances, the Council subsequently changed the rules to make sure that particular dodge was blocked for the future, as it's working now to plug the "silent options" gambit this time. Lesham needs Godfrey.
Can't say I blame Lesham. He's a developer out to profit from his business. If I were a developer and I happened upon a city Administration venal enough that it would act as my silent partner to advance my plans at the least possible cost to me, that it would front for me [secretly] in acquiring property in an RDA zone, damn right I'd take advantage of it. Mr. Lesham is under no obligation to pursue the public good or to subordinate his interests to the public good should they conflict. However, Mayors are obligated to pursue the public good rather than the private benefit of their supporters --- or at least honorable and ethical ones are --- as they are also obligated to keep informed of their actions at the very least those other elements of city government responsible for public policy... like, oh, say, the City Council for example... of what they are doing, and in timely fashion. Not to mention the press and so the public.
If I were a business man and found a city Administration sitting up lap-dog eager telling me "yes, yes, whatever you want, let us front for you in secret" damn right I'd take advantage of the opportunity. The problem in that regard is not, I think, Mr. Lesham, it is, yet again, the Mayor.
Mr. Lesham does have other problems, notably the criminal charges he and his company face in California, which [despite the shrill insistence of Godfrey sycophants that the charges were bogus and would be revealed as such and dismissed in short order] are still pending. I would prefer... and I would think any prudent city administration would prefer... that those charges be resolved before the city got into bed with Mr. Lesham [metaphorically speaking]. Such prudence, however, does not seem to be a hallmark of the Godfrey administration.
Rob Bishop Winner of Yogi Berra Higher Math Award
This month, the coveted Yogi Berra Higher Math Award [it was the Great Yogi who said “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical”] goes to former public school teacher and now U.S. Congressman from northern Utah [a Republican of course], the Hon. Rob Bishop. Here is his winning entry, as reported in today's SL Trib on-line:
In a lengthy and passionate statement, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, denounced the Democratic energy bill.... And he dismissed its reliance on fuel-efficiency standards.
"Increasing energy efficiency is a part of the solution," he said, "but at best only saves about 15 percent of what we import. The other 75 percent of the problem was ignored."
Yes, people. This man votes on the federal budget. Be afraid. Be very afraid....
ozboy,
Wouldn't it be something if the guy indicted for the mega million dollar frauds actually turned out to be the good guy, and the un-indicted criminal on nine turns out to be exposed and jailed!
That would be a hoot. It sounds like you have joined the “cautiously optimistic” gang. Welcome aboard.
Good luck and remember this, be straight and respectful to us Gadi and we will accept and respect you - win lose or draw.
Well said. That’s good advice for all of us, all of the time.
P.S. I left a post for you on that other thread.
Wow Curmudgeon!
I am shocked - no, make that scandalized, with your position of taking full advantage of, and personally benefiting from the corrupt actions of a theoretical business partner.
In my opinion if you dance with the devil you are a satanist. If you benefit from other's criminal enterprise you are a criminal. If you profit from the victimization of tax payers you are no better than the actual perpetrators.
I've been involved in a lot of biz deals in my life, some winners and some losers. But I am proud to say that I always declined to get involved with scamsters no matter how much money I could have made by doing so.
I hope you read what you wrote above and reconsider the implications therein.
I too hope that Leshem will turn out to be a good guy. Meanwhile, I gotta be concerned about all the red flags flying around this deal. Besides the criminal charges in CA and the way the council (RDA board) was kept in the dark, I'm wondering about a couple more things:
1. Remember that promotional video that Producer Rupert made (and Leshem paid for) two years ago? In it there's footage of Godfrey and Leshem shaking hands, smiling. What do you think they were shaking hands over? If it was the river project, then the deal was made quite a bit earlier than indicated in the recent press reports.
2. The Trib has quoted Harmer saying that Leshem has done other developments, but he doesn't say what or where. Is anyone going to follow up on this? If this guy is gonna develop over 50 acres of our downtown, shouldn't we be looking at what he's done elsewhere?
Oz:
You wrote: If you benefit from other's criminal enterprise you are a criminal.
At no time, ever, did I suggest it was OK for Mr. Lesham or anyone else to benefit from or become a partner in a "criminal enterprise." So far as I can see, the Mayor's actions in this matter have been unethical, but not illegal. People have been alleging, here, all kinds of vague criminal conduct on the Mayor's part. None of the allegations have resulted in indictments, much less convictions. Nor have I seen anyone argue, convincingly, that the options transfers to Lesham were illegal.
Put yourself in Mr. Lesham's place. He wants to build this Renaissance Village project. He needs to acquire [at as low a cost as possible] options on RDA land to do it. The Mayor offers to help him do that by means that [so far] seem not to have been illegal. Why in the world would he say no? He had the option to, of course, but then he might have seen the options go to another developer and his project would be sunk. Only point I was making was that Mr. Lesham was not, so far as I can see, under any obligation to put public interest of Ogden's citizens before his own. The Mayor was. Add to that Mr. Lesham's belief [which I have no reason to doubt] that his development plans would benefit the city. [If he means what he says about river restoration as part of his project, along the lines Mr. Kennedy recommended, he may well be right. We have seen with the Bingham Bankside Bikery that the Mayor's preferred approach [as expressed through his planning department] is apparently "build to the water line" or damn close to it.]
And so I don't have a problem, really, with Lesham's role in this, so far. I have a big problem with the Mayor's.
Dan:
I think it was reported that Mr. Lesham had done successful development projects in Israel. Can't recall if it was the SE story or the Trib story on the river event that reported that.
NOW that the truth comes out. why didn't the standard do something with the endorsement like expose all the crupness threw the last eight years. as far as im concerned the standard is a the croupt one that keep silent during all of this and has sold their soles to the devil all for the almighty buck. Will there ever be justice? I hope so.
Yeah, Gadi Leshem "developed" the impenetrable car bomb wall on the Gaza Strip. Sheesh. This guy -- and this whole charade -- are jokes. Keep drinking the Kool-aid, OTown. Remember, we are dying and the only thing that will save us is a circus ride from Wall to Weber!
Curm said something very profound the other day, which I think a lot of people missed. To steal his line, we got "The Government We Deserved". It seems to me as the weeks go on, the more this little nugget plays itself out.
Whether it was legal or not for the city to do what they did by acting as a real-estate agent for a private third party. I at least hope they charged the standard 6% commission.
Past that, I have one question maybe someone can answer me...is there some sort of code of ethics that our Mayor and his administration has to live by, and if not, why the hell doesn't someone start drafting some for the city council to review?
When is enough enough, already?
And if not, and there's no hope on the horizon, can someone loan me $10 Million? I have this great idea for a resort on the east side of Ogden....
Curmudgeon
Sorry pal, we are going to have to disagree on this one.
I believe that when you have a deal with multiple partners that if one partner gets screwed and every one else wins, then it is a bad deal morally regardless of the legalities, or whether you are the winner or the one screwed. This is especially so if the one losing does so because of the unethical actions of another partner - even if you ain't the screwer. In other words if you benefit from another being snookered you ain't any better than the one doing the manipulating. If you benefit from unethical behavior then you are unethical regardless of who did what to who or how technically legal the deal is.
Your last post seems to support the mayor's attitude vis-a-vis ethical -vs- illegal. (if it ain't illegal then it is ethical) I know you have disagreed with this concept in the past and have taken the Godfreyites to task over it. So what is different here?
In this case I think if Gadi is ethical he will make sure that any selling property owners who sold under threat of ED are made whole regardless of what their options said. If he benefits financially from the city's threats of eminent domain and gets these properties for less than their market value because of that, then I have serious reservations about his ethics and character.
One way he could do this is to offer any so effected by ED threats the same deal he offered Moyal - a piece of the action for their property, or a piece for the price differential between what they got on the options and what their property is really worth.
Incidentally, I have no knowledge personally that these property owners were cheated in this manner, but the news articles imply that this happened in some of these options, and of course we are all very familiar with Godfrey's ethics and modus operandi! Of course the properties that Gadi obtained on his own were most likely arms length transactions with willing sellers and so are not the subject here.
Incidentally Curmudgeon, I was not advocating that Gadi split from the mayor. In fact I was suggesting the same thing you did, that he create his own relationship with the citizens of Ogden by establishing and maintaining an open and honest dialogue with them. Of course that would be such a startling departure from the Godfreyite MO that it could precipitate a split! It's possible the little lord would not brook such outrageous behavior within his cabal.
I find it quite unlikely the indicted one could become a hero.
For all we know this latest uninformative hype was done for the benefit of gadi's Ca. lawyers as a negotiation ploy to keep his ass out of Folsom.
As far as what has been revealed, designated fishing area, imatation high adventure puddle kayak feature as well as altering the course of the river.
Sounds like this guy thinks that lying little matty gave him the river,he thinks it's his. Oh, but it will be very tastefully done in an authentic high adventure Tuscan style.
On another note, I attended the community meeting on the water rate study. No one from the City administration was present. At Fridays gadi for savior pep rally,chili provided by Roosters, more than half the people that work in the muni building were there. Something or nothing? you be the judge.
Doesn't Dave Harmer have the appearance of being pre-embalmed?
Oz:
OK, we'll have, as you say, to agree to disagree on this.
One point though. You wrote: Your last post seems to support the mayor's attitude vis-a-vis ethical -vs- illegal. (if it ain't illegal then it is ethical) I know you have disagreed with this concept in the past and have taken the Godfreyites to task over it. So what is different here?
I haven't backed off on that at all, Oz. I think I said pretty plainly that Godfrey's actions [agreeing to have the city operate as Mr. Lesham's purchasing agent, using his money, in secret] seemed legal, but it was not ethical. If I didn't make that clear, I should have and intended to.
Doesn't the state have a Property Transactions ombudsman? I think the SL Trib story mentioned that and the he had not received any complaints and was not fully familiar with what happened in Ogden, but that in general is office favored government involvement in property purchases to be open and above board. Be interesting if one of the property owners who sold an option to the city that was paid for with Mr. Lesham's money by the city, complained to the Ombudsman.
By the way, if the city had gotten the options with public money, and then invited proposals, offers from any and all interested parties, and sold to the developer the city thought had the best plan for the city with the highest probability of success, I'd have no problem with that. Too, if Mr. Lesham had gone in and gotten the options on all 38 parcels with his own funds, no problem there either. It's the city acting secretly as his agent, using his money, that creates the problem for me. The city negotiators presumably had the threat of going to condemnation procedures if an owner refused to agree to sell to the city; Mr. Leshem in his negotiations would have had no such implied threat behind his offers, should they have been refused. And it appears [from Mr. Schwebke's story] that for at least some of the properties, other developers were interested in the tracts the city obtained by subterfuge for Mr. Lesham. And of course, the city's failure to notify the RDA board --- aka City Council --- of what it had agreed to do is a problem as well.
Put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. And cronyism is cronyism, plain and simple.
We got off onto other matters, but I didn't want to let Charles Trentelman's Sunday column on ticket quotas pass entirely unremarked. Of Hansen's bill to ban quotas, Mr. Trentelman had this to say:
Poppycock. Ogden police, all police, should have ticket quotas. I’m thinking 10 tickets a day. Maybe 20. One rule: They have to be moving violations. None of that “parked pointing the wrong way” or “broken tail light” crud....
If you think we don’t need quotas, you obviously have not been on Utah roads in the last 10 years. If you had been, you would agree that there are too few tickets issued, not too many.
I was driving along 12th Street in Ogden, at the speed limit, and some guy in a red pickup zoomed past, wove through cars in three lanes, ignored the brilliant red of the traffic signal and bombed through the intersection at Washington Boulevard. Did a cop pull him over? No. Was there a cop within half a mile? Unlikely. That’s only one of the most dangerous intersections in the state and it was rush hour. Certainly no reason for a traffic cop to be in the vicinity.
I was driving on Harrison Boulevard, again carefully following the rules, and a car eased past. The driver, papers propped on the steering wheel, was diligently reading, less-diligently driving. A red light loomed. I stopped. The reading driver did not. Was a ticket issued? Get real.
While I doubt ticket quotas are the best way to make it happen, Mr. Trentelman's general point that the problem in these parts is not that too many tickets are written [for moving violations] but far too few is right on the money. I'd only add that the Legislature ought to make yakking on a cell phone while driving a primary offense [i.e. one for which you can be stopped and ticketed]. Of course, I'm not unbiased in the matter having been hit by a driver yakking on the phone a couple of years ago on Harrison [broad daylight, in a cross walk, with the light] which put me on crutches for three months, and having had to jump out of the way of another driver, mid-cross walk in broad daylight with the light, who was yakking on the phone two weeks ago.
The above Trentelman excerpts above are just a sampling. The whole column is worth a read. Go, Charlie, go!
I hope that he police camp out a charlie's house because he has all the money in the world to give to the little man on the 9th fl.
after his wallet has been hit by these pick pockets of the mayors, maybe he will change his tune.
curm:
Regarding the locations of Leshem's earlier development projects, I'm looking for actual street addresses. Merely knowing what country they're in is of no use in determining their size or quality. The idea here is to figure out whether he has the credentials to do what he's promising here.
Yeah, Charlie's column was good. I just hope the cops don't get too aggressive at pulling over bicyclists for running stop signs! :-)
It seems to me that this ticket quota thing has been hi-jacked, including by Trentelman.
The problem is when a department like Ogden imposes a traffic ticket quota on all cops including detectives, gang officers, patrol officers, and yes according to Tarman (sp?) the assistant chief himself. (I wonder if Greiner has to write tickets also?). These people should not have to stop pursuing criminals in order to write traffic tickets.
If we don't have enough traffic cops to handle the people who commit the offenses then they ought to hire more traffic cops, not make detectives write more tickets. This makes even more sense when you consider that traffic cops are the only real revenue generators in the police department. Gang cops should be dealing with the rampant gang problem, not generating cash for Godfrey's stupid ego monuments.
Traffic tickets should be the responsibility of the Traffic Cops. That is their main function. If a quota is necessary to make them effective then so be it. It occurs to me that even with traffic cops it would be fairly simple for their supervisors to know who is performing and who isn't, so even there a quota may not make much sense.
So next time you call the cops because some crack head is breaking in your house and the cops don't show up right away it may very well be because they had to stop and write a traffic ticket first.
This quota bull shit is not about public safety, it is about the money it generates.
Cable Guy:
Or, folks could try not speeding, not running lights, not running stop signs. That might work too.
Speaking of law breakers, when is Bob Geiger going before the judge? I noticed him front and center at the River Party last Friday. I hope Kennedy wasn't there just to give some credability to the show.
I think Trentleman's column was waaay off base.
No one is advocating letting lawbreakers squeak by...just not have a QUOTA for a cop to worry about.
Good cops are going to stop and/or ticket lousy drivers. Charlie implied that without a quota, lawbreakers go free.
Poppycock...you can do better than this, Trentleman.
Well Sharon I think Trentelman is entitled to lay an egg once in a while as he did on this one. He is usually right on and very entertaining with his writing ability and style. He is certainly the Standard's brightest star.
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