Okay, gentle readers. Some of you Emerald City citizens are wondering and grousing and emailing your blogmeister about why we haven't devoted ourselves to some of the semi-red meat news about Ogden in the past few days.
Grumble no more, Emerald City lumpencitizens. We have two stories to discuss this afternoon, one from this morning's Standard-Examiner, and one from yesterday's Std-Ex edition.
First, we'll highlight today's marvellous Std-Ex story, wherein it's reported that building a $1.6 million climbers' Ice Tower is one of the city council's "top priorities."
Your blogmeister has talked to several Emerald City council-people today. None of those we talked to agreed that "The Council" has ever set any such priorities as the Std-Ex suggests.
Cutting to the chase, we wonder whether a $1.6 million "ice tower" is the best use of Emerald City (taxpayer) money, especially with a world recession in the wings.
The gentle reader who persuaded us to post this article also provided this:
I dug up some old articles on the ice tower to see how the cost has escalated over time:
June 2005: $275,000
April 2007: $400,000
November 2007: "just more than $1 million"
January 2008: $1.6 million
And now they're asking for another $200k from RAMP. I see red flags all over the place on this one.
Food for thought, we think. We know real inflation is bad. Perhaps the City Council needs to snap up this deal immediately, before the price really goes to the moon! Gawd knows an Ice Tower will put Emerald City On THE MAP!! Our city council had better hurry up, before this essential project becomes even more expensive.
Next, we'll shine the spotlight on yesterday's Std-Ex story, wherein the supposedly well-heeled out of town investor guy, Larry Myler, is purportedly arriving in town to build a $100 million hotel, and a $20 million water park, from which he expects to make millions of bucks.
If this guy has the juice to put together such a project, we ask... Why does he need a $1 million dollar no interest loan, and a deferral of the property purchase price?
Just asking.
Time to hear from our gentle readers.
You asked for it; time to talk about it.
