The mayor's anti-promotional efforts continue
By Dan S.
As I finally look at today's paper, I see there's yet another article about Mt. Ogden golf course. It's a remarkable article, about the city's plan to revamp its web site to promote the golf course "within a few months". There's no explanation of why this can't be done sooner, or, for that matter, why it wasn't done years ago. The only person quoted in the article is our mayor, who hastens to point out that "enhanced promotional efforts won't likely solve the course's financial woes", those woes being "due to its difficult terrain."
In other words, the mayor's anti-promotional efforts continue. We've now had something like five news articles in the last week in which he has told the public what a lousy course it is--on top of the long-term campaign that he began over two years ago. How a web site revamp in a few months can possibly make up for all that, I have no idea. It's absolutely clear that the mayor wants the course to keep losing money until the taxpayers agree to subsidize the redesign whose real purpose is to move the clubhouse closer to the gondola.
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20 comments:
Dan:
Thanks for the heads up. I missed that story, somehow.
It is, sadly, another instance of press release journalism. I'm hard put to understand how a reporter could do that interview and not ask the Mayor why the city website promoted three out-of-city golf courses more prominently than the MOGC for years, and why the changes were only being made now, nearly three years after the Mayor first began complaining about Mt. Ogden and its needing more business. Seems to me asking for an explanation of the delay should have one of the first follow up questions to come to mind. Apparently, it didn't get asked.
Not good enough for My Hometown Paper. Not nearly good enough.
I can't help wondering if at least some of those who believed Godfrey and voted for him last November are sorry. Probably not - I guess, because of the slipshod reporting in the SE, they think he's trying to save the city money. I just wish they would feel a tiny bit of remorse.
Maybe those of us who were canvassing for Susie were too nice. Maybe we should have told people what a scumbag and wife-beater Godfrey is. If he runs again, I personally will make copies of that police report and hand it out door to door in his ward.
Curmudgeon, it isn't known as the Sub-Standard for nothing!
Marv:
What really surprises me is that there was a story there. It just wasn't the one the SE reported. I have a hard time believing that "Mayor announces city website promotion of golf course will be improved in several months" merits a front page story, even in the top of Utah section. I'm not sure it's newsworthy at all. Maybe... maybe... when the new and improved site goes up. But months ahead of time?
As I said, there was a story, but the SE missed it. The story was that, four years after putting in new MOGC staff, four years after saying the MOGC "losses" could not be continued and using that to justify selling the course to Mr. Peterson for real estate development, four years after that, the Mayor notices that the city website is promoting out of town courses ahead of MOGC and announces he's going to do something about it "in a few months." That was the story the SE missed. Why was nothing done over the previous four years when the Mayor was insisting the MOGC problems were very much on his mind and he was working hard to find a solution? And for years, the city website touts out of town courses first? [As I seem to recall, the Mayor was lickety-split about getting up pro-golf course sale material as soon as it was developed. Remember how quickly his FAQS touting the gondola and golf course sale went up, and stayed up. So it's not like he wasn't aware of the significance of the city website as a marketing tool.]
That was the story. And the SE missed it. Instead we got "Mayor Announces Website Golf Course Improvements In A Few Months." Jeez..... talk about a slow news day.
It is amazing how everything the lying little lord does just accentuates his lack of integrity.
Really now, just how long would it take to modify the city web site to reflect the proposed changes. A decent web person could do the whole thing in an hour or less if he had pictures and copy in hand.
By dragging this out for two months, which knowing his MO might drag into three or four, it will pretty much ruin any chance of a positive effect for this golf season which is getting under way right now.
So any one who may be looking at Ogden's web site now, and for the next few months, to see what the golf scene looks like will not be informed about this great course. If anyone find out anything about it, it will be from the punk's negative PR machine.
His disingenuous nature knows no bounds. This two months bull shit is just that, one more attempt to subvert any chance that MOGC will get any positive attention from any official city source until he can pull off his intended caper of selling it to his crony on the cheap.
The Mayor's option to raise taxes in the vicinity of the golf course only should be labeled the Mount Ogden Community punitive option. It is clearly designed to punish the people in the neighborhood for having the audacity to draw up a community plan that preserved the park from him and his rapacious friends. The only remote way it would be fair is if the park and golf course were restricted for their use only.
elaine:
And not even then, since I doubt anything like a majority of the residents golf. At all.
The special tax district idea is normally used to raise money from commercial properties that are expected to benefit, directly and financially, from a city-funded project. Say a downtown municipal parking structure by way of example, the tax district to include businesses expected to benefit from an increase in free close by parking for their customers.
Sometimes it's used to raise funds to, say, put in side walks in a particular neighborhood, the presumption being the whole neighborhood benefits from safer streets. Sometimes a neighborhood will ask for antique-looking street lights, and a special tax district will be laid on to pay for that, the presumption being, again, that the entire neighborhood benefits. Those arguments do not apply in any way to improvements in the municipal golf course primarily benefiting residents of the surrounding neighborhood.
I thought I read somewhere that Bill C. was going to provide some info, and then there would be a public committee formed to address the issues. Was I wrong about that?
Giving input to the administration is a waste of time. That Godfrey would add up "years of operating deficits" is ridiculous, since every park in the city has "years of operating deficits."
Once again we are left to wonder what the mayor is really up to, and to rely on the city council to lead.
By the way, are the Geigers still pushing for a gondola? To where? Do they ever talk to Chris Peterson? There is no Malan's ski resort plan. Wake up guys. Sheesh.
Is there, or can there be, a project to convince Descente to yank these two trouble makers out of town?
My patience with them, for one, is at an end.
Ah, David, the Never End Flatland Gondola. Got more lives than a cat, it seems.
Well, let's see. Ogden is to be a resort destination and one of the greatest resort hotels is "The Breakers." Can Ogden's downtown gondola station five star hotel possible be named any but "The Cables" then? Surely not.
And whatever new real estate development project on former city land Hizzonah and his... I was going to say "cronies" but that seems to give offense, so let's ust say "favored associates" ... are scheming to make happen now, surely it can't fail to be called "Gondola View Acres," can it?
Why, the possibilities are endless!
Curm:
I'm not sure that yesterday's article originated as a press release. My theory was that Schwebke read comments on this blog complaining about the lack of promotion for Mt. Ogden Golf Course on the city's web site, and he asked the mayor about it when he got a chance. Then the mayor, off the cuff, responded by saying they were revising the web site; Schwebke asked when, and the mayor said in a few months.
But then Schwebke completely blew the writeup, failing to include any other viewpoints or to put any emphasis at all on the real story, as you've pointed out.
By the way, it's only about two years since the mayor announced publicly that he wanted to sell the golf course. However, he must have made that decision privately at least a year earlier, possibly more. In any case, two years of hell can seem like an eternity.
Another thing that keeps striking me about the mayor's rhetoric is how he is willing to consider only silver-bullet solutions that fix the whole "problem" with one stroke. Assembling a solution from several smaller pieces is obviously not on his radar, and he instantly shoots down any suggestions along those lines.
One obvious piece is to get rid of the $2 million "debt", one way or another, and give the golf course a clean start. A second piece is better promotion, of which a better web site could be one small part but many other parts are needed and the biggest part would be for the mayor to shut up about how unplayable he thinks the golf course is. A third piece would be a reasonable level of taxpayer support, commensurate with the benefit that the public obtains from having the golf course as part of a larger public park whose benefits (winter sports, green space along trails, use by school golf teams) extend to many others besides the individual golfers who pay to use it. There may or may not be other pieces that contribute to the full solution, but the point is that every little bit helps, and the mayor should quit belittling good ideas just because they won't generate the entire $250,000 annual "shortfall".
I really do not get this guy. Last time I checked, most HiAdventure enthusiasts and Outdoor Sport businessmen PLAY FUCKING GOLF. Since when does eliminating the golf course by attrition or development fit into the image he is trying to create for the city. He is a first class moron. A million plus for an ice tower on a street corner and he cannot forgive 2 million for a 100 acre plus golf course. I wonder how much was budgeted for the sculpture in front of the Salomon Center. He has no shame bouncing priorities around like so many jacks. Where is a smarter head like Mike Dowse to straighten out this weasels forehead. Dowse bought a home I thought adjacent to the course. Surely he plays it and his business pals. Must be nice to walk out the front drive to the club house. Do you want this quaint little setup to get mucked up by your mayoral buddy Mike? Better call his bluff soon.
A dire prediction. Godfrey gets his way on a reconfiguration. The job goes over budget, contractors bail or go bankrupt(happens often these days)City is left with 140 acres of chewed up hillside. Only remedy is to sell it for home development. Chris Peterson walks in as "saviour" scores long term bailout financing on acreage now level enough for home building after scouring away all the natural topography.
Someone save us.
Dan:
At the work session, the Mayor did say, when a council member noted that MOGC was not well-promoted on the web site, that there were other attractions not well promoted on it either, and that's why "the whole site is being up-graded." Could have been a follow up question that night too. But you're right, I tend to be a little loose in using the term "press release journalism." There doesn't have to actually be a press release per se. I use it as well to describe [in the present instance] an administration-claims-only-and-unexamined report, whether acquired by formal press release, press conference, interview, phone call or leak. It all amounts to the same. If something comes from a public official, it automatically needs to be questioned, its sources inquired about, figures checked, evidence in support examined. Automatically. Every time. That's what papers do. Or should.
And before anyone asks, yes, the same applies to officials whose election I support, candidates I voted for. Same rules apply.
By the way, a paper's approaching official statements with that kind of jaundiced eye works to the advantage of officials provided what they're claiming is solid and backed up by the evidence. That kind of dogged fact-checking works against officials only if they do not want or cannot afford to have their sources checked, and their statements held up to the evidence for corroboration. An administration that was confident that its claims were solid, its evidence good, would, seems to me, welcome press and public scrutiny and do all it could to encourage it.
However, an administration whose actions display a preference for operating behind closed doors, for withholding information from press and public... well, we can all draw our own conclusions about the probably reliability of its assertions in that case.
There have been four or five different news stories in the paper in as many days about the Mt. Ogden GC and in all of these stories the mayor has commented from different aspects as to how he feels that this golf course is costly to the city or how the golf course will continue to be a drain on the city’s financials. The mayor through these series of stories seems to be trying to herd the residents into accepting the one solution that he wants, knowing that the residents don’t want the city to sell the golf course. He seems to want the city to spend $6 million, not so much to improve the course but to justify moving of the club house to the top of 36th Street. Moving the club house will not improve the course itself nor will it make the course easier to find nor will it make the course more playable nor will it enlarge the size of the club house or parking lot. None of the justifications given by the mayor to this point hold water, in my opinion. The course can be made more playable with much less costly approaches than what the mayor is proposing and the course is probably not in as bad a financial state as the city is indicating but rather it is shown that way accounting wise on the books as a justification for the mayor’s agenda. Several management decisions as to how the course is operated could be questioned as well. The only conclusion one can reach for this pursuit by the mayor is to make way for a landing point for an urban gondola, a starting point for a mountain gondola to Malan Basin and the desired golf course club house location that the Malan Basin developer wanted, which the city will be building to suit with the residents money. This golf course initiative represents the first step if the mayor can convince the residents and the City Council to go along with him.
Frankly I think the Standard Examiner knows that most people in Ogden get their local news from the paper. The paper has openly, in the past, expressed their support for a gondola, on conditions. Unfortunately I think they are working the crowd for the mayor and the mayor’s efforts to establish a landing point for the gondolas at the proposed new club house location with their latest series of stories. In light of everything else that is going on locally, nationally and in the world, there is no reason for this story to be getting this much press unless there is an agenda at work.
The local paper has disappointed me with this approach in light of the fact that they know how the residents of Ogden feel about these projects. The mayor went totally silent about these projects and the sale of the golf course during the campaign season leading up to the elections knowing that the residents were opposed to these projects. I would have much more respect for the management of the paper if they would direct there staff to stick to reporting the facts and if the paper wants to express their support for a project to do so in the editorial section, rather than though subtle sway of public opinion through a series of biased reports.
Og Res:
Interesting post. Thanks.
The whole question of the SE's objectivity [not only in reporting, but in story selection, news judgment etc.] is an interesting one. Its record has not been, on these matters, what I wish it had been over the past four years. It has not consistently behaved as a crusading independent progressive paper raised up on the foundation laid in the Progressive Period by the muckrakers and their followers. [My model of what a local independent home town paper should be comes from the period.]
On the other hand, I don't think I'm ready to jump to a conspiracy theory explanation for its shortcomings. Not yet, anyway.
I don't know many people who work on or for the SE. Not counting the guy who delivers my paper [in the dead of pre-dawn darkness, all through the winter, regardless of the weather; he did a hell of a job], I've met four SE employees since I got here six years ago. Two I've met only once, and none do I know well. I knew more paper people where I came from, but I was there 31 years. And I think I can say this confidently: none of the newspaper people I've known, there or here, want to do a poor job, or are trying to put out anything less than a good paper. None of them.
We need to keep in mind, I think, that those who produce the product work under restraints that readers [i.e. consumers] may not be fully aware of. Or care about. And yes, some --- even many --- of those constraints are financial. [My model of a progressive modern daily, in Madison, Wisconsin folded last month, and will now appear only twice a week as a magazine insert in the competing, surviving, much less independent morning daily].
Does this mean papers have to, and that the SE does, write stories to please its advertisers [aka "the Ogden business community"]? The answer to that is, I think, yes and no. Clearly the paper... all home town papers... do articles on the openings of new businesses, etc. that are designed in part at least as booster pieces. But does that also mean the paper buries main stream news stories, or slants them, to accommodate its advertisers' preferences? Or the local government's? I'm not convinced the SE is doing that. Not so far, at least. Sometimes, bad news judgment [and making a TOU front page story of the recent piece reporting that the Mayor would change the city's web page in re: MOGC in "a few months" was bad news judgment] is just that, and not necessarily conspiratorial news judgment. The SE has gone with enough stories Hizzonah would rather not have seen printed --- no, not nearly as many as I would like to have seen, but not an insignificant number either --- that I don't think the conspiracy theory explanation of the paper's gaffes can be sustained. Not yet, anyway.
As for criticism of the reporting: that's fair game for any reader, certainly, and I've done my share of it here and to the paper directly. But it also seems to me that the SE editors get the reporting they want. It's reporters has come in for a great deal of criticism here, some of it from me. But it seems to me undeniable that they are providing their editors with the reporting they want. If they weren't, he wouldn't still be reporting for the SE. So I've come to think a good part of the criticism that's been directed at the reporting staff should have been directed at the paper's news editors instead.
Finally, Og, I doubt that most of the locals get their information about local affairs from the paper. I sincerely wish that was so. So I suspect does the management of the SE. But I doubt it's true. First, most of the SE's circulation is not in Ogden City, but outside it. Second, nothing like a majority, or anything close to it, of Ogden residents are subscribes to the SE or read it daily. This in no way lessens the SE's obligation to be a good, independent small city daily. Not one iota. But I think you overstate its influence some. Thinking of their circulation as a pie, Ogden's slice is not the largest. And so [back to finances], I don't think they can devote the resources, time, money to covering Ogden matters that you, and I, wish they would.
You raise meaty questions, Og. Can anything resembling a real democracy survive in the absence of a free, and independent, vigorous press questioning, constantly, the actions, claims and statements of public officials, and of the powerful in general? I'd say no. So you're raising, on a local level, not only meaty, but fundamental questions.
Chewy post you put up, Og. Thanks again.
Sad news in today's paper: Amy Wicks's bunny, Mingus, passed away last December. Perhaps everyone else already knew, but I didn't. Sorry, Amy, we'll all miss him.
I, too, will miss Mingus.
Mingus was a great campaigner, too. One of the best. And a great obit he got in today's SE. We should all be so well thought of at our send off. The article is
I wonder where Mingus might have gone now that he has left us. It probably wasn't heaven considering he apparently already resided there. Licking Amy's feet when she got out of the shower - now that has to be a heavenly activity!
Never thought I would be jealous of a rabbit!
Thinking about Mingus licking Amy’s feet and the Geigers vis-Ã -vis Chris Peterson, it’s interesting how sometimes a mindless animal will lick or suck things for no apparent reason. I suppose in Miingus’ case we can assume it was because the little fella liked her.
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