A little over a week ago the Standard-Examiner published an article concerning a mysteriously "leaked" email, in which Mayor Godfrey had chastised Emerald City Council Chair Amy Wicks, for refusing to meet with him privately to discuss City Council business behind closed doors.
We followed up this article with our own discussion here, in which we examined Ms. Wicks' conduct and Mayor Godfrey's possible motives, and reached a general consensus among our readers, we believe, that Ms. Wicks' conduct, reflecting her well known commitment to open government, was quite praiseworthy, whereas the quality of Godfrey's behavior was "manipulative," at best.
This morning we now find a follow-up letter in the Standard-Examiner, concisely stating the savvy opinion of at least one reader, Riverdale's Irene Voit, mirroring the conclusions also reached in comments earlier on this blog. It's short, so we'll incorporate its text in full:
The March 1 news article, “A communication battle brewing in Ogden,” reported that Mayor Matthew Godfrey sent City Council Chairwoman Amy Wicks “a blistering e-mail” for refusing to communicate with him in private about “important municipal matters” or “to dialogue on issues.” She was accused of conducting all city business in the open during city council meetings or the twice monthly leadership meetings.If, as we suspect, Mayor Godfrey's motive in leaking the email was to discredit Councilwoman Wicks, we'll chalk up Godfrey's latest sneaky public relations effort as a flat failure in a long line of public relations failures. Kudos to Ms. Voit for seeing through Boss Godfrey's mendacious smoke screen, and for exerting the additional effort to submit her thoughts to the Std-Ex. Thanks also to the Std-Ex for publishing the letter this morning.
Way too often it seems that issues are decided or deals are made behind closed doors in Ogden and other municipalities. City council and planning commission meetings often seem to only serve the purpose of trying to give the appearance of legitimacy to some prearranged deal or decision. City councils and planning commissions were created to represent the interests of their constituents and to provide oversight over specific functions of government.
I commend Council Chairwoman Wicks for traveling the high road. I encourage all city council and commission members to follow her example. They should not meet privately with their mayors, developers or other people who wish to influence government behind closed doors or to “dialogue on issues.” Only in this way can there be the hope of restoring residents’ trust in local government.
Godfrey's most recent public relations ploy has now apparently penetrated the public consciousness; and like most ham-handed attempts on Godfrey's part to manipulate public opinion, the latest effort appears to have backfired.
Comments?
