Yesterday's News Today

Two interesting stories stories to clear out the weekend cobwebs

We'll get the ball rolling this morning by digging into our queue of this past weekend's articles, stories we didn't post yesterday because we had the temerity to take the whole danged day off. Sunday's Standard-Examiner was a banner day for Ogden Valley, with two robust articles, reporting on the ongoing trials and travails of the fine people who are our "countrified" Weber County neighbors to the east.

The first article falls under the headline "As Ogden Valley sees tremendous growth, Huntsville embraces its ‘Mayberry’ image", which we think might have been more appropriately entitled " Huntsville residents kiss the Mayberry USA lifestyle bye-bye."

The second article, a fine Marshall Thompson biographical profile piece, shines the Std-Ex spotlight on Ogden Valley resident Don Bell, a citizen activist up-and-comer, who's become a front-line figure in the Utah property tax reform movement. Bell has been a familiar figure on Capitol Hill this legislative session, volunteering his time as a citizen lobbyist, in an effort to persuade individual legislators to enact meaningful tax reform this year. Bell is also the publisher of the Utah Wingmen for Property Tax RE-FORUM ( REFORM ) blog; and regular Weber County Forum readers will no doubt remember his sometimes cranky, but always knowledgeable comments on the subject of tax reform, right here Weber County Forum. Rumor also has it that the retired Air Force combat fighter pilot is now back in his Huntsville hangar, loading up a whole new planeload of political ordnance to drop on the Utah legislature during the 2009 session. Further rumor even suggests that he's toying with the idea of imminently throwing his hat into the political ring. We do believe that Don Bell is a name to be watched, and that the appearance of this article in yesterday's Std-Ex edition may well signal political announcements to come.

As an added bonus, we provide this handy link to Ogden Valley Forum, whose blogmaster posted a full article on these same topics last night.

Happy Monday morning, denizens of WCF. Don't hesitate to offer your two cents here, once the Monday morning double lattes take hold.