This morning's Ace Reporter Schwebke story serves as a reminder of tonight's Emerald City Council work session, in which Boss Godfrey will unveil his laundry list of proposed expenditures, designed to empty Ogden City's $2.9 million dollar "carryover money"account, and fulfill Godfrey's latest "pet projects."
Among the items newly revealed in this morning's story is a $1.5 million allocation to The Junction's debt service:
Included in the proposal is a $1.5 million allocation, double the amount anticipated in the fiscal 2008 budget, to make an annual debt service payment for The Junction retail, residential and entertainment complex downtown.The foregoing will surely come as a shock for the faithful lemmings in the Godfrey camp, who actually believed Boss Godfrey's 2005 sales pitch, to the effect that The Junction would carry its own weight, and not become a burden upon the taxpayers of Emerald City.
The funds are needed because construction delays at The Junction have prevented the generation of anticipated tax increment.
Our own sources also reveal that Godfrey will be pitching a funds allocation toward a special Godfrey "slush fund," intended to lure more ski companies to our high-adventure town.
It also appears that the Godfrey administration has felt the political heat, and accordingly softened it posture on the $200 thousand proposed allocation toward the "Ice Tower" project. In spite of the evidence, administration officials now deny that they intend to hold Emerald City public transit funds hostage, under a Godfrey demand for a matching ice tower appropriation:
Mark Johnson, the city’s management services director, said Monday the administration isn’t seeking a “horse trade” through its recommendation and is merely attempting to provide a strategy to fund both the transit study and ice tower.Council Director Bill Cook is nevertheless sticking to his guns. According to this morning's story, it remains Cook's belief that the public transit and ice tower funds were tied together as a quid pro quo, under terms of the administration's original presentation.
“It’s not a political statement,” he said regarding the recommendation. “That’s not how it was meant to be presented.” [...]
"... a March 27 memo from Ogden Finance Manager John Arrington to the city council is less direct in describing the administration’s intentions.
The memo states the administration has suggested the use of $200,000 in UTA funds for the transit analysis and the reappropriation of that money as “additional city funding” for the ice tower.
We suppose we'll have to see what happens at tonight's meeting. If all goes according to plan, we'll have our own Weber County Forum reporter sitting in on tonight's work session, notebook in hand, to report whether Godfrey is willing to independently release, without conditions, the $231,250 in Federal Transit Administration funds which remain languishing in a UTA account. Hopefully we'll be able to publish a report within a reasonable time after tonight's session.
While we're on the subject, we're linking our council contact information web page here, for those readers who'd like to actively lobby city council members regarding tonight's work session agenda. We updated the page yesterday, with what we believe to be each council member's preferred email address. In that connection, we would appreciate those readers who make use of this Weber County Forum resource to alert us by email, in the event of any technical glitches.
Take it away, gentle readers.
