This morning's Standard-Examiner provides a timely heads-up for the Emerald City lumpencitizens this morning, about something which we expect to be Boss Godfrey's next "big push," in his ongoing obsession to inflict upon our city his "visionary" Big Government-Propelled Makeover. We incorporate Ace Reporter Schwebke's essential paragraphs below, on the subject of the now-proposed revision to Ogden City's Central Business District Community Plan:
OGDEN — City officials are seeking public input on a long-range plan to shape land use, transportation, economic development and housing within the downtown business district.As a matter of first impression, the now-announced Central Business District community plan amendment process would appear to at least superficially resemble the Mt. Ogden Community Plan amendment process which was finalized last year -- with one big difference. Unlike last year, when democratic forces rolled up their sleeves and went to work to achieve a community plan amendment which conformed to the wishes of the citizens who actually reside in the Mt. Ogden Community, Boss Godfrey seems to be acting proactively this time around, to prevent the general popultion of lumpencitizens from overtly meddling in the process.
The aim of the plan being formulated by a 14-member citizen steering committee is to address growth issues within the business district’s boundaries, which extend from Adams Avenue to west of Wall Avenue and from 27th Street to the Ogden River.
“It charts out the future of Ogden’s downtown,” said John Mayer, a city planner. “It fosters orderly development.”
Community plans such as the one proposed for the business district have a narrower focus than Ogden’s general plan.
In addition, community plans balance the interests of the city and neighborhoods in addressing such issues as transportation, infrastructure, housing and public safety.
Ogden has 17 community plans. The most recent for the downtown business district was implemented in 1991.
The city planning commission will hold a series of work sessions before conducting a public hearing on the business district plan in June or July. The city council would have to amend the municipality’s overall general plan to implement the business district plan.
The steering committee’s recommendations may change before the plan is presented to the city council, Mayer said. [...]
Downtown property owners who have additional recommendations for the business district plan can contact Mayer at johnmayer@ci.ogden.ut.us [Corrected email link added].
We also interpret the mayor's appointment of a fourteen member steering committee to be further evidence of this. As reported in Mr. Schwebke's morning story, this mysterious committee has already been hard at work in some back room at city hall, formulating its own "recommendations." And yes, gentle readers. One of the committee's recommendations apparently involves GONDOLAS.
We've linked Mr. Mayer's email addy in the above-quoted paragraph. Boss Godfrey is calling for citizen input. He's even scheduled a few work sessions so the lumpencitizens can at least formally throw in their two cents, prior to the implementation of the recommendations which his (presumably hand selected) steering committee has already formulated.
Is it time for the lumpencitizens to roll up their sleeves once again? Should the forces of citizen democracy again intrude into the process?
This will be on the test.
Comments, anyone?
18 comments:
Not to worry, I pretty sure given Godfreys' past record on projects along with jis crack development team, they will screw this up royaly also.
The whole concept of doing a community plan for downtown is a bit strange. In a neighborhood that's mostly residential, you naturally invite the residents to participate in the planning process. But for downtown, whom do you invite? Sure, there are some residents, but not a lot. Then there are property owners, and also businesses (who may or may not be property owners). I think the city tried to invite all the property owners, but I'm not sure about tenants of commercial property. Of course anyone could have attended the preliminary meeting where the planning process was launched. The meeting was announced in the paper and I considered going. But participation in the steering committee was undoubtedly limited to residents and/or property owners.
During the planning process for the Mt. Ogden neighborhood, some residents of other parts of the city complained that they were unfairly left out of the process because what happens in one neighborhood affects everyone. This is especially true for Mt. Ogden Park, which is heavily used by people who live outside the immediate neighborhood. In the end, however, the plan was adopted unanimously by the City Council, which represents all of the city's residents.
For downtown there is more grounds, I think, to argue that citizens from other parts of the city should have been involved from the start. But in the end it will be the City Council that adopts a final plan, and they are supposed to represent all of us.
I was on the Mt. Ogden Community steering group and we had our names available publically, so the the different groups could discuss various ideas. Will the downtown group release their names so we can see who is on the steering group. I would be interested in contacting them if there was something I had suggested for Mt. Ogden Community Plan and was adopted.
Jef:
I too wondered who is on this steering committee that represents Hizzonah's latest attempt to breathe life into his obsession... a flatland gondola that won't connect downtown with McKay Dee Hospital, and that was judged not feasible [in terms of probable use] by the Wasatch Front Regional Council's feasibility study that recommended trolley transit or BRC over the same route instead.
Maybe the mayor's father in law, the Democrat Ed Allen, could sit down with his "precious one" and counsel him about democracy in America.
On the other hand, maybe not.
If the steering committee is packed with the mayors buds that he has enticed to move here, the ski companies, Bingham Cyclery, the other businesses that have gotten grants and RDA funds then a Gondola will rise again. I hope the 25th ST Association gets involved and supports rational decisions. If not then we expect the City Council to react and not approve any plans until they have all the information and accurate data and costs. They weren't elected to rubber stamp proposals that will get the city more in debt. Why hasn't the city been promoting the Frontrunner with information on times, fares, and easy use and access?
I’m in my second year of journalism school at WSU, and I take excellent shorthand. Recently, I was in Roosters and overheard a foreign sounding man who was all dressed in black, talking. When I learned it was Gadi Leshem, and since he is such an important player in downtown redevelopment and has been in the newspaper so much lately, I took out my trusty notepad right then and there, and started writing. He was talking to someone wearing old jeans, a black leather coat, and an old baseball cap. I think it may have been his mechanic. I feel I transcribed Mr. Leshem’s words precisely, but he has a very thick accent and so in reviewing my notes I was unsure of some words. But this is what he said.
“Hey Gert, you know that all this stuff about me backing out of Wal-Mart is just a smog screen. Harmer was supposed to come up with the cash to give me for this deal and he is the one backing out. They are just blowing a bunch of fog all around the place.
“I told you this city is all just a bunch of foggers. If I want to get this fogged I go to my business place the Northern Exposure when I am in Ogden. I don’t need all these other foggers trying to fog me. The mayor he call me and tell me to give Brent Cox 100 grand. I tell you that Godfrey, I start to thing he is the worst fogger of them all, always trying to fog my axe.
“You know I get so sick of him always talking and talking. It remind me of the whine of my Messerschmidt airplane I fly for fun – he make same constant whining sound hour after hour as the Messerschmidt. I glad at least for the city council they not whine all the time like the mayor like the Messerschmidt. But they are all Fokkers anyway.
“So, what you say Gert? When is Bop getting here? Are you just going sit there wiping that cream on your nose? What is that sheets you always put on your nose?
“I don’t need take this sheets from all these foggers. Fog them. Wal-Mart can go get fogged. You know, that the best idea I hear all day. Forget this lunch with you. I leaving and going to my Northern Exposure. I ask my dancing batches over there what time it is and whatever they say – one, two three o’clock I tell them, no, it is six. When I walk in door it is always six. Six is what I want.”
As a cub reporter, I was particularly interested in the fact that it appears the mayor was planning on subsidizing Gadi’s business deals all along. I felt this was important news.
Cub Reporter, at WSU.
What will it cost
The reason I see that the City hasn't been promoting the Frontrunner with information on times, fares, and easy use and access, is because they want to keep people in town, they dont want any escapees from Matt Godfreys' la la land, and house of blunders.
Cub Reporter a/k/a Ozboy:
In my book you're a fine dialect comedian no matter under which handle you post.
My name is Jason, and I'm a blogaholic.
"Hi, Jason!"
That's right, I'm now a friend of Bill, but not Bill W., as some hypocrites in Farmington would have you believe: Bill G., an erstwhile politician who turned his back on those who trusted him to root out the deception and evil wrought by the onion-reeking, gondola-loving tendencies of Lord Littlebrook and his merry band of aerial people-mover worshippers, who believe that salvation can be attained only through circus rides over blighted urban thoroughfares and to exactly nowhere; in other words, the Avenging Geigers, angels of latter-day community destruction and total morons, losers of the highest orders and defenders of the land scheme to plunge a once-proud town into the depths of idiocy previously deemed unfathomable.
I have my 90-day pin, and I held it close to my heart. But I tossed it and fell off the wagon, like THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE falling on his knees to praise Wolfgang Puck, who will open a restaurant and onion chevice in a silly fairy-tale castle, guarded by magical dwarves, in Malan's Basin, once Wayne Peterson and his famed Squirrel Patrol carry through with their glorious vision to erect a gondola on every corner; plant purple onion fields on every fourth block; install waterslides and ice towers downtown as the foundation of a new American Dream: GONDOLA TOWN, USA.
Heed the call of these freaking deal-dos, OTown, because it is our very salvation at stake: kneel before Zod ... er, THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE and Lying Little Matty Gondola Godfrey (and remember the true etymological origin, friends), divine agents of change in a sea of myopia, better known as Ogden, Utah. Death to the naysayers! Hail THE GONDOLA! Hail Bob Geiger and his Badge of Piker!
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
off the subject but not too far.
noticed in the paper the announcement of a another new mexican food joint to open soon in the junction.
that brings to 3 the number of mexican places within 100 yards of one another within the junction. if you expand the circle to about 500 yards you find 2 more mexican joints.
now i like mexican food but 5 within a quarter mile of one another. this means one or more of the 5 are not going to make it or the junction will soon qualify as a renewable energy source location.
any way that the public can find out who these fine individuals are that are making recommendation in our behalf as to what the citys central business district should look like.
does the steering committee even exist or is this another godfrey fabrication to explain his justification for what he wants to do in the name of saving our community from ourselves.
if anyone knows the names of the members it would enlightening and should be made public.
how do you get a copy of the recommendations made by the steering committee to date.
went to the city web site and not even a hint of what is going on. No reference of the existing plan to be found in the index of the community general plan either.
This post is ridiculous. The committee is made up of volunteers from across the city. YOU COULD BE ONE TOO IF YOU ATTENDED THE EARLY MEETINGS! They invited the whole city to show up to the first meeting back in November. Read your October 2007 utility bill announcement. This committee IS DEMOCRACY in action.
Alice:
FR rates have been public for some time now. And reported today a "family pass" -- $12.50 I think for two adults and half a passle of kids, good after 5 PM.
That's a little puzzling. Five PM would be, I would think, high rush hour. Discount pricing might have been better directed to between 10 AM and 4 PM and after 6 PM. But we'll see.
No Sunday service, at least for a while.
Ogdenman:
Some of the suspicion might have been allayed if it was known more widely than it is who is on the committee. I try to stay fairly up on Ogden matters, and I don't know. And while the Ogden City insert in the city services billing envelope is one way to get information out, those envelopes do not go to everyone, and they may well be read by only one person in a household. [Do they go to renters who don't pay separately for water, or trash removal?] So it's not a perfect means of communication.
I grant you, some are making assumptions about the committee members and their recommendations [have they made any formal recommendations yet? I don't think so.] On the other hand, the Mayor has given folks some reason to be suspicious of his appointments to volunteer city committees --- his recent purging of those committees being just one example. And I'm afraid he is not to be trusted to be fair on any matter relating to his unhealthy obsession: the flatland gondola. I'm not alone in thinking that.
So while some may be making assumptions that won't necessarily turn out to be so, the Mayor has given folks reasons enough over the past four years to be suspicious about his appointing people to committees to make recommendations, particularly given that the paper reported the gondola has arisen among them yet again. I truly wish I could dismiss such suspicions as unreasonable and unlikely to be borne out. I truly wish I could say with confidence that "Mayor Godfrey wouldn't try to pack a city committee or commission so it would reach the conclusions he wanted reached. I'm absolutely certain he would not do that." But given past performance, I'm afraid I can't.
I suspect you'd like critics who post here to see, or at least to try to see, matters from the appointees' and the Mayor's POV. Fair enough, but that, it seems to me, involves as well an obligation on your part to try to see things from the critics' POV, and to try to understand [in one of my least favorite cliches] "where they're coming from." [Insert smiley for teeth gnashing here.] Sadly, their suspicions are not entirely without reason.
Ogdenman,
While the initial downtown planning meeting was announced to the public, both it and today's news article made it clear that only downtown property owners are being encouraged to participate. I seriously doubt if others would have been eligible to serve on the steering committee--just as in the Mt. Ogden Community Plan process, only residents of the Mt. Ogden neighborhood were eligible to serve on the steering committees.
I think it's reasonable to limit steering committee participation to those who have an extra stake in the outcome--but that should include property renters, not just owners. And for downtown, there should probably be some additional mechanism for the whole city to play a greater role than for a residential neighborhood.
As for the makeup of the steering committee, I'll give anyone 10 to 1 odds that if you just call the planning department, they'll be happy to tell you.
Curm, it comes from Kansas, where Dorothy and Toto's flashback originated. Where there are no soap box derbys due to the lack of elevation change. Kansas, the ultimate flatland nowhere, inspiration of lying little matty's flatland gondola to exactly nowhere. A vision inspired by the all knowing, but somewhat reclusive wizard that resides in lying little matty's oversized forehead. The wizard that with the help of a few batteries, some wire, duct tape and a how to book, clandestinely smuggled out of the WSU Physics dept. has successfully wiped clean the brain cells of the whole DOWNTOWN COMMUNITY steering committee. A committee that includes such public notables as potato nose, an old used tie saleman/ chamber director, accused fraud/ want to be developer/ possible future owner of Ogden's favorite pasties viewing high adventure inbibing establishment if he can ever close an option, possibly an overzealous mentally impaired ex-military serviceman know in these parts as short deck, to name a few.
And yes dear Curm, they have conjured up a counter strategy to eliminate the usage of the familiar refrain "gondola to nowhere". So ingenous a plan, that some have said it could only have come from the monstrous brain of the one and only Zinger consumer extrordinaire, Dustin Chapman.
If the wizard, lying little matty and ilk can persuade the Council that the evil yet beautiful and challenging golf course needs a complete destruction, despite Golf Digest's recent praises, including a relocation of the clubhouse,(note dimensional increases and large parking accomidation) the once useless gondola to nowhere will have a destination. Yeah, thorazine and patagonia vests for all.
This plan will hopefully convince the citizens and Council that since we've gone this far, we may as well extend this gondola further into nowhere to service the future Wolfgang Pucks Cowboy tinfoil diner and tent rental emporium soon to be established at Malan's Basin.
This will lead to producer rupert's realization of more than Andy Warhal's 15 minutes when he launches " Camping and Cooking with the Stars", and everyone one in the fair land of Oz will be rich, have a pigmy pony like Gene Autry and ride off into the sunset, or Wendover.
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