Council/RDA Board Meeting Tonight: $2.7 Million of YOUR Money on the Table

Fat chunk of taxpayer cash burns a hole in Boss Godfrey's pocket

This morning's Standard-Examiner provides a timely reminer about tonight's Council/RDA meetings, during which the Council/RDA Board will be dealing out a quite hefty chunk of taxpayer cash. Ace Reporter reports that there are 2.7 million dollars of City and RDA moneys on the table, just waiting to be allocated to deserving projects. We'll briefly go over them one by one, adding our own editorial comments as we move along.

First in order of magnitude is the $1.5 million or so which will need to be immediately allocated, so that the so-far insolvent Junction Project won't find itself embarrassingly in default on payments toward the bonds which funded original Junction construction. We'll call this "The 2008 Junction Bailout" for short, and treat it with a spirit of grudging resignation. Now that the bonds have been issued, and the bond proceeds have been expended, the RDA Board has exactly zero discretion on this matter. As a consequence of the administration's dismal planning, and the project's failure to magically generate "projected" revenue, another million-and-a-half in taxpayer dollars will be committed to the Junction money pit. And here's the kicker. According to Council Vice-chair Doug Stephens, Boss Godfrey's apparent new administration spokesman, we can expect to fund similar mandatory "Junction bailouts" for the foreseeable future.

Next, there's the there's "High Adventure Business Recruitment Scheme" -- "bureaucratese" terminology which translates into common street vernacular as "bribes" and "payoffs." Although we recognise $200 thousand is relative "chump change" in the MattGodfreyWorld big picture, we still wonder why Godfrey believes it's necessary to pay recreation companies to move to a great place like Ogden.

Then, there's the "Ice Tower Project," of course. With all that uncommitted taxpayer cash rattling around, there are still at least four council members who apparently seem to believe its quite alright to blithely drop $100 thousand on this crackpot project. What the hell? It's not these council members' own money anyway. We've already talked about this however to the point that we've now grown hoarse. We'll thus suggest that those readers who'd like to bone up on our earlier ruminations should click this link.

And yet finally, there's an initiative which actually looks to us to be very inviting and appealing. A "Debt Reduction Plan?" How about that? Surely this idea couldn't have originated in Godfrey's ninth floor office. We suppose however that suggesting the $300 thousand in proposed "High Adventure Recuitment" and "Ice Tower" handouts be applied to debt reduction might be asking a bit too much.

Before turning over the Weber County Forum floor for discussion, we'll again furnish our city council contact information link.

If you can't personally attend tonight's public sessions, you can at least email our wise (and hopefully thrifty) city legislators, and let them know what you think. What the heck. Send an email even if you do plan to attend.