There are a couple of Emerald City related items in this morning's Standard-Examiner; perhaps not exactly the red-meat stuff that we normally discuss here at Weber County Forum, but notable enough to deserve at least a mention on a slow news day.
First, there's this brief note in the Std-Ex section B sidebar informing us that the Ogden City RDA Board has taken preliminary action put itself into even deeper hock, last night approving "...'parameters for the sale' of up to $3.2 million in tax-increment revenue bonds to enable an expansion of Fresenius Medical Care. The Std-Ex gave us the full lowdown on this new bonding in an article yesterday, from which we plucked this remarkable quote, from Ogden City economic development guru Dave Harmer:
The cost to acquire the land and move the bus facility to a new location, near 1900 West and 2100 South in West Haven, was initially projected to be about $6 million, said Dave Harmer, the city’s community and economic development director.While it appears that the RDA Board has no choice in the matter, inasmuch as the Board agreed to build a new bus facility as part of the deal to acquire the formerly Weber County owned Fresenius expansion property, we can't help but raise our eyebrows that the original cost estimate fell short by more that 50% of the facility's actual $9.2 million price tag. Harmer and the rest of the economic development crew are paid big money to spin the dials and pull the levers for the Ogden City redevolopment agency, raising the natural question: What the heck are we paying these high-priced suits for, anyway? Can anyone within our vast WCF readership shed some light on how Dave Harmer's estimates could have turned out to be so incredibly wrong?
However, that price tag has grown to $11.3 million because construction costs have risen and there is a need to build a 600-foot-long, four-lane road at the site, Harmer said. [Emphasis added].
In the second item, Scott Schwebke reports that Boss Godfrey unveiled at last night's council work session the five new exciting new venues mentioned in Monday's Std-Ex teaser story, and here they are (drumroll) -- as first revealed to the council last night:
• An indoor waterpark and aquatic center featuring an Olympic-sized pool.We don't know about the rest of you, but we barely got a moment's sleep over the last two days, wondering what grand new ideas Boss Godfrey had concocted to perfect our new marketing image as the world's mecca for "high adventure recreation." Having said that, we have to confess that none of these particularly "lifted our skirt." We don't regard these as bad ideas, mind you, however we did wonder whether any of them was worthy of two days' Godfreyesque mystery-style suspense.
• A velodrome, which is a specialized arena that would feature indoor tennis, cycling and archery. Godfrey envisions the facility being used to train cyclists for the Olympic Games.
• An outdoor BMX bicycle track.
• A facility that Godfrey described as a “skatepark on steroids” that would aim to be the best in the nation and a major tourism attraction. “Kids (who skateboard) will travel the country looking for the best parks,” he told the city council
• Separate equestrian and mountain bike trails that would begin near 20th Street and Ogden Avenue, extend along a bluff owned by the city and end near the mouth of Ogden Canyon.
We're pressed with private business this afternoon, so we're forced to be brief. Nevertheless, we will reveal one more great idea which occurred to us while biting our nails the past couple of days, whilst awaiting Godfrey's latest "revelations." Imagine these electro-mechanical devices placed in recreation stations, bars, cafes and kiosks all around our town. This would be a sure money-maker, we think -- something we're sure RAMP Fund administrators will simply be unable to resist.
Imagine hundreds of these devices, strategically scattered all over town. We could dub them "Whac-a-Matts" (Click to enlarge image):
We crack ourselves up...
Please feel free to consider this an open topic thread.
