Bad-smelling air runs afoul of the city’s efforts to promote Ogden as a great place for tourists and new businesses, Patterson said. “It’s really tough for us to attract people to the community when stench is wafting through the air.”
It's been a little over a year since the Standard-Examiner gave us the first heads-up on Boss Godfrey's plan to remove the foremost impediment to the recuitment of new business investment and tourism in Ogden. We don't know how to say this delicately, although it's something about which all Emerald City lumpencitizens are painfully aware.
We'll just come out and say it, without mincing words, since we're all familiar with the problem: Something in downtown Ogden reeks.
The Standard-Examiner provides more information in this morning's edition, which we'll label a Std-Ex stink patrol update, under the Top of Utah section headline: "Sniff squad waiting in the wings -- Ogden's odor patrol to be called to duty."
According to this morning's story, the Godfrey administration has already acquired its high-tech Nasal Ranger Olfactometer, and has deputized a highly-trained anonymous committee of five, to sniff out the source of Ogden's malevolent downtown malodors. And surprise of surprises, the problem doesn't seem to eminate from the American Nutrition dog food factory, as many of us earlier suspected. According to this morning's story, Godfrey's Stink Patrol already checked that site out; and it passed the electronic "sniff test" with flying colors.
Undaunted, Boss Godfrey's sniff detectives stand ready to further deploy, collecting air samples from a wide array of suspected sources "...including landfills, wastewater treatment plants, composting operations and factories."
Weber County Forum readers had a little fun with this story when it fist came out in the Std-Ex last year. Several of our gentle readers had their own theories about the true source of Ogden's downtown stench.
Perhaps a good sniff on the ninth floor of City Hall would be a good place to start. Just a helpful hint from gentle reader Ozboy.
And one more thing. This is what 1400 bucks will get you in the high-tech olfactory electronics department:
Don't let the cat get your tongues.
2 comments:
Rudi and Ozboy, if anyone took the sniffer to the ninth floor it would break from the stench eminating from there. We cant afford to buy too many of those contraptions, it would break the city, and they may not be able to fund the giant popsicle.
There's a highly misleading front-page article in today's S-E, comparing the Ogden City Couincil staff and budget to those of the mayor's office. Nowhere does the article point out that the city's 700 other employees also report to the mayor. How many times have the mayor's department heads given the council incorrect information, or withheld information, forcing the council and its staff to do their own research? The mayor has his own personal legal office, planning staff, accountants, map makers, business liasons, and even police statisticians.
I was also struck by this sentence from near the end of the article: "Cook also encourages council members to develop initiatives so the city isn't constantly reacting to proposals from the city's administration." In fact the system is set up to make it almost impossible for a council member to introduce a piece of legislation. Individual council members have no staff support; the council staff don't want to work on anything until after the whole council is behind it; and again, everyone else reports to the mayor.
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