An opportunity for public comment on the as yet un-revealed Powder Mountain developer proposal
Just a quick reminder of tonight's public hearing, before the Weber County Commission, wherein the public is invited to comment upon the terms of the development agreement proposal in re the Powder Mountain development matter:
Date: July 8, 2008
Time: 6 p.m.
Place: Commission Chambers, 1st Floor, Weber Center, 2380 Washington Blvd., Ogden
Those readers who need to bone up on the history of this matter may review our archived Powder Mountain articles here.
For the convenience of those who plan to attend tonight's meeting, you can view the Ogden Valley Planning Commission's December 10, 2007 Planning Staff Report here. In this connection we'll suggest that it might be useful to print out a copy of this report (which includes the original Staff Recommendations), for review prior to the hearing, and for comparison with the developer proposal which will be revealed at tonight's hearing.
We'll add parenthetically that we've been trying, without avail, to get our hands on a written version of this proposal since early this week, but that even the County Commissioners had not received a written copy from the developer even as late as yesterday afternoon. We're thus presented with a situation where the public will apparently be flying blind, without any opportunity to review the relevant documents prior to the hearing.
We hope all interested Weber County Forum readers will attend tonight's hearing; and we'll be keeping our fingers crossed that we aren't about to be blind-sided.
Comments, anyone?
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43 comments:
This is an instance, Rudi, where elected officials should develop a little backbone --- I know, I know, with an all-Republican County Commission dealing with a developer, that will require transplant surgery --- but still. The Commission should simply have made it a procedural matter, applicable to everyone, when considering development plans, proposals, or anything really, that it requires a copy of the proposal or plan to be in its hands five business days before the meeting at which it will be considered. No plan in hand five days before, the item is automatically deleted from the agenda.
This is simply a matter of having developers, and anyone, really, with business before the Commission, to respect the office holders, the public, and the process. That Commission members did not have a copy of the developer's plan in hand 48 hours before the meeting is unacceptable. Or should be. The members are elected public officials. They represent The People. And they should insist on at least minimal respect for their jobs as representatives of the people, and that includes having proposals in hand far enough in advance of meetings such as this evening's, to allow some serious consideration of what is in them, and reasonable public notice of same.
Spot on, Curm (except for the cheap shot about the GOP).
And I spoke with Commissioner Dearden a few minutes ago about that. The late arrival of the developer's proposal (it arrived by email this morning)will require that the matter to be continued for further hearing. Among other things, the planning commission staff will also require further time to study the proposal.
Nevertheless, the developer's representatives will be present at tonight's hearing, and the public will have the opporunity to cross-examine.
That by itself seems to be reason enough for the commission to have left tonight's hearing on calender, it seems to me.
And one other thing:
Throughout the course of the last few months I've been referring to the proposal as "negotiated." Having just spoken with Commissioner Dearden this morning, I now believe that characterization to be inaccurate.
Although Commission negotiators have discussed a broad range of issues over the past few months, Commissioner Dearden informs me that the proposal which will be unveiled tonight is the sole work product of the developer... commission negotiators had no hand in its drafting.
Thus this proposal will be a matter of first impression to the commissioners and public alike.
And yet other thing:
Commissioer Dearden has promised to send me a copy of the document for posting on Weber County Forum imminently, as soon as he can get counsel clearance to release it as a public document.
Stand by.
Commission chambers are packed with many residents sharing their concerns. Bravo. The only ones speaking in support other than those tied to the development are Dave Hardman of the Chamber of Commerce who thinks it can be controlled quality growth that will add to the tax base in Weber County- and Cami Geiger speaking on behalf of Mayor Godfrey to support this proposal so it can enhance Ogden's "high adventure" vision.
Fly:
Hardman, who led the Chamber over the cliff on the gondola/Peterson proposals [which the Mayor pronounced to have been "impractical" anyway during the election] and a Geiger representing Godfrey. Figures.
geiger, geiger, geiger. At least they've learn to keep short deck and potato nose out of the public eye, but it's still just a geiger.
I wonder if these pie in the sky developers have offered to kick in some dinero for the ridiculous icecicle, somewhat futher down the road? ( that would be the high adventure indoor/outdoor artificial phallic shaped idol worshipped by Tom Mo.... I mean jay asquith cavendish)
As for hardman, this idiot still worships gondolas and longs to be selling ties. (polyester) Sweet....
Hey good news for Ogden. Outdoor magazine ranks Ogden #3 in nation. How about all you posters pat yourself on the back for saving the city. Without your hard work calling out the mayor on everything he is doing wrong Ogden would never have received this honor. Dare I say if Ogden had a Gondola and improved access to the mountains it would have been #1.
But they made the trains run on time.
#3 in Outdoor Magazine; what great news. Now perhaps more outdoor people will show up and clog up the shoreline trail and start climbing in Ogden Canyon. Hopefully they will also come here to ski the beautiful powder the area has.
Thank God, since I was sick of having it all to myself. Perhaps I will no longer have to hike all alone and I didn't want to ski more than one run of powder snow anyway?
Ahem. Here's a clue, anonymous. It's obvious that you're too dumb to post under a unique handle, as per this...
You'll be summarily deleted just as you now have been.
Don't be a dumbass.
Post under your own unique handle.
This board is for grownups, BTW.
Wade, not to worry, it's Outside Magazine, not Outdoor magazine. It had a whopping 560,000 circulation for 2006 and appears to be a way for Jack Ford, Geralds' kid, to make a living. To use short deck's interpretation expressed in fractional percentages, that's 0.1866% of people in the U.S. I'd give you worldwide figures but they are unmeasurable and shrinking as we speak.(India and China)
I suspect that it wasn't hard to get Ogden ranked, some of their biggest advertizers are in Utah and Jack Ford went to Utah State.
It was a nice ego stroke but hardly significant in the real scheme of things. Other than 3 person businesses, mostly warehouses, what has lying little matty's high adventure sham produced? Don't forget, jackass dowse was paid by the gov., that would be you and me. Come to think of it, they all have.
Off topic, but related: C. Trentelman, in his blog on the SE website, posted this today:
This just in: Driving to work this morning... I noticed that there is a bike lane painted on 28th Street running west from Washington Boulevard. This is in addition to the bike lane that runs down a section of Washington Boulevard on both sides of the road and is good to see. I'm trying to call city officials to find out where, and when, more lanes will be painted. Hopefully we can get a complete map and run a story in the squashed tree edition of the Standard very soon.
The above is just an excerpt. The full post, which contains a lot more on Ogden bike lanes, can be found here. There've been some posts on WCF of late involving bike lanes, so I thought Trentelman's blog post might be of interest.
Good, Lord, Bill, it is not necessary to try to discount every bit of good ink for Ogden just because it might tangentially redound to Hizzonah's credit. The article was good ink for Ogden, and Ogden can use all the good ink it can get.
Nor is it necessary to discount every company that has moved here as part of Hizzonah's campaign to lure outdoor-oriented businesses. Three jobs added to Ogden is three more than we had before, and a good thing. Besides, I think Amer Sports brought considerably more than three jobs to Junction City.
Hizzonah provides us, nearly every week, with a wealth of reasons to raise questions about his weaknesses as a city administrator, and his weak grip on the ethical standards expected of an elected public official. More than enough fodder for criticism. It's not necessary to go after even the things he's done that work to the city's advantage. And he has done some.
Commentary that is exclusively critical, that finds no merit in anything that comes from the Mayor's office, and that disparages even those things that benefit the city, can too easily be dismissed, and will often be dismissed, by those not as up on public affairs as you are as blind unreasoning criticism motivated by antagonism for the Mayor, rather than objective and fair analysis of his actions.
Dear Anon:
[1]You evidently don't read WCF often if you think all posts differing from the blogmeister's POV are automatically deleted.
[2] I suspect the "anonymous" option comes with the blogspot package WCF uses, not from the blogmeister. I don't think it can be deleted.
[3] The reason for eliminating "anon" posts is that it becomes very difficult and confusing to respond to posts, and carry on conversations, with a lot of "anon" posts. Difficult to figure out, often, then, who is being responded to, and which "anon" is replying.
[4] All you need do is post under "poster" or any other word but anon. to avoid the confusion.
[5] The "non anon." postings policy is clearly stated for all to see. Most bloggers post rules regarding posting on their blogs, and if you opt to ignore them, most bloggers will delete your postings. Seems reasonable to me.
Anon1:
OK. I don't run a blog and am not all that familiar with options. I've Just noticed that most of the blogs I check that run the same blogspot package as WCF seem to include the "anon" option. But if you have better information on this point, I defer to your greater knowledge.
I run the blog, The anonymous handle is banned.
End of topic
Faux Curmudgeon:
You wrote:
By the way, allowing a blogger to enter there own name allows yahoo's to cause confusion by using another bloggers "unique handle".
Ah, a snarky way to illustrate your point, using my usual handle. OK, point made. But not a wise practice as a rule. Deliberately sowing confusion is too Godfrey-esque a thing to do for folks who were brought up right.
Rudi, I think Anon1 is right, you should consider only allowing people to post who have a blogger ID.
Sorry, Curmudgeon. Our reader posts are already pathetically low now, as they always are in the hot times after July 4th.
The last thing I would do right now is limit posts to a few select posters.
I have the troll's IP addy now, and will summarily introduce him to the Dungeon, if he keeps it up.
Nuff said.
C'mon RudE, "Anonymous1" is as unique as "curmudgeon". I followed your policy and you are still deleting my comments faster than Chinese government deletes websites promoting Democracy.
Good point, anon1.
I'll be restoring your Anon1 posts shortly.
I'll meet you half way, even though I'm dubious about someone like you, who plays in the "grey area."
I meant their not there
Happy now, anon1?
(What a dork.)
Hey Rudi -
Where is an opine on the latest Ogden article about being one of the top cities in Outdoor Mag?
Just wondering if that was worthy of a discussion. You create a great forum for the good and the bad.
Rudi:
Just FYI. This ---Rudi, I think Anon1 is right, you should consider only allowing people to post who have a blogger ID. --- was NOT my post.
The Original Curm
Tom:
If you read WCF regularly, you would have seen the news of the Outside Mag story and rating of Ogden posted here, and discussed days ago.
Do try to keep up.
Now that you kids have worked out your handles...such key issues.
Do we have an energy crisis or is the cost just high. No crisis if you can afford it.
This may be off topic but it would seem our energy waste should never be off topic.
Last night WSU marching band held practice til 10pm. Lights are still on at the stadium as I type 10 friggin' hours later.
Does any egghead there have a clue or is it always a case of "not my department".
Even the universities these days are such profligate gluttons. How can we ever move ahead without leadership from somewhere. Ann Mildner...are you listening.
Does anyone even give a shit that our waste helps to drive up prices as the available supply is squandered.
I count 24 1000 watt lights on each of 4 clusters. That's nearly 100,000 watts(100kw) burning in broad daylight as you read. Stupidity and arrogance.
The United States deserves everything it gets coming in the world arena when this small example of our ignorance plays on without a question.
Lights are still on after a couple of phone calls. Our nation is at war and some of our neighbors kids will die as a result of our childish need to live carefree. We are all adults now and we don't need to feel pressured to keep turning off the light switches. That's something our parents did in the '50s.
The powers that be are all grownups now and can do things there own way. The modern way is to be nice and not tread out of your little niche of limited authority. Being nice assures we will never challenge our president and the bully neocons when going to war. Being nice assures no one questions when someone like a publicly funded University wastes our tax dollars burning stadium lighting in broad daylight at daytime hi-demand electric rates. I forgot, the U pays about half what you and I pay for our juice. Lights are still burning.
SE this morning has a very interesting op ed piece by Mr. Don Gale, an editorial writer for KSL radio and TV. [Link here.]
Mr. Gale begins thusly:
July is the month we celebrate citizenship and patriotism and pioneers and other soul-stirring recollections of our great heritage. But Utah held an election not long ago, and fewer citizens showed up to vote than show up at college football games on a typical Saturday afternoon in September. It’s another indication of how badly broken the political system is in Utah ....
He then goes on to catalog the reasons he thinks the "political system in Utah" is "badly broken." It's a very interesting list.
One note: when Mr. Gale mentions "the dominant political party" in his list of particulars... and he uses that phrase a lot... he means Utah Republicans. Just in case you were wondering.
Chewy article. Worth a look.
Outside magazine is a pile of shit and its imprimatur means nothing; weeee! OTown was ranked #1 by Geiger Weekly, the onion-stained newsprint of high adventure developed for high-school-educated geniuses and former truck drivers who love THE GONDOLA. Subscribers include: the wife of THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE, THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE, and GTrain Wilkerson. You are morons.
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
Hey, careful jason w. This former truck driver has, without exception, thought the gondola was retarded right from the start.
;-)
Ha! I take my lumps. Anyone else notice the hypocrisy in Lying Little Matty Gondola Godfrey's "outdoor recreation" meme? He's a champion of the fake outdoors, with a frozen dildo for August ice climbing; a phony THE SKI-diving tunnel; fake rock climbing; and (potential) gay and taxpayer-funded European love affairs with high-adventure squirrel haters from Sandy, AKA Wayne Peterson? The Tiny Man with A Gigantic Forehead keeps nasally inflecting this horse shit, yet his main target is our championship, 18-hole mountain golf course that is an integral part of a larger park complex that gives us much of our character. The little piece of shit gives that dumbass nine-hole mudhole El Monte (let's see: every par four is driver, wedge) an equal operating budget, more maintenance personnel, and quality time at 2 a.m. with Jay Asquith Cavendish on two green, and he wants to rob us of Mt. Ogden? The guy is a liar and a fruitcake, but you THE GONDOLA morons just keep telling yourselves otherwise: "Look at all he's done! He loves GONDOLAs! He wants high-adventure GONDOLAs!" Jagoff losers.
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
Maybe they can build a gondola to the top if the ice climbing tower.
Curm, my intention was not to belittle the micro ink provided to a very limited readership. I was pointing out that as usual, the standard has allowed itself to be a foolish tool of those that worship artificial substitutes for very real activities, and subscribe to the mythological notion that they'll experience HIGH ADVENTURE OUT DOOR RECREATION, indoors.
I ask again for millionth time, please define what high adventure outdoor recreation means, how it pertains to Ogden and how artificial indoor substitutes fit that criteria?
And, lying little matty is full of equine excrement.
Rest easy, Jay Cavendish! I've determined that one of these city council women (so-called) is actually a MAN!
Look at the one with the giant adams' apple and the five O' clock shadow.
You know, the only one not dressed femininely; the one in the Manly Business Suit!
Reminds me a lot of Renee Richards.
Need I say more?
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
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