Vacant House Burns in Ogden River Project Neighborhood

Ogden Fire Department resources wasted due to the negligence of one Ogden property owner

Tantalizing article in this morning's Standard-Examiner, regarding a house fire in the neighborhood adjacent to the Ogden River -- 262 W. 20th St. -- to be exact. It seems this vacant residential property had been occupied at the time of the fire by three "transients," who were escorted from the burning structure by responding Ogden City firefighters, and later interviewed by police and a fire marshal in connection with the incident. The structure had been slated for demolition, the article says.

This set our minds to speculating, of course; and we wondered whether this particular property might have been one of absentee property owner Gadi Leshem's River Project properties, about which the Standard-Examiner's Don Porter complained in this fine and hard-hitting April Editorial:

"Roll out the bulldozer".

As anyone who is familiar with real estate management is well aware, vacant properties are prime targets for arson, along with the full range of other criminal activities which occur when properties are left abandoned and unattended. In this instance it's clear that Ogden City Fire Department resources were unnecessarily wasted on Friday, due to one landowner's apparent negligence in failing to secure and/or demolish his abandoned derelict property.

This brings us back to the fundamental questions, of course: Does this property belong to Leshem? If so, nobody can argue that he wasn't forewarned. We don't like to point the finger, but we do believe this is a question which needs to be answered.

Can any of our gentle readers shed any additional light on this? Is there an Ogden firefighter-WCF reader in the house this morning?

Whomever the landowner turns out to be however, we hope Ogden Fire Chief Mike Mathieu promptly sends him a hefty bill.

And what about our Ogden City administration's code enforcement responsibility in this? How many other unattended properties along the Ogden River front are vulnerable to similar incidents?

Update 7/19/08 11:31 a.m. MT: One of our sharp and resourceful readers takes our above query out of the realm of speculation, and confirms that the offending subject property indeed belongs to Leshem. This from gentle reader Southsider in the lower comments section (per the Weber County Parcel Search Engine): "LESHEM, MIRI TRUSTEE".

The Godfrey crony plot sickens.