Interesting article in this morning's Standard-Examiner, reporting that the Ogden City Council is taking action to look into Boss Godfrey's policies and methods re zoning code enforcement. From this morning's Scott Schwebke story:
OGDEN — The city council is soliciting bids from consulting firms to conduct a management audit of Ogden’s code-enforcement operation. [...]We don't know whether the Std-Ex's recent stories about Ella Williams's brown lawn problem became the straw that broke the camel's back; but we will volunteer that we find it encouraging that our Council is now taking a serious look into the operations of Boss Godfrey's Emerald City Lawn Nazis.
The audit is being undertaken because the city council has received numerous complaints from residents about code-enforcement citations, said Councilwoman Dorrene Jeske. [...]
The management audit will focus on city zoning enforcement, housing enforcement and weed-abatement activities.
In fiscal 2007, the city conducted 15,781 zoning and nuisance inspections, according to information provided by the city council. Of those, 1,824 citations were issued because property owners failed to correct violations. Prosecuted in Ogden Justice Court were 89 cases.
The management audit will analyze code enforcement policies and operations. It will also evaluate rules and procedures, customer service, record management, financial practices and other functions.
The audit will include recommendations for improvement.
And once the Council's auditors set to work, we hope they'll take a good long look at the City's code enforcement (or lack thereof) in the area surrounding the Ogden River Project. An argument can be made, we think, that code enforcement should be suspended across the City, unless and until our city's code enforcement personnel have borne down hard upon Ogden City's most notorious FOM* zoning code scofflaw.
And what say our gentle readers about all this?
*Friend of Matt
6 comments:
The juxtaposition of today's Code Enforcement audit story vs. the earlier story on council seeking an outside attorney is telling.
I never have understood why Mr. Schwebke and his editors make a big deal out of what is manifestly not a big deal (a legislative body seeking independent counsel) and fails to make a big deal out of what is manifestly a big deal (a code enforcement audit).
Selective code enforcement has been a problem in this city for some time, and it's about time for it to stop.
Ah, but as long as Godfrey is at the helm of our ship we call Ogden, there will always be favors for the big time developers, and friends and campaign contributors of Matt’s'.
Watch and see how many of Gadi's properties are going to be burnt to the ground to help defray costs on demolition.
If the city can’t get him to clean up the properties, they will do it for him at no charge. Financed by the tax payers of course, It's called cleanse by fire.
Rudi,
You wondered: "We don't know whether the Std-Ex's recent stories about Ella Williams's brown lawn problem became the straw that broke the camel's back."
It had nothing to do with the audit decision. The Council was discussing as far back as last January where we wanted the management audit performed. We considered several areas and concluded with either the golf course or code enforcement. After much discussion, it was determined that the residents of Ogden would be better served if code enforcement was audited and we worked on other avenues for the golf course.
Thanx for the additional info, your honor, Mrs. Jeske.
It's nice to see the new council has develped finally found its political "sea legs."
"It had nothing to do with the audit decision."
Thanks Dorrene. I'd hate to think a decision like that would be based on a puff piece in the local paper.
Rudi, your link for the SE article doesn't work. It's a car ad.
Danny: Thanks for the heads up on the bad link. The STD-EX indexing was all screwed up this morning, and I thought I had the right link... but unfortunately didn't check it.
It's fixed now, thanks to you...
Thanks also to Councilwoman Jeske too... for checking in with we lumprencitizens and letting us know what's up...
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