Gentle Reader George K. lets Godfrey have it on his credibility problem... with both barrels
By George K.
Here is my take on the Matthew Godfrey commentary in the Standard-Examiner this morning, which comes as a response to Tuesday's Std-Ex editorial:
Oh, the shame of it all! Poor Mayor Godfrey has been misunderstood about the golf committee by the Standard-Examiner’s editorial board! How could that happen!? Why Godfrey is such a straight arrow – never does anything underhandedly or behind the Council’s back and ALWAYS tells the truth! Why would anyone suspect that he had stacked the committee or had maneuvered so that Council input was ignored?!
I think that his chickens are coming home to roost – in case some don’t understand what that saying has to do with Godfrey, I’d love to recount just a FEW of his shenanigans that he has pulled on the Council:
1) Let’s start with an incident about two years ago when new Council members asked for information about a new company wanting a great price on prime downtown land, Godfrey told his A-Team not to give it to them (right from the A-Team’s mouths.) Then he misrepresented what they said and the manner in which it was said to the Std-Ex so that the new Council members were blamed for upsetting the CEO and the loss of that company opening in Ogden and also for the critical and unmerciful editorial that followed without doing any research to see if things had transpired as Godfrey had indicated. (There was a CD recording of the meeting which absolved the Council of any wrong doing.)
2) Before that with another Council, he went behind their backs and bought portable bleachers for the amphitheater when they turned down his request.
3) He asked Mark Johnson to draft a bill that proposed that city councils could eliminate the Civil Service Commission that protects firefighters and police officers and gives them a means for appealing actions taken against them. Godfrey’s cousin was recruited to sponsor the bill in the Senate, and the lobbyist who was hired and supposed to be working on legislation that both the Council and Administration wanted, was also told to push the passage of that bill. This was unknown until it was discovered by a Council member and she was told by the lobbyist that he took his orders from the Mayor.
4) When the Administration decided that St. Anne’s needed to move to 12th Street, the Council was told that St. Anne’s Board of Directors wanted to move, but needed help with the funding. The Council was asked to petition the Legislature for $1 million which needed to be done before the session began which allowed only a week or so to do so. The Council sent the petition, but also asked for a letter of confirmation from the Board of Directors. The letter that came stated just the opposite, and the Council looked rather foolish.
5) Shortly after that, the Administration said they had a buyer for the Shupe-Williams property, besides the Union Station Foundation, that they wanted the Council to approve a proclamation for that sale because it would also help them with the river front development. The Council took them at their word and passed the resolution only to find out that the company really didn’t want to purchase the property.
6) Then there was the matter of signing a contract behind the Council’s back with UTA to use federal funds for a gondola corridor study.
I could go on but I think you all get the idea.
Is it any wonder that people now think the worst of Godfrey and don’t believe him? He has conducted business with deceit and lies for years and thinks that he now is being wrongly accused of not working with the Council. Do you really believe he has changed his ways? About as much chance of that as a leopard changing its spots! He is just getting what he has sown – seeds of distrust!
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17 comments:
It's all bull sh!t that the Mt Ogden golf course looses $300 thousand a year.
The average 3 acre park in America costs $100 thousand a year to maintain.
The Mt Ogden golf course is over 50 acres, has a soccer field, tennis courts, and much much more.
$300 thousand is a bargain.
The S E and Mayor Godfrey need to stop lieing or need to pull their heads out of each others asses
George K,
You have really pegged Godfrey. I wonder if he has ever done an honest thing or anything on the up-and-up. I'm convinced that he has lied so often and so much that he doesn't know what is a lie and what is truth.
George, you left out the fact Godfrey promised the voters last fall that the gondola was off the table, and then in a joint meeting last spring told the Council that the # 1 goal for Ogden was the gondola. How can anyone trust someone with that kind of integrity.
George, are you going to write Godfrey's biography? It sounds like you know him well enough to do so. But you failed to mention the last and biggest offense in some people's eyes he committed. When he had Mark Johnson and the city's lobbyist quietly sneak two sentences to a bill the last hours of this legislative session that gave the RDA Board's authority and gave it to the Mayor. What a sneak! In my opinion he is lower than a snake!
GK and Wants a New Mayor:
GK: exactly right. He's forfeited now the benefit of the doubt when he makes a claim. And he's paying the price for it. So is his Independent Citizens Golf Course Investigatory Committee. He so bungled its appointment that whatever it produces now will be suspect as Godfrey boilerplate. As the SE editorial noted, he is often his own worst enemy.
Wants A New:
You wrote: George, you left out the fact Godfrey promised the voters last fall that the gondola was off the table..."
Well, not exactly. What he took "off the table" in the election was the sale of Mt. Ogden Park to Mr. Peterson for a real estate development. Many people assumed that that meant he was taking his gondola/gondola obsession off the table as well. [See Mr. Trentelman's recent column.] But in fact, at no time that I am aware of during the election did he pledge to give up the gondola/gondola scheme, on the park sale. And as several have noted, he has made it clear to the council and the public several times since that he is still in the thrall of his gondola/gondola obsession.
Well just why do you think we call him lying little matty gondola godfrey? Bout sums it up.
As usual, Godfrey's mendacious editorial statement reveals more from what he DID NOT Say, relative to what he did.
Example: Godfrey reels off a timeline series of critical dates, within the bogus committee continued to move forward, and implicitly accuses the council of being lax.
Query: Did Boss Godfrey ever communicate any of these dates or actions to the council?
Answer: Judging from his commentary, he makes no assertion that he kept the council advised of any of these timelined occurances, as a competent government executive officer, who was concerned about council/administration cooperation would do.
As per usual, the sociopathic Boss Godfrey blames the victim here (the council), even though it was he who intentionally and wilfully, by failing to engage in even the most basic communications, kept the council out of the information loop.
One again Godfrey plants the evil seeds of deception, by offering for publication a self-serving article filled with half-truths.
I find it passing strange that if the Mayor actually did ask "the city council to forward any names its members would like considered" that not a single one of the nine members responded in a timely fashion.
In the spirit of "trust, but verify", I think the Council and S-E should seek documentation, through GRAMA or other means, of that solicitation. I wonder if it appears in the council minutes, for example.
Dorrene, do you have any insight into the veracity of his claimed timeline?
Oh, and I just noticed a great typo, or perhaps Freudian slip.
April 21 -- no names received by any city council member. [Emphasis mine.]
Could this be the only true statement in the article?
Once again, Godfrey shows his colors.
We have Geiger and Hitzig's fraudulent, degrading, self-absorbed newspaper commentaries, and now the mayor's.
On the other hand, we have letters in the newspaper countering them.
People are left to judge; Godfrey and his cronies' commentaries speak for themselves.
So Godfrey is a genius huh? Does his commentary read like the writing of a genius? Do his actions show an adult at work, or a teenager?
As far as the velodrome, which one of Godfrey's construction, banking, or realty cronies is running short of work? Follow the money and you'll see where the idea really came from.
Caitlin gave her list of names to Todd before the April reminder. I went home from the meeting in April and emailed my list to Bill Cook. Bill apologized for holding on to the names that I'd forwarded to him in case anyone else gave him any names. He planned to forward them all at the same time. No one else submitted any names, and with the budget process in progress my list was overlooked and not immediately forwarded to the Mayor's office. However, I'm not sure why our names were not given to Kent Peterson to be included on the committee. I expect that we will never know.
Where did Caitlin's Apr 22 email sit for four months?
Those are some slow electrons they're using for Ogden City emails. We need to get them upgraded to the new electrons. The older electrons, from before the Big Bang, don't work nearly as well. It's possible that the Mayor and his staff are using the old, pre-Big Bang electrons.
Here's another wrinkle to throw out about the bogus committee lying little matty put together to aid him in the destruction of our golf course.
How many on this committee are members of the Ogden Golf and Country Club? The Council should inquire. Seems that the times of selling to folks the idea of being in an elite group are ending.There is a waiting list of nearly eighty memberships for sale, their by-laws limit them to five at a time. Many of these folks are under the assumtion that closing Mt. Ogden would help them get new members. Many of these waiting to get out from under the large monthly dues, about $500.00 a month, have been quite vocal about it, and support lying little matty's scam 100%.
I have some news for them. You better get Bountiful Ridge, Valley Veiw, Eagle Mountain, Glen Eagle, Logan River and Birch Creek closed as well. Most local golfers consider all of these courses better than yours. If you joined the club purely to satisfy your ego, you got what you paid for.(note, this isn't an attack on anyone that loves their membership, this is directed at those waiting to dump them, and don't care who they harm in accomplishing that end.) $500.00 a month buys alot of good muni golf.
Since I have included Cache Valley, I might as well add Wasatch Mountain and Soldier Hollow, Two beautifull State owned muni's in Heber Valley.
So I guess that kinda drives home the significance of the Golf Digest rating. Mt. Ogden ain't second fiddle to any of these, who'd consider bulldozing such an asset. Only Brenkman and the mayor, go figure.
Lastly, notice how Brenkman has to fall on his sword for the lying little mayor, he failed to handle Catlyn's list properly.
Mono, not to harp but, the Council is only made up of seven members.
Respectfully.
Monotreme,
Caitlin gave her list to Todd Brenkman, and according to the Mayor he did not pass it on to anyone.
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Bill C:
Right of course. I am red-faced.
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