By George K.
Are you all ready to be screwed again? At last night’s work meeting, the Council almost approved the Mayor’s Capital Improvement Plan which includes the Velodrome. Thanks to the women on the Council, the list is going back for reconsideration; and the Ordinance which will direct the budget will not be on Tuesday’s agenda as earlier planned.
The Administration is proposing the elimination of the following projects, which were previously included in the CIP for possible funding in the fiscal year 2009 budget:
• Air conditioner for the Union Station lobby - $95,175,The above projects benefit directly the residents of Ogden, but would be eliminated if the Mayor succeeds in adding the following inappropriate projects to the list:
• Centennial Railroad Underpass - $88,225,
• Centennial Trail Hill Main Track Underpass, (which will complete the trail system) - $121,200,
• The 31st Street Entryway -$384,000,
• General street construction - $230,950,
• General sidewalk repair - $80,450.
• BMX Track - $50,500,Councilman Stephenson tried to convince his fellow council members that these projects are economic investments and need to be funded NOW. Chair Wicks told the Council that she felt that the items on the list ranged in urgency from immediately necessary to "dream" items.
• Ogden City Velodrome - $1,000,000,
• Mega Skate Park - $40,400;
• Downtown Equestrian Trail, - $60,000, (plus over $3 million for underpasses).
I suggest you all let the Council and Mayor know your feelings on the projects before the Council puts the matter back on the agenda for further deliberation. The citizens of Ogden are entitled to provide their own input regarding looming Capital Improvement projects; and the Mayor and Council should consider project priority rankings with that in mind. Some of these projects are timely and necessary, and some of them are definitely not.
They do listen to you.
• Ogden Government Contact InformationEd. Note: When you've finished contacting Boss Godfrey and your council representatives, don't forget to come back here to share your pithy comments.
38 comments:
Why do I keep getting the creepy feeling that we have a 10-year old child sitting at the helm of Ogden City Government?
Maybe his parents didn't buy him toys when he was a kid.
Who in the world could envision someone loading up their horses to go to an urban center for a trail ride, even through cavendish's scenic cruising grounds.
The administration should be forced to demonstrate beyond any doubt that this concept is anything short of lunacy, but wait, these guys want an urban gondola to nowhere also.
Oh dear, where to begin...
First, I'm gobsmacked (to use one of Trentelman's favorite words) that in these hard times, the city is somehow able to find a million dollars for a velodrome. There must be other budget cuts they're not telling us about, to free up this money. I sure hope the cuts aren't in public safety.
Second, Ogden's principal assets are its railroad history and its diverse outdoor recreation opportunities. So that's where we should put our investments. Union Station? Yes. River parkway completion? Absolutely. Sidewalks? Essential. BMX and skateboard parks? Maybe. Downtown equestrian trails? Sounds like an oxymoron to me. And a velodrome for indoor bicycling? You could put that anywhere and there's no compelling reason why the taxpayers should subsidize putting it here.
Third, the city should never commit up-front money to big projects like this velodrome, since chances are the money will be squandered on design work and then the project will die when the rest of the funding never comes through. Even for the ice tower (a much smaller project), the Council was wise to stipulate that the city's funding would not become available until the rest of the money was raised.
To the City Council,
First
Considering we will be (incredibly) spending $300,000 to fix the Flowrider, which only people with money to throw away can use, AND we will probably be paying three-quarters of a MILLION dollars for interest payments on The Junction, I cannot believe that a $1,000,000 velodrome is on the list.
Second
A BMX track and a Skate park may make sense as it provides free outdoor activities for young people but a VELODROME? PLEASE be reasonable!
Third
A downtown equestrian trail makes as much sense as the Flowrider and the Sky-diving thingy. Don't think that is a recommendation. The Flowrider and Skydiver are the worst ideas I've ever seen for Ogden taxpayers to pay for. But wait! WE weren't supposed to have to pay for those, were we?
Fourth
Don't forget to fix the sidewalks.
Finally
When are we going to tell the mayor and his people to get realistic. Count the empty businesses. Count the houses for sale. Where is our money coming from? How will we pay for what already needs to be repaired. Is fixing our water a capital improvement? If so, that should definitely be on the list.
Is it appropiate for our immature Mayor to expect the Ogden taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for his and Nielsen's play things? We need to make him realize that he is unfair, and unrealistic to push his selfish whims on the people of Ogden who at this time of economic distress cannot afford his outlandish ideas.
I plan to let the Mayor know the people's need come first.
I can't help but wonder how advantageous and far sighted it would be to put this kind of money, if it exists, towards programs and oportunities for inner city youth via the Marshall White Center and City recreation programs. In the long run that could reduce the amount of stolen BMX and road bicycles reported stolen, dramatically.
Right now you can't give horses away, nobody would steal one.
When will they learn that kiddylands and velodromes don't bring any real money to the table. Nor do businesses that are closed on Sunday.
We do need adult decisions made in these hard times. Union Station where we have people walking from the Frontrunner and 25th street is a great place to invest.
With water and sewer rates doubled in the last few years we need more infrastructure repairs rather than new elite recreation in Ogden.
It does annoy me when we subsidize the Junction as the leasees playground while we take BDO funds to play for 1% of Ogdens citizens using the Ifly and flow. Whoever wrote those contracts needs to be taken to the woodshed.
Until investors with real names and money behind them to invest in a velodrome it needs to be put off until the economy improves.
A $1M investment would go a long way to reduce our water bills, especially for the older population in Ogden.
Pithy comments? Perhaps you misspelled that one Rudi, I think you might have meant to use two "ss's" instead of "th".
The only thing that makes much sense on this wish list is the skate board park. They seem to give the poor and disenfranchised youth of Ogden at least a tiny slice of the pie. They sure as shit don't get anything out of the mega million tax payer funded Junktion center.
Equestrian trails?
Why not horse and buggy trails? With Godfrey's proven and continuing reluctance to "get aboard" a "streetcar project" these last few years, now that the oil's running out, it won't be long before we're parking Amish-style buggies in our garages, and grazing horses in our yards.
Godfrey's problem: He can't think out of the box.
Momba, you stated “We will probably be paying three-quarters of a MILLION dollars for interest payments on The Junction, I cannot believe that a $1,000,000 velodrome is on the list.”
In reality, the City (Ogden taxpayers) will be paying over a million dollars bond payment on the Junction, and the Veladrome is estimated to cost $12 million with $1 million coming from the City coffers and $2,000,000. from RAMP (taxpayer money). We will be lucky if $3 million dollars is all the Ogden taxpayers are asked to pay on the Veladrome. We weren’t supposed to pay anything on the Junction (the Mayor told us) so we’ll be lucky if $3 million is all we pay for his new game room.
I think that My Stake President Justin Eccles once said that in a letter to the editor that Godfrey was the best person to be mayor because he knew that he was not playing with monopoly money. Boy! Was he ever right. this is real money that he is playing with and I wish that My Stake President Justin Eccles would call him and remind this little boy Mayor of That.
Too funny, Ozboy.
Readers of Weber County Forum are never "pissy," however.
We leave that role to the likes of totally twisted type, like Godfrey, Patterson and Cavendish, who exude the "urine odor," about them, every day of the week.
Why does Godfrey keep forgetting about our water and sewer problems that never get fixed and are ignored from one year to the next?
Ogden water is being delivered in wooden pipes in some areas of town.
A friend on Monroe spends several hundreds of dollars a year to clean out his basement which overflows with sewage because houses on another street behind his house are hooked up to his sewer line and those occupants keep putting diapers and other unmentionables into their sewer line which empties into his line.
This is a message to any person considering moving to Ogden or investing here - ask the Mayor Godfrey why this sewer problem has never been corrected even though it has gone on for years and years and years.
It could be because the address on Monroe is not "tony" enough to get the Mayor's nor anyone else's attention.
Ogden has hundred of similar problems in the older inner City areas. So who will finally do something about them?
And who is going to foot that bill when the problem is finally corrected?
I continue to be amazed by the apathy of the participants on this Forum toward any news of the financial crisis that has hit our national government and also our Utah government.
Can anyone explain this indifference?
Rudi, are you implying that patterson and lying little matty share cavendishs' alleged fondness for golden showers? Wouldn't suprize me.
Am I crazy or was that Gadi leshem and Stuart reid down at the Union Station today at noon. I know it was Gadi, shocked me he was out and about in Ogden.
Old timer, please elaborate, as far as apathy, aren't the comments questioning fiscal responsibility?
Lying little matty's whole list is a joke in the wake of news of what's to come.
I am with you Old-Timer about the indifference shown by participants in this Forum toward any national or international news affecting finances and economic disaster facing us.
The Forum Meister does a fantastic job of trying to keep us abreast of the national and international financial picture but no one seems to give a damn. That doesn't make any sense.
I heard just today of more local layoffs. Why is there no discussion about Zions Bank's earnings for the third quarter being down by 47%? The fourth quarter earnings are due to come this afternoon or Monday.
In the meantime Zions stock has crashed from $57.00 earlier in 2008 to $13.00 as of close of markets today. They paid a 9% dividend last year. That cannot keep up.
Zions has also been to the bailout window at the Federal Reserve.
Zions is a stalwart of Utah banking and economics so why is no one talking? Also Wells Fargo which has hit the local scene is in financial trouble.
The problem is not going to go away just because you are trying to ignore the problem.
Let's get some dialog going. Who has suggestions on how to survive the present crisis and I am not talking about surviving by laying in more food.
Bill C., good comments.
Talk about Matthew Godfrey's lavish financial appetite is about fiscal matters but it turns into a "take shots at the Mayor' which needs to be expanded so that people know there is a mich bigger fiscal problem on our horizon than Ogden City expenditures and Matthew Godfrey.
We all need to be educated about national and international fiscal facts of life so that we can survive the coming disaster.
There needs to be discussion about how long this mess is going to continue/ People should be in cash and not buying any stocks.
Do not listen to any investment counselor trying to sell you anything - in other words there needs to be discussion about how to survive.
I sense that most Utah people have not realized the urgency of the financial situation facing this nation.
Our banks are being nationalized without a U.S. citizen having any say in the matter. Our form of government is changing without one shot being fired because U.S. citizens do not understand the magnitude of our problem.
I, for one, like to know or at least speculate on what my personal chances of financial survival are going to be.
Thanks for the tip, Dr. Honeywell. In this conncection, we'll offer a free Pizza Runner Pizza to any one of our readers who can furnish a properly time-documented "candid camera" graphic pic of Gadi during his alleged current O-town visit.
Gadi has been in hiding for quite a while.
Twould be enlightening, we think, to photographicly capture him visiting Emerald City "on the sly."
(It's good to see you back posting here, Dr. Honeywell, BTW.)
Old Timer,
We can't do much about the world, national, or even State financial situation except to cry and complain. However we can try to influence local politics to elicit some degree of fiscal responsibility here at home.
As you can see from his wanting funding for a Velodrome, etc. when so many municipal services are being hamstrung for lack of money, Mayor Godfrey and his Development Team are totally lacking in common sense. Wouldn't it be nice to have snow removed promptly, properly working equipment for our firefighters and police, visible lines painted on the streets, water that isn't yellow?
The degree of malfeasance and mismanagement in City Hall is horrendous. We all have limited time and energy so we're fighting to keep our City and our homes.
DL:
You wrote: "Our banks are being nationalized without a U.S. citizen having any say in the matter."
Sorry, DL, but that's wrong. We elect a Congress and a President. They had to [last six months of Bush and former Congress] and have to [now Obama and current Congress] either approve the specifics of what you call a "nationalization" of the banks, or delegate authority to others to arrange it. And we elected them, every one. So the claim that this is being done without a U.S. Citizen having a say in the matter is just plain wrong.
OL:
You replied to Old Timer: We can't do much about the world, national, or even State financial situation except to cry and complain. However we can try to influence local politics to elicit some degree of fiscal responsibility here at home.
Exactly. There are numerous blogs on which we can discuss national issues, the state of the national economy, etc. but damn few in which matters specific to Weber County and Ogden can be aired. To treat the fact that most discussion here centers on matters Ogden and Weber as "indifference" to the national economy is nonsense. You nailed it, OL.
Dorothy, Curm,
Dorothy is right. Most Americans don't want the corrupt banking cartel bailed out with taxpayer money.
As far as having input at the ballot box - - whaaaaa?
The only difference between the D's and the R's is how fast to spend the money and where. Both are socialist parties. We had no choice, although some like Rob Bishop and Jim Matheson, at least, did vote "no" for this disgusting bailout.
What caused the financial crisis in the US?:
"I truly believe that the American people do not realize the real reason for the Iraq war and the current war threat against Iran. It’s not the nukes, it’s not the terrorism and it’s not the oil. It’s all about the protection and propping up of the greatest con-job in the recent history, the US Petrodollar Scam."
Danny:
We nominated them. We elected them. Whether you like it or not, we get the government we deserve, because we elect it. That's true, Danny, whether the government is doing what you [or I] approve of or not. Applies locally and nationally. We can whine til the cows come home about Hizzonah and his administration of Ogden's affairs, but he won the last election. And all current council members won election to their seats as well. We can whine til the cows come home that Bush was a RINO, a fascist, a socialist, an idiot, an incompetent [pick whichever one you like] but we elected him four years ago. And we elected Obama two months ago.
We do have a say. Whether we the people use that say intelligently is another matter. But we do have one.
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Its Dr Honeydew not Dr Honeywell and yes that was Gadi in town and I swear that was Stuart Reid with him, I could be wrong, but if so, what the hell are they up to.
Thanks for the tip, Dr. Honeydew. Sorry about the bush league name mixup.
I talked to Gadi's spokesman (Alex Auerbach) about an hour ago, by the way.
He swears he'll get back to me to confirm whether or not Gadi is secretly in town.
Holy. Shit.
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It is all well and good to say we can change government at the ballot box.
How long have you lived in Utah and observed our system of choosing candidates to even run for office.
Your neighborhhod LDS caucuses make that decision and they are very narrow-minded about change.
Just look at how long Senators Hatch and Bennett have been in the Senate. They also share responsibility for the mess our financial affairs have deteriorated into.
We need new blood in the Senate.
We not only need new blood in the Senate, we need new blood in the leadership of our Weber County and State Republican Party and the the Central Committee. We finally did get rid of Mr. Cannon as the State Republican Party Chair by voting him out. The best thing that has happened in years to the Republican Party.
There is a question whether Godfrey REALLY won the last election -- there are too many election laws that were ignored and broken to say that he won. But there are going to be changes in those election laws and we had an influence on that. They have been tough battles on the local level, the national level would be next to impossible to change. Don't lose our abiity to affect local level politicx -- stay involved in them! Contct your legislators and City Council members and Mayor! I've contactd Senators Bennet and Hatch and Rep. Hansen (when he was our rep.)and received replies from them all -- sometimes it wasn't what I wanted, but at least they knew where I stood on the issues. But at the local level, we must get involved!
Honestly, I think we should just trust our visionary mayor in every decision that he makes and we should just support that.
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