More about The Ice Tower and That "Anonymous $63,000 Donation"

An examination of the Godfrey Administration's own ledger timeline

By Dan Schroeder

Getting back to the ice tower and that mysterious "anonymous donation"...

Friday afternoon, in response to a GRAMA request submitted January 15, I obtained from the city a printout of a ledger of all tower-related receipts and expenditures. An electronic copy is available for viewing here.

The most interesting entry is for a receipt of $62,949.82 from Ogden Climbing Park LLC, dated January 15, 2009. The ledger indicates that this revenue has been applied toward a long list of expenses incurred between June 6, 2007, and June 10, 2008.

So assuming that all the dates are accurate, here's a chronology of the most important developments over the last two years:

May 31, 2007: Ogden receives $200,000 RAMP grant for the ice tower.

June 6, 2007: Ogden begins spending money on appraisal, design, engineering, and related work.

December 6, 2007: Ogden submits a progress report to the RAMP administrator, reporting that over $24,000 has been spent so far on preliminary work for the ice tower.

Sometime shortly thereafter: Ogden is informed by the RAMP administrator that RAMP funds may be spent only on constructing the ice tower, not on development expenses. John Patterson sends an undated letter to RAMP apologizing for this "error", saying it "has been corrected" and will not happen again. However, the city continues to pay engineering and design expenses even though there is no other source of revenue to cover these expenses.

June 10, 2008: Ogden's expenses since the previous June now total $62,949.82.

June 24, 2008: After a great deal of controversy, the City Council approves a budget of $100,000 of city funds for the ice tower, but stipulates that this money may not be spent until all other needed funding is in place.

June 30, 2008: End of the the city's fiscal year 2008. The audited financial report will not be released to the public for another six months. However, at this point it would appear to the auditors that there is still plenty of cash in the ice tower account, thanks to the RAMP grant. The auditors presumably are unaware of the stipulation that the RAMP money cannot be used to cover the development expenses that have been incurred over the last year.

January 14, 2009: Weber County Forum breaks the news that the RAMP grant has expired and the city must return the $200,000, plus interest, to the county.

January 15, 2009: The Standard-Examiner reports on the expiration of the RAMP grant. This is also the date of the ledger entry for the city's receipt of $62,949.82 from Ogden Climbing Parks.

January 23, 2009: The RAMP money (and interest) is refunded to the county.

The ledger also shows some smaller and earlier receipts and expenses: a $9,000 contribution from an unnamed source that went toward transporting the ice tower (among other things) in 2004, and a $15,000 small business loan made to Ogden's Hollographic Ice Tower (aka Ogden Climbing Parks) in March 2006, funded by a Community Development Block Grant. Finally, there are three expenses that were charged to the city's general fund in 2007 and 2008, totaling $1,533.20.

Ed. Note: Our gentle readers are invited to digest Dan's newly-revealed information, and to speculate on the true meaning of all this.