More flawed thinking from the Little Lord on Nine
By George K.
Scott Schwebke reports in this morning’s Standard-Examiner that Godfrey has not given up on spending millions on the Mount Ogden Golf Course. He gives an excellent accounting of a hand-picked committee that toured several golf courses in Maryland and Alabama.
I have some questions about the suggestions Kent Petersen is proposing: “Who is going to pay for the improvements to the Mt. Ogden Golf Course?” The other question is: “Is it really necessary to spend a huge amount of money to make MOGC break even?”
What about the millions of dollars that taxpayers pay to support The Junction and the Airport? Are we to just let the City continue to make payments to these entities without objection?
Also, I’ve heard the Mayor is going to suggest to the Council that the City opt out of supporting the Marshall White Center to offset the lack of funds this year. In the Mayor’s thinking, I guess it’s all right to spend at least three times the annual MWC budget in the future to fight gangs.
I feel his thinking is flawed in many areas concerning Ogden. The Junction and the Airport should be treated the same as other entities that are being proposed to be abandoned. If the Mayor really wants to rejuvenate Ogden, he should finish the Junction and the River Project(s) first.
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22 comments:
this seems like typical Godfrey logic - send some people, on the city's dime, clear across the country to see two golf courses that may or may not be successful. Are there no golf courses within driving distance of Ogden that are succeeding?
With every passing day it just seems to get more and more ridiculous with our mayor and his actions.
I don't have a problem with the trips. When you're looking for a new model on which to base a public policy, you want to find, in the jargon of the business, the "best practices" to look at, and the examples may not be next door. If the Md golf course public corporation model has been particularly successful [and it seems that it has], going there to take a look at the operation, and to meet with the various stakeholders was not necessarily a bad idea.
Curm is right, this trip accomplishes many important goals. Here are two:
1. It provides some measure of "payment" for the Skipper, Kent Peterson, for his months of waiting to reveal his sham committee findings, all the while taking abuse from this forum for being the incompetent, dishonest hack that he is.
2. It allows Godfrey to promote the fiction that the committee will issue a report based on data, rather that based on what Godfrey told the committee they would say in the very beginning.
So the trip is useful, in the increasingly frenzied mind of Matt Godfrey.
BTW Curm, great article yesterday on the broken down toe auto amputator, aka The Flowslicer. Loved it.
Danny:
Thanks.
I do have problem with these bullshit trips. Why cant the skipper and all these other jackass FOM'S get in one of there fancy rigs and drive down hwy 89 and take a peak at lets say.......Valley View, Davis County, go a little futher sounth to a place called Bountiful Ridge. Just to name a few. I would have even pitched in for gas.
I love it. You guys think going to Alabama is a perk?
Ya, you're right V - I would HATE an all paid trip to Alabama. That would suck.
I mean there are "like so many more rednecks than here in Utah and like Alabama shouldn't even be a state.
Lame comment V!!!
Folks down in Alabama and the South are smarter than Utahans. they don't elect people like Godfrey and the three stooges (Weber County Commissioners). And they do not put up with the Assessor, Cheryl Madson nor about 80% of the legislators in Utah either. They would have already been run out of town on a rail.
Of course Senator Landry of Lousiana and Mayor Nagan of New Orleans must be considered "exceptions to the rule", eh Curm?
Southern R:
Au contraire, mon ami. Louisiana can hold its own in re: legislative lunacy, idiocy and corruption, at the state and municipal level. If Utah and Louisiana today were competing for the prize in those categories, my bookie would be posting dead even odds on grounds of "too close to call." [If I had a bookie, I mean. Hypothetically speaking of course.]
Hell, Southern, the current Governor of Louisiana is such a wing-nut Christian Froot Loop he insists he has personally conducted an exorcism and a successful one [the devil was cast out]. And he's proud of it.
He is of course a Republican.
v
you obviously have never been to alabama otherwise youd know better.
all of the golf courses that the committee went to are on flat to rolling hill terrain which makes a big difference to that of a course being on the side of a mountain when it comes to ease of play and development costs. two of the course are down south which means 9 to 10 months per year of play. one is associated with the marriott hotel chain.
if the mayors real intention is to make the course more playable he doesn't need to spend an arm and a leg to do it.
but we all know that is not his motivation but just his convenient reasoning to the residents that don’t dig out the facts. his true intent is to create an opportunity for development of the land to the east of the mt. ogden golf course for housing developments. development to be undertaken by fom that will take away our open space. his water horizon work on 36th street is only partly to improve our water system in ogden the rest is to support future grow to the east of the course. go look at the citys future water system maps and it all becomes clear. ogden resident are being made to pay the water upgrade costs for future development. we residents all are being duked and i hope the city council patiently listens to the godfrey hand picked golf committee recommendations then thanks them for their work and then looks godfrey square in the eyes and say no thanks well keep what we have and make minor adjustments. thank you.
A month or two ago I submitted these comments to the Standard Examiner for publication in the Letters to the Editor section of the printed edition of the paper. I sent these comments in response to an article that the paper had published about the committees study recommendations. I never saw my comments printed. I feel that the residents should know that there are very knowledgeable and qualified people in the Ogden area that want to help the city make the right decisions about the golf course but the administration doesn't really want to hear what they have to say because their experience and recommendations don't fit with what the administration wants to do.
This was my unpublished letter.
Golf Course Recommendations Wrong
I attended the golf committee meeting in which a committee member had taken it upon himself to form a subcommittee that developed a lower cost solution to the golf course playability issues.
Attending the meeting in the audience was the Board Chairman of the Ben Lomond golf course, a profitably golf course and he was also the past President of American First Credit Union, the best run credit union in the state. He was very familiar with the Mt. Ogden course. He listened intently to the meeting and then identified himself during a Q&A session with the committee members and public. The gentleman was very qualified to speak on the subject of golf courses and he was very capable of understanding the financial aspects of such expenditures.
I could bore you with all of the issues and details that he brought to the committee members attention but bottom line is that he said that if the city spends 6 to 8 million dollars to redesign the golf course and to move the club house, that the city would never get their money back. To improve the financials of the course he suggested the concept of raising green fees, better management and a less costly expenditure scenario similar to what was proposed by the subcommittee.
Instead of listening to sage advice it appears the committee is more interested in forwarding Godfrey’s agenda than truly addressing the perceived financial issues at the golf course.
Hey Curm,
Did you know that Governor Landry said semi publicly that the reason she never had children was because there was a high probability that the child would be black since she has "negro" genes.
And of course you know the rest...she was elected as Senator from Lousiana.
Now to a redneck from Lousiana that is really "taking responsibility" and she got their votes.
I'm thinking that tops Hatch, Bennett, and Matheson. As for the rest...I agree it is a toss up.
The Federal government has nothing on Godfrey's politics -- they both can't be much worse when it comes to being corrupt! City Coundil cut Godfrey's salary and his budget, so we don't have any more nonsensical trips for his FOMs!
Oh, the skipper's a loyal foot soldier, he's gonna do the mayors bidding to the best of his compromised, unknowlegable ability.
The two major tasks he's been instructed to go for are moving the Clubhouse and turning the management, if not outright ownership over to a third party. Getting the course out of city control.
Neither of these are germane to improving golf in Ogden, which never has been on the mayor's list of things to do.
His argument for moving the clubhouse is ridiculous as it gets, better veiw, and with an enlarged updated building they want to be able to host wedding receptions and larger gatherings. Not the type of thing that first pops into your mind when you think of munincipal golf. Oh, and there are other unmentioned motivations regarding their desires for that location.
This little field trip was to check out two different golf management outfits that function pretty much the same but differ in public perception. Both are tied to huge marketing strategies that goble up lots of bucks, don't be fooled by the one that operates as a nonprofit. The article in the paper would lead you to believe that they were gracious do gooders saving one poor course in Baltimore, nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is the Baltimore group supported heavily by their convention and tourist orginazations, but it is also one of the most densely populated areas in the country. Why they chose to visit the places they did was silly, unless they still have some grandiose vision of anything done under lying little matty's reign will be a gigantic world wide tourist draw, which we know full well is bullshit and witnessed first hand the futility of his efforts.
The good thing that may come of the skipper efforts overall is that he will have to acknowlege how the finacials have been tinkered with and every effort made over the last eight years to cast a negative image of the course by this administration.
Peterson will do whatever Godfrey tells him to! He's lied, so he'll lie again so that Godfrey will get his underhanded way again!
So glad Peterson lost the election to Caitlin Gochnour! It would have been unbearable to have two lying SOBs running the City!
Home Cookin'
Governor Landry? The Governor is Bobby Jindall [R]. And the Senator is Mary Landrieu. That who you meant? And I'm afraid I'd have to see some corroboration of the no children comment if Landrieu is who you mean before I'll take it as given.
On the inside....
I agree with you in principle but I can count a good many more than two SOB's involved in running our City even without including anyone on a long list of FOG's. You have the right idea but you're being too kind.
George...
No question, we shouldn't just continue to let the City waste taxpayer dollars at the SalCent (I'm not up on the airport) but darned if I know what we can do about it. I'm not clever enough to figure out a near term solution and I'd sure welcome a few suggestions on the subject.
A librel coat of tar and feathers seems like an appropriate remedy but that's too old school no doubt. It's hell, we all recognize that we're being screwed but can't seem to find the KY. I'll admit that complaining is a release but revenge is so much sweeter. Any ideas out there in the blogisphere?
Old Guy and everyone else Let's change the form of government and go back to Council/Mayor form. Godfrey wouldn't be able to stand that! That's the only way to get rid of the SOB, and think what we'd save on Patterson's, the new Community and Economic Development and all the other directors' salary?! We'd be able to pay the Firefighters and police so that we can retain them after we pay to train them. Maybe the City would return to some semblence of honesty in city government.
Oh hell. We just read a debate regarding Scipio, Utah v. Backwater, Alabama.
We thought we would weigh in.
Alabama consistently places amongst the lowest in adult literacy, the highest in infant mortality, has the most persons grotesquely obese, the lowest number of college graduates, observably has the highest percentage of ignorant racists, the worst overall health, the worst dental health...
the list goes on, but we will spare you the details.
And yes, there are nice people in Alabama.
Utah on the other hand, whilst battling problems common to our 21st century society, places in the top twenty in health, education, and various other niceties of country living, consistently.
We love this town.
rj
the article was about a trip taken by the administrations golf committee to attempt to validate godfreys resaons for wanting to do a major redue of our golf course and justify why he should be allowed to sell the course. something he promised he would not do during his last election.
simply put the side bar about alabama was just that.
Yeah. Noted.
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