More news this morning about Boss Godfrey's least favorite Emerald City amenity, the Marshall White Center. Ace Reporter Schwebke informs us this morning that negotiations are in progress with the Ogden-Weber Community Action Partnership nonprofit, whom Godfrey hopes will enter into an agreement to take over responsibility for operation and management of the center. The fly in the ointment? The ever-optimistic Mayor Godfrey, apparently operating in his usual "count the chickens before they are hatched" mode, has already removed MWC funding from his proposed 2010 budget, even in the absense of a binding OWCAP/Ogden City management agreement. Read Mr. Schwebke's illuminating morning writeup here:
• Garcia: Save Marshall White/Ogden councilman asks to restore funding for centerWe'll offer our own take on this; and we'll be brief: Unless and until a firm and binding agreement is reached with OWCAP, with iron-clad provisions which precisely define OWCAP's rights and obligations, it would be the height of irresponsibility for the council to allow MWC funding to fall off-budget. Councilman Garcia is already complaining that the council is out of the loop regarding the ongoing OWCAP negotiations. Just imagine the possibilities for Godfrey chicanery if non-budgeted MWC funding decisions were left to the sole discretion of the Mayor's office, with necessary operational funds "sequestered" and disbursed, without council control, from another Godfrey "slush fund," at Godfrey's whim.
Among the items up on the Std-Ex website this morning is a plaintive 5/13/09 email letter addressed to the city of Ogden City, the text of which we'll incorporate here:
To the citizens of Ogden:We're confident our gentle readers will know what to do... and they can do it here:
City funding for the Marshal White Center is at risk. The budget that has been proposed by Mayor Godfrey eliminates all City funding for the Center.
I requested information form Mayor Godfrey about his intentions for the Marshal White Center' future and have received no response from him. Then the budget came to the Council with no funding after the Mayor told citizen's in a Council meeting that it would remain open.
I am going too ask the Council to restore the funding for the Marshal White Center. Financial support for the Center from the City is critical to ensure that it remains open and continues to provide all of the current services to our community.
I urge all concerned citizens to let the Council know your opinion. Two public hearings will be held on the city's budget on May 25th and June 9th.
Jesse M. Garcia
Ogden City Councilmember
Municipal Ward 1
• Ogden City ouncil Contact InformationBefore closing, we'll also make note of one unresolved bone of contention which is lightly mentioned in Mr. Schwebke's writeup. The MWC operates a swimming pool, which is currently used for a variety of existing MWC programs. The Godfrey administration is however strangely non-committal about future pool operations under prospective OWCAP management; and Patterson declines to say whether OWCAP would keep the center's pool open. In this connection we note that this morning's story reveals that OWCAP would like to add six to eight classrooms to its current MWC operation. For those who are familiar with the MWC layout, take a wild guess where those classrooms would be built. This is of course merely one of the issues which we believe ought to be resolved by written agreement, before the council agrees to alter the MWC status quo in any manner.
Don't let the cat get your tongues, O gentle ones.
16 comments:
I'm aware that Councilman Garcia has had the Marshall White Center's welfare always in the forefront. Since he has been a part of the talks with Dr. Carpenter and John Patterson and is aware of the increased programs for MWC proposed by Dr. Carpenter, if he isn't doing a bit of campaign posturing. His seat is up for election this year.
Also I have heard that OWCAP thinks that repairs (boilers and roof) to the Center are too costly, so they do not plan to take over the Center. So I believe Councilman Garcia is right in insisting that the Mayor reveal his stashed money for MWC. (Serves the Mayor right for not maintaining MWC properly.) Later on, if it's not needed, use the money for another worthwhie project -- the Velodrome does not meet our criteria of worthwhile projects.
WE DO NEED THE MARSHALL WHITE CENTER TO STAY OPEN!!
Pretty pathetic the Mayor is willing to throw public assets such as the Marshall White Center, Mount Ogden Golf Course, and Union Station under the bus because he deems them unworthy of public funding. This while spending mega bucks of public funds supporting his cronies private business schemes and his own vision of outdoor recreation.
Ray,
You are absolutely correct. Some things you don't and cannot expect make a profit on, things the city does purely for the benefit of its citizens. You do it because it's the right thing to do and it is something the city SHOULD do.
Apparently Godfrey has a poor grasp of this concept and instead tries to sell publicly owned prize assets, make business deals work for his cronies and dump anything that preserves our history or benefits those in our city who need it the most.
Next thing you know, these clowns will have the audacity to suggest that Marshall White Center water aerobics class participants buy memberships to Gold's Gym and use that facility instead.
Rudi:
You wrote: We'll offer our own take on this; and we'll be brief: Unless and until a firm and binding agreement is reached with OWCAP, with terms which precisely define OWCAP's rights and obligations, it would be the height of irresponsibility for the council to allow MWC funding to fall off-budget Exactly right. Leasing operations to an NGO might... might... be in the best interests of the city and the Center's patrons, but if, and only if, the contract required the NGO to maintain and continue all MWC services at current or expanded levels. That seems, clearly, not to be the way whatever negotiations may now be under way are going [e.g. the pool matter].
According to last year's CAFR (p. 123), the city's sewer system ran $1.4 million in the red last year. Let's privatize it.
Better yet, let's shoulder more debt by building water tanks we don't need on 36th Street.
I might also note that the per-resident cost of Ogden City Government has risen from about $700 per resident in 2003-2005 to $958 per resident in 2008, a jump of 37%. Could this be because of the Salomon Center? I don't think anyone would argue our services are 37% better than in 2005.
Diddent our little mayer godfree promiss us the Marshall White Center would be taken care of?
'scuze the spelling, I'm tirred.
TLJ
Schwebke must have forgotten that he wrote an article that quoted the mayor as saying,
"However, Godfrey said there are no immediate plans to turn the center over to another organization, but he indicated he would like to work with other groups, like Ogden Weber Community Action Partnership, to better utilize the facility."
At the time, we said the mayor was lying. I suppose Schwebke forgot. After all, the article he wrote was all the way back on April 29.
Article HereNow, today, the mayor is trying to do exactly what he said he was not going to do. So why would Schwebke fail to mention that only days ago the mayor was promising not to do the very thing he was now doing other than that Schwebke is a complete idiot?
Or could it be he just can't bring himself to provide quotes from the mayor in the same article that would clearly show Godfrey is a liar?
The way the article comes off, there is just a disagreement. In fact, Godfrey is lying, conning, and condescending to the city council.
The newspapers bias is as clear as ever.
Lastly, regardless of who "manages" the Marshall White facility, it will need a subsidy and it should get one. It's the kind of thing cities should do, like parks and even golf courses.
But Godfrey has screwed up the city's budget. Now he has to find scapegoats and things that don't generate campaign cash for him, so he can throw them overboard.
Well Danny, your disection of lying little matty's lie an this one, a couple of weeks ago, was dead on the money.
I wonder if Schwebke can even remember that far back?
Now the crews working on an unneeded and unauthorized project have broken the existing crappy infrastructure:
Many Homes Without Water on the East Bench.
Nice work, Mayor Godfrey and Mr. Patterson. Ogden is sure proud of you both. That's growth!
I support Mr. Hutchins' previous call for the City Council to use their investigative powers to find out who authorized the expenditure of funds on unneeded
36th Street tanks, and why.
Mr. Trentelman, your beat is water issues. Perhaps this is your news peg. Dig deeper (pun intended).
Patterson has got to be the most unconvincing liar around. I can only assume that someone else is making this stuff up.
Ogden does have some very old pipe in it's water system, but this particular line just happens to be one of the youngest. All I can figure is lying little matty, thru his designated "you take the hit" man is continuing to try and justify his devious water scam by blaming old rusted pipe, when everyone knows the equipment ripped it open.
Hey, how's that $34000 dining car coming along? Could have bought a brand new one for what Brookens has spent on it, or constructed a full service brick and mortar building. Has the anonymous check for the icicle cleared yet? Will the clandestine "neath the cemetary" campground be ready for the Rodeo?
It all comes down to priorities, and Godfrey's priorities are of his own. He doesn’t care about the taxpayer, or the common folk. He cares about his buddies and cheerleaders all looking to make a buck at the expense of the taxpayers.
It was interesting that an article in the paper the other day, stating that Godfrey has not raised taxes since he's been in office. But due to a little trick call re-valuation, my taxes to the City went up 300.00 last year. How is that not raising taxes?
Godfrey hates many of the programs in Ogden where no money is generated; he thinks of employees as nothing more than a liability. Hell the employees have taken it in the shorts too, with many still making entry level wages while serving for seven to eight years.
As long as Godfrey is dictator, we will suffer from the incompetence from his decisions.
He can find money for his pet projects, including popsicles, veledroms, over priced rail car welcoming centers, flow riders, river projects, Hobo camp grounds in downtown, pet lobbyists, phony fund raising entities, do I need to say more?
Get out the tar and feathers, torches and pitch forks. We need to run him out of town eight years ago.
Excellent letter to the editor in todays (5/15) Sub-Standard Examiner from Marion Duffy. It is captioned "Mayor's outdoor mecca trumps community" and covers many of the concerns mentioned above plus a few more.
Here's a link to the excellent Marian Duffy latter to the editor mentioned above.
And let me note, e-v-e-r so gently, that the column is clearly "anti-growth" from the Mayor's POV, and clearly critical of Hizzonah, so, once again, it seems the alleged "trip to the woodshed" Hizzonah supposedly took the SE on didn't work very well, did it?
Godfrey is a heartless little weiner.
Costs for Ogden City to repair the flow rider were in the $309,000 range.
Marshall White Center could be open to the community for nearly a year for the same price.
i grew up playin ball at marchall white whers the inner city kids going to go the juntion with no money id like to lose a load on little matty big ass forehead make him lick it off and drag him back to harrisville
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