The Emerald City red meat news days are back again. After a fairly significant Standard-Examiner news drought, two hard-hitting lumpencitizen letters to the editor have popped up on the Std-Ex live website this morning. Andy, Ron and Doug and the other editors on the Standard-Examiner editorial board my lack the sack to post anything critical of Boss Godfrey, but we'll give them credit; at least they're prominently posting such material, penned by involved and well informed lumpenitizens, right there in the Std-Ex online "letters" section. We'll reel these letters off in no particular order. They're both hard-hitting and right on the money, we believe:
1) Here's a good one from Ogden Home Boy Bill Critchlow, wherein he takes the Standard-Examiner to task for its inexcusable neglect regarding the still unresolved Envision Ogden money laundering scandal, and the probable illegalities surrounding Boss Godfrey loan of the publicly owned Salomon Center to his political cronies for his 2007 Salomon Center campaign fundraiser:
• Envision Ogden always intended as a political organizationEveryone in town seems to be aware of the "elephant in the room" which Mr. Critchlow mentions... except for the folks at the Godfrey House Propaganda Organ, of course. If our home town newspaper is serious about maintaining what little they have left of their credibility, they'll hopefully awaken from their journalistic Rip Van Winkle Sleep sometime soon, with Mr. Critchlow's savvy reminder.
2) And here's another good one from David Smith, a warhorse Emerald City citizen activist, and a man everyone (except Trentelman) trusts. Mr. Smith draws a bead on Mayor Godfrey's well demonstrated incompetence, and makes a strong and timely pitch to his fellow Ogden citizens to the effect that we need a full slate of competent and mature adults to fill council seats for the upcoming 2009 municipal election:
• We need strong Ogden council candidatesMr. Smith is correct. Duty calls, fellow Ogden citizens. We know the city council job only pays about $1.35 an hour or less, taking into consideration the long hours and backbreaking effort our so-called part-time council puts in. Nevertheless... imagine a new city council padded out with the likes of more knuckleheaded Godfreyites like Stephenson, Johnson, Peterson (the Skipper) and Eccles... and God forbid... (gulp) Geigers. Cross-town ski gondolas, velodromes and a bulldozed Mt. Ogden Golf Course, anyone? That's what we'll get unless serious grownups queue up with applications for the four council seats which will be up for grabs in the upcoming 2009 municipal election.
Frightening thoughts indeed; and don't let the cat get your tongues.
9 comments:
The people who pull Godfrey's strings intend to push on through the election process candidates who will play ball with those who intend to build big structures on the east bench of Ogden.
Complete with a gondola up Taylors Canyon.
Wanna see people cross the line of what is illegal or unethical in a municipal election?
The big out-of-town-dollar scoundrels intend to walk all over un-puppet-strung candidates this election.
If the city council slate includes persons of integrity, persons unwilling to stoop to the level of a big city politician, those kindly, well-meaning persons are going to get trounced back to the local PTA board.
Ogden needs someone as evil and tough as old school Ogden, someone who could kick your ass in a bar brawl, someone who has no need for sluice money and backroom handouts, someone who could out think J. Glidden, someone whose mind works like a criminal... but whose hands work like a community organizer; and someone who is pro-smartgrowth.
In our humble opinion.
RJS:
Was that post your announcement of your campaign, RJ?
In re: Bill's letter [I cross posted this on the SE comment site]:
Good letter. Damn good letter.
Mr. Critchlow, I think, GRAMAed the city asking for copies of administration documents relating to granting Envision Ogden use of the city-owned Junction for a fund-raiser, and he was told by the city that there were no --- NO --- such documents. None.
Ogden City granted permitted a private group to use city property for a political fundraiser which hundreds bought tickets to attend, and not a single document of record exists? Not a contract, not a memorandum of agreement, not an email? Nothing in writing anywhere?
That's pretty astonishing.... if true. Seems like someone in the Godfrey administration went to considerable lengths to make sure that no evidence of what happened... evidence that could be uncovered by GRAMA requests... was left lying around.
Surely something that odd ---- large political fund raiser held on city property but not a single public document exists regarding the arrangements --- would get reporters' and editors' "nose for news" [allegedly a requirement for being in the newspaper business --- or used to be, anyway] a-twitching.
No documents? None?
Why?
The first political sign of the season for the office of Ogden City Council person --that I have noticed ---has appeared on 7th Street adjacent to Monroe Blvd.
It is conspicuous in that it is a VERY EXPENSIVE SIGN - no doubt paid for by one Mayor Godfrey's numerous cash funds.
The candidate named on this VERY EXPENSIVE SIGN is Mr. Brandon Stephenson himself who has been one of the Mayor's toadies for several terms.
The location is most interesting because of its proximity into Dorrrene Jeske territory.
Most interesting but a complete waste of money in my opinion.
Our brand of governance would be anathema to the outwardly spoken political opinions of most voters.
We would, of course, be a benevolent dictator in the mold of Vlad Tepes.
But enough braggadocio: we would only accept the position of mayor, as consensus governance and Roberts Rules would not sit well with our chosen methodologies.
If we were to throw our hat into the ring, it would be as a candidate of the Guns and Dope party.
EVERYBODY FOR EVERYTHING IN 2009!
I need to disagree with Svengali (top comment above), who said,
"If the city council slate includes persons of integrity, persons unwilling to stoop to the level of a big city politician, those kindly, well-meaning persons are going to get trounced back to the local PTA board."
As someone who has on occasion typed fast while on the run, I am going to offer that this comment of Svengali’s, may have been made in haste.
Having said that, Sven's comment is not only demonstrably false but staggeringly harmful.
Amy Wicks and Dorrene Jeske are very polite, considerate people who routinely stand up to Godfrey. And Caitlin Gochnour stood alone against a full-scale character assassination waged by paid Godfrey lackey Sue Wilkerson, facilitated by the ink and paper of the Standard Examiner - all because she dared to look for corroborating evidence for what the Godfrey machine was telling the council, and when she found a contradiction, she mentioned it. She is also a very nice person, as is Jesse Garcia (another victim of Godfrey’s character assassination) and as is Doug Stephens. In the case of Wicks, Jeske, Gochnour and Garcia, after years of standing up to the falsehoods and insults of the mayor and his taxpayer-funded lie machine, they still stand strong. In the case of Stephens, he has wilted considerably.
The idea that good people will get chewed up and spit out is a falsehood, worthy of the master lie teller himself.
In fact, “persons of integrity, persons unwilling to stoop to the level of a big city politician, those kindly, well-meaning persons” are precisely the kind who should run for city council.
And if they run, they are the people who will win. And having won, they are the only kind of people who will protect us from the Godfrey machine that seeks to destroy our bench and golf course, to close Marshall White and Union Station, and to convert the taxpayers into a golden teat for his corrupt campaign contributor lowlifes who Svengali seems to fear so much.
Funny thing David, but I interprited Sven's line about "running them back to the school board" as being somehow directed to the hamburger king guy who was on the school board but now I believe lives in St. George. He is considered a backer of the mayor's, even though he is now out of town.
I thought Sven meant the carpet bagger Godfrey backers would be the ones handed their asses by the guys in white hats!
Wonder which one of us is right?
I think Sven is a practitioner of the theater of the absurd. If so, he is actually pretty good at it cause he sure gets some folks going sometimes, even me.
Run David run! Do it for the hoi polloi. Run on the integrity ticket. Just run. OK? Thanks.
PS - we can't let Jeske's seat fall to the dark side, and we need to get the Johnson seat back on the side of integrity.
Tom,
There are lots of good people who can run. It concerns me when people direct effort at asking me to run, because I feel it is a wasted effort.
We can get together sometime and talk about why that is if you want. Dorrene has my number. Maybe we should talk sometime anyway.
Sven, no offense was intended toward you in my comments.
David Smith:
As a character fictitious in a sordid saga, we can say with some certainty: none taken. ;>
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