Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Std-Ex: Ogden Lays Out 2010 Fiscal Goals

It appears we're about to see some political fur fly

We didn't want another day to slip by without shining the spotlight on yesterday's Standard-Examiner story, in which Scott Schwebke reports that the city council has adopted an overall blueprint of goals and objectives which will provide a foundation for the council, as city policies are developed and approved over the 2010 fiscal year. Mr. Schweke's lead paragraphs provide the gist:

OGDEN — The city council has set ambitious goals for fiscal 2010 aimed at improving the local economy, making neighborhoods safer, providing quality services, increasing public involvement in municipal government and protecting the environment.
The goals include specific objectives the council hopes to tackle between July 1 and June 30, 2010.
“Throughout the coming year these goals will provide a foundation for the council as city policies are developed and approved,” City Council Chairwoman Amy Wicks said in a prepared statement.
City Council Vice Chairwoman Caitlin Gochnour said the goals provide a unified vision for Ogden.
“This has been a great opportunity for the council to come together and unify our ideas into specific goals that will improve our community,” she said in a prepared statement.
For the convenience of our readers, we've also obtained an electronic copy of the council's "goals document," which is viewable in Adobe PDF format here:
Ogden City Council Goals — FY2010
Our brief examination of this document reveals objectives which are mainly broad in scope; but the document gets right down to specifics in at least one instance, in which connection we'll incorporate this notable paragraph from paragraph 9 a, wherein the council resolves to support diverse community activities and events:

Invest in City owned recreation facilities for all residents regardless of age, including the Marshall White Center, Lorin Farr pools, and the Centennial and Bonneville trails. [Emphasis added].
As Gentle Reader George K. observes in a comment under a previous WCF article, it appears that Boss Godfrey is preparing to do battle with the Council over the future fate of the Marshall White Center; and we'll also accordingly observe that the council appears to have drawn a firm line in the sand with respect to this issue.

Pull up your Barca-loungers and break out the Orville Redenbacher's, folks. It appears we're about to see some serious political fur fly in Emerald City, within the next month or so.

(We've also filed the council goals document within our sidebar module "Government Toolkit", by the way. It will of course remain available there for future reader reference.)

Reader comments are invited as always.

10 comments:

City worker said...

The council holds the purse strings and I feel that if they need more funds for Marshall white center, take the money out of the mayors budget and if he veto's it then over ride the veto. The council needs to let the mayor know who is in charge and take charge of the city and quit letting the little man do the damage that he has done.

althepal said...

It's the same worn out Godfrey game. He dawdles, sits on his thumb and stalls until the last minute, and then presses the council to make an ill considered decision, as the council finds itself backed into a hard legal deadline.

The council obviously needs to instruct Mr. Godfrey right now:

Cut $350 thousand from your proposed administrative allocations right now, and replace the MWC funding, or we'll do it ourselves.

Go, council!

Joyce Wilson said...

I have to assume that council members view the WCF so please council members read the posts from althepal and city worker and find the chutzpah to do what they are saying. There are many in this city that are fed up with the mayor and we are demanding changes!

ozboy said...

Although the council does have several excellent members, as a body they have been terribly inept at showing any courage vis-a-vis the Lil Lord and his bankrupt policies. Time and again the council has rolled over and allowed his reckless and immoral insider dealings that have only enriched his cronies at the expense of the tax payers.


The Lil criminal could not and would not get away with half the crap he has pulled without the cooperation of this weak kneed council.

It would be nice to see the council awake from this deep slumber and actually do what the voters elected them to do, but I am not too optimistic given their past record.

Bill C. said...

It's pure speculation on my part but, it seems that Dr. Carpenters outfit and the City have seperate, different agendas and responsibilities. I sense that Carpenter in no way wants to pay for programs residents currently expect and enjoy, many of which fall outside his nonprofit's purpose, it's not that his orginization doesn't care but that they have a different mission.
This is why the City needs to retain control, it has those recreational responsibilities, even if the mayor and his buddies don't like it. Carpenters orginization can help subsidize the Cities bottom line buy using their grants to pay for the use of the building.
We know the mayor would like to force everyone to use Neilson's facility at the jackass center, but Neilson doesn't fill the needs either. Neilson's operation should not even be considered in this discussion, though the mayor would love to funnel more of the MWC money to his buddy.
Anyone know how much Neilson already receives annually for the Cities gym membership program? Should we add another big check for senior water time?
If the current budget of the MWC is inadequate to run and promote it's facilities and functions, I would suggest that the ecconomic development department budget be halved, and the money transfered to the MWC. It's overstaffed and has a terrible track record, even tiny little West Haven is out doing them.

Morris said...

When the "fur flies," I'm putting my money on the City Council.

If they miss the budget deadline, So Friggin'What?

Will Ogden City Attorney Gary Williams prosecute?

Will Utah Attorney general Mark Shurtliffe prosecute the City Council, if they miss the Budget apporval deadline?

HAHAHA.

The Ogden city council should stick to its guns on this.

For far too long the council has sat in the backseat, while Mr. Godfrey was doing all the drunken driving.

Under the leadership of Wicks and Gochnour, we're finanally seeing the result of electing a smart, and inquisitive council in 2007.

It's great to see the council taking the lead on policy and goals.

The city council is a coequal branch of governement in Ogden City. It's great to see them taking their proper place in Ogden City Government.

And as one poster commented above, the council is the sole authority on budget matters.

Go, Council!

Curmudgeon said...

The Council should restore funding for the MWC to the city's budget, or if operations are leased out to an NGO, should insist, by contract provisions, that the NGO maintain all existing MWC programs and services at at least their current levels. [For the pettifoggers out there: "all existing MWC programs and services" includes maintaining and operating the pool.]

How to restore the money, if that's the route chosen, is another matter. I don't know how large, for example, the Mayor's executive office budget is, or within that category, how large his discretionary funds are. I'm not sure deleting $250K to $350K from the Mayor's operations budget is feasible. But the Council is familiar with all that [I hope] and so I'll be content to rely on the Council to do the cutting, paring and moving around of money necessary to restore the MWC funds to next year's budget.

? said...

Bill-Another part of the fitness plan for employee's is interest free loans on bicycles, but they have to be purchased from Binghams.

Curmudgeon said...

?said:

If that's so, and I were another bike shop owner, I think I'd be talking to my lawyer about that. Recall how originally, the fitness plan applied only to Gold's Gym until another gym owner raised holy hell [and rightly so] and suddenly the plan expanded.

see, I Told you so said...

When the high adventure project goes bankrupt it will then be the new Marshall white and that is why the mayor is getting rid of the old one.
Just think a 25 million dollar Marshall white in down town Ogden.
Go mayor. Lets have some more of these white elephants.

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