We are delighted to report this morning that the Ogden Sierra Club continues to make apparent progress in its now two-year old legal battle with Ogden City, wherein the Ogden Sierra Club continues to seek full production of Ogden City administration records pertaining to the Godfrey/Peterson gondola project, and the city's legal relationship with FOM* Chris Peterson:
On June 11, 2d District Court Judge W. Brent West ordered that Ogden City must provide the Sierra Club with more information about several government records related to the gondola proposal and its business dealings with Chris Peterson.
In a ruling signed June 11, Second District Judge W. Brent West ordered Ogden to explain the status of eight separate “missing” records or groups of records. These records are related to requests filed by the Sierra Club two years ago, asking for information on gondola-related studies and the city’s dealings with UTA and Chris Peterson, who owns the Malan’s Basin property east of the city.
The missing records were not included in the city’s initial responses to the club’s requests, nor were they listed in an index of withheld records that the city provided, under order from the court, last October. Most of the missing records are attachments to emails that the city has already provided to the Sierra Club.
“We know these missing records existed at one time,” said Sierra Club volunteer Dan Schroeder, “and that they would have been responsive to our requests. But the city has been evasive about their status, refusing to say whether these records were inadvertently overlooked, or lost, or destroyed.”
The missing records include a budget and other data pertaining to gondola-related studies, a proposed development agreement between the city and Chris Peterson, and records related to Peterson’s purchase, under the name Bootjack LLC, of the former Bloom’s Recycling property on the 2100 block of Wall Avenue.
“It’s unfortunate that we had to go to court just to learn that the city had apparently overlooked these records,” said Schroeder. “If the city had provided us with a list of withheld records two years ago, as we requested, this all could have been handled less formally. Now the city has incurred tens of thousands of dollars of attorney’s fees, only to be ordered to release the information after all.”
Background information and a copy of Judge West's order are posted on the Sierra Club website:
• Lawsuit vs. Ogden City to obtain records related to the gondola projectWho will be the first to comment?
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* Friend of Matt
Update 7/8/09 8:32 a.m. MT: As Dan S. has already noted in the lower comments section, Tim Gurrister further fleshes out this story with his morning Standard-Examiner writeup:
• Judge orders Ogden to find information for Sierra Club
