By Curmudgeon
A newspaper's editorials are, plainly, expressions of opinion, and in the nature of things, the SE will publish, now and then, editorials with which sensible, sober readers will disagree. That is to be expected. But this morning, the Standard-Examiner editorial board has embarrassed itself, the paper, and, sadly, the city it serves with a lead editorial that leaves me wondering if the Editorial Board reads their own newspaper. It's going to take them a while to live this one down:
• OUR VIEW: Say no to lobbyistsThe editorial considers the Council's plan to hire its own lobbyist. The SE does not like that idea. It rightly finds the origins of the idea in the Mayor's tasking the lobbyist he pays, Mr. Jolley, to work for legislation to give Mayor Matthew Godfrey "firm control over the Ogden Redevelopment Agency." Council members, the editorial explains, "said the action was taken without their knowledge or approval." No. The action was taken without their knowledge or approval. The Mayor didn't deny it. He said he didn't have time to let them know. This was reported in the SE. So there is no "he said/she said" element to this. It was done without the Council's knowledge or approval. I read it in The Standard Examiner.
So, what is the SE's solution to the problem? That Ogden should have no paid lobbyist at the legislature. That City officials should represent Ogden before the legislature, and that Mr. Jolley should be let go at a savings of $40K a year to the city. What the editorial dos not so much as mention is that this is precisely the solution advocated by the Council last budget year when it zeroed out the budget line for Mr. Jolley's pay. Cut it out entirely. At which point the Mayor hired him again anyway, paying him out of the the Mayor's discretionary funds. The Council adopted the SE's solution; the Mayor ignored it and unilaterally decided to keep his personal lobbyist on the city payroll. I know that happened. I read it in The Standard Examiner. The editorial board must have skipped that issue.
But it gets worse. [Hard to believe, I know. But it does.] The editorial suggests that Ogden will "look ridiculous" if it has two lobbyists working at cross purposes, and that the Mayor and Council should agree on what they want to lobby the legislature for. Well, first of all, the Mayor and Council did agree that Mr. Jolley would work only on matters both the Council and Mayor agreed he should work on. The Mayor promptly violated that agreement to, as the editorial puts it, give himself "firm control over the Ogden Redevelopment Agency."
So, the Council endorsed the idea of no lobbyist, and it agreed with the Mayor to joint lobbying goals --- note, precisely what the editorial calls for. The Mayor ignored the "no lobbyist" idea by re-hiring Mr. Jolley when the Council cut funds to do that, and by ignoring the council when giving Mr. Jolley his marching orders. But does the editorial then conclude that the problem is the Mayor? It does not.
As for Ogden "looking ridiculous" if the Council and Mayor disagree before the legislature? Nonsense. If they disagree about proposed legislation, the legislators need to know that so they don't assume Mayor Godfrey's personal wishes represent the views of Ogden City Government. The founders embraced the principles of "separation of powers" and "checks and balances" for good reasons. The SE Editorial Board seems unfamiliar with either concept. Either they all slept through high school civics, or a majority of the board was raised in Brigham City and had Rob Bishop for a history teacher. That would explain the Editorial Board's appalling ignorance of these fundamental principles of American government. It would not excuse it.
