News is again slow on this Saturday morning; so we'll set up another weekend kickoff open topic thread. Before we turn over the floor however, there are several items which we'll suggest as topics for discussion.
First, we'd like to once again remind our readers of our upcoming Ogden City municipal election primary, which is set for September 15, 2009. According to our countdown clock that's ticking away in the right sidebar, this important preliminary event is coming up in just over 16 days. And while we continue to do daily updates to our Council Candidate Roster, this Weber County Forum-hosted web resource remains far from complete nevertheless. So we'll accordingly provide everyone with a further gentle nudge:
If you happen to be a 2009 council candidate, or know a candidate who's running for a council slot, we'd like to again extend our invitation to contact us at rudizink@yahoo.com. Although we're already observing significant traffic to our candidate web pages, there's still time to add their email addresses, internet links and other data prior to the typical visitor traffic surge which we expect to begin within the next week or so. There remain several candidates for whom we have been able to gather and display only the most basic information, while others have provided information which is quite robust. It's been our experience over the years that our candidate web pages generate web page hits in the tens of thousands per election cycle, so it would be a shame, we believe, for any serious council candidate to miss out on this no cost opportunity to get their information out in front of our large audience of web savvy potential voters. This is the internet age, Ogden council candidates. Old fashioned lawn signs, fliers and doorknob hangers simply don't get the job done by themselves anymore.
Next, we'll dredge into our reader comments section and bring to the front page an item which WCF reader Dan S. mentioned down-thread last night: "On another topic, did anyone notice today's editorial (and the accompanying cartoon)?" Dan was referring of course to this top-flight Doug Gibson editorial piece , and this most excellent Grondahl cartoon. Never before have we witnessed the Standard-Examiner question the propriety of mixing routine utility billing with outright political propaganda. We found the Std-Ex's sudden critical posture to be quite refreshing, to say the least, of course.
As every Ogden City property owner is painfully aware, the Ogden mayoral administration engages in shameless political electioneering year-round, at a level which makes Kaysville Mayor Neka Roundy's recent ethical lapse seem to be the act of a political amateur by comparison. Seldom does an Ogden City water bill ever arrive without pro-administration propaganda of one kind or the other.
So for purposes of today's discussion, we'll raise a question Std-Ex reader Flatlander posed in the comment section beneath the above-linked Std-Ex story, with reference to the Standard's seemingly sudden conversion to the view that water bill electioneering is unethical:
We could look at it, ...as a bit of self-serving hypocrisy or an application of selective conscience, since the paper [inexplicably] endorsed Godfrey for re-election.Seems to us this editorial is worthy of further discussion here on WCF.
Or, the alternative, we could look on it as a sign that the SE's ethical radar has in the intervening two years been cranked up a notch or two, that it now finds questionable conduct it didn't officially notice two years earlier. We could, in short, take it as evidence of improvement.
Last but not least, we'll direct our readers' attention to this morning's Salt Lake Tribune/Kurt Kragthorpe column, focusing on Weber State University's current posture, as it begins marketing Coach Mac's 2009-10 football squad. The article presents an interesting overview of the unique circumstantial facts which lead WSU Athletic Department officials to believe they can significantly increase the numbers of fannies in stadium seats this season. As hard-core WSU football fans, we hope they'll succeed in reviving local interest in what is probably the most high adventure spectator sport in Ogden.
That's it for now, WCF readers. Follow up on our suggested topics, or feel free to hijack this thread for a discussion of your own making.
