Since reader comment traffic is a mite slow today, we thought it might be useful to feature a few of today's Standard-Examiner Letters to the Editor this afternoon, dealing with issues involving Tuesday's upcoming Emerald City municipal election. Now that we've set the stage for this, we'll highlight these "good ones." So here we go:
Ogden resident Jan Hamer gets it exactly right with this, wethinks:
• Conflict between Ogden council, mayor fabricatedAnd Ogden City resident Cathy Gambles nails it, regarding what Godfrey's greed-head real estate developer ticket (Hains , Garner and Phipps) would do, if elected as a controlling majority on the Ogden City Council:
• Vote for Ogden candidates who respect open spaceAnd then there's this... This Council-member Dorrene Jeske reader letter which we neglected to highlight yesterday... mainly because our newly hired SE paper-boy evidently couldn't pry his ass out of bed to deliver yesterday's SE hard-copy edition to our front stoop:
• Van Hooser, Blair merit supportThat's it for now, gentle readers.
One way or the other, we do hope this provocative material will pry you out of today's apparent comments lethargy.
18 comments:
I've often heard it said that certain council members were elected to stop the socialist practices of Matt Godfrey. That's why those candidates received the support they did from those who espouse that philosophy.
I always thought it best to vote for a candidate who represented the people, regardless of who the proposed initiatives came from.
This election seems to be falling in line with most of the others of late: candidates who a pro-Godfrey and candidates who are anti-Godfrey, and if the best interests of the people happen to fall on either side of that line, then so be it.
A sad and interesting state of affair, me thinks.
None of the candidates is anti Godfrey. As some have noted, the city council votes with Godfrey 98% of the time.
Thank goodness for the 2% of the time when they reign in his ineptitude and public sellouts.
Vote VanHooser, Blair, Garcia, and Stephenson for an independent council.
Vote for the other candidates if you want Godfrey to get his way 100% of the time and to become even more psycho than he already is.
Did I say Phipps?..an honest mistake..I meant Godfrey, but since I'm on the subject..has anybody ever seen the two of them together? I mean the similarities are striking, not discounting that whole Alfred E. thing both have going on. Wouldn't put it past him to run undercover to get his way
Somewhat off-topic, but interesting: The Trib web site has a story about a Utah mayor who seems to be rather petty and vindictive:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13663172#at
Dan, I saw that story on the news the other night and thought immediately that there must be a Matt Godfrey clone out there.
Is there any way we could pass a law giving municipalities the chance to hold recall elections?
According to Blair Fowers, Phipps failed to file financial disclosure forms at the close of business today, as required by ordinance.
OgdenLover,
It's ironic that while the so-called "strong mayor" form of government (officially "council-mayor") is set up to mirror the separation of powers at the state and federal levels, in fact the executive ends up being far more powerful, compared to the legislative body, than at the state and federal levels. This happens for a variety of reasons:
* As you say, there is no means of impeachment or recall.
* The mayor has a statutory right to participate in all city council discussions.
* In most cities, the council gets its legal advice from an attorney appointed by the mayor.
* Many types of legislation are required to go through the planning commission, which is appointed by the mayor, before they come before the city council.
* Only the council can appropriate funds, but the mayor has the power to move funds within a department at will.
* The mayor has the authority to buy, sell, and encumber real property. The council can determine the "manner" in which this is done, but in practice the council has little or no control over most transactions.
I'd love to see the applicable state laws changed to establish a better balance of power between the mayor and city council. But an equally serious problem is that the council rarely uses the power that it has--because certain members don't want to be verbally attacked by the mayor and the media.
Another possible solution would be for Ogden to dump the "council-mayor" form of government and go back to having a city manager. Some folks were proposing this a few years ago but I haven't heard much about it lately. I believe this can be accomplished by petition and popular vote.
1-8-6: FAILURE TO FILE; INACCURATE OR INCOMPLETE:
A. Failure To File: If a candidate or the candidate's personal campaign committee fails to file a campaign finance statement due seven (7) days before the general election, the city recorder shall inform the appropriate election official who:
1. Shall:
a. If practicable, remove the candidate's name from the ballot by blacking out the candidate's name before the ballots are delivered to voters; or
b. If removing the candidate's name from the ballot is not practicable, inform the voters by any practicable method that the candidate has been disqualified and that votes cast for the candidate will not be counted; and
2. May not count any votes for that candidate.
On yet another topic, there's an interesting article in the Washington Post about declining newspaper circulation throughout the U.S. Some newspapers have bucked the trend, and
"Almost without exception, the circulation gainers are the nation's smallest daily newspapers, which tend to focus almost all of their limited resources on highly local news that is not covered by larger outside organizations. Also, these papers tend to have a lock on local ad markets."
51 Year Resident:
SE reported today that because there was inaccurate information given to some of the candidates regarding this filing date --- some info listed a day later as the deadline than it actually was --- the candidates were being given an extra 24 hours to comply. I don't know if that materially affects what you heard about Phipps or not.
Dan:
The SL Trib today reported on its new circulation figures [some big periodic industry report just came out, I gather] and on the DN's figures. Not good. Both down significantly for paper copy circulation over I think the last six months. But SLT reports significant growth in website readers, and is peddling the notion that its total readership should be paper plus web readers.
I looked in the SE for an update on its circulation today, but found none.
And getting back to the election...
The new disclosure reports from Blair, Stephens, Garcia, and Garner are already posted on the city's web site. The first three each received $1000 from the Firefighters PAC, and Blair, in particular, raised a total of $3800 during this reporting period. Garner, on the other hand, raised almost no additional money and spent very little of the $2700 carry-over he had from the previous reporting period.
These reports were all submitted at least a day early. Today was the due date so I'm guessing the rest will be posted fairly early tomorrow.
Curm: Now I understand. The deadline was supposed to be yesterday (one week before the election) but indeed, the candidates were given forms saying the due date was today instead. So thanks to this blunder, we'll have one less day to scrutinize the remaining disclosure forms.
Its ok dan. Gary williams will come up with a cure and all is well.
Blair is surging right now. It appears Ogden is going to go with the local guy. w00t
Curm here is your answer from Editor and Publisher regarding S-E circulation figures. The paper made the sixth biggest gain in the nation over the last six weeks.
The Top 10 Biggest Circ GAINERS in New FAS-FAX
By E&P Staff
Published: October 26, 2009 10:40 AM ET
NEW YORK And now for change of pace: Here are the top 10 newspapers to gain daily circulation for the six months ending September 2009 with year-over-year changes, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
(Newspapers with paid circulation of more than 50,000.)
YORK (PA.) DAILY RECORD -- 55,370 -- 16.45%
WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY -- 53,142 -- 14.31%
THE OAKLAND (MICH.) PRESS -- 68,067 -- 7.26%
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL -- 175,841 -- 6.56%
CHATTANOOGA (TENN.) TIMES FREE PRESS -- 69,569 -- 2.18%
OGDEN (UTAH) STANDARD-EXAMINER -- 62,062 -- 1.89%
NEW HAVEN (CONN.) REGISTER -- 70,559 -- 0.79%
MOBILE (ALA.) PRESS-REGISTER -- 92,849 -- 0.75%
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL -- 2,024,269 -- 0.61%
THE FORUM, FARGO, N.D. -- 50,131 -- 0.39%
Mr. Bragg:
Thanks. That is very good news indeed. I can confidently look forward, then, to the SE arriving on my doorstep for the next year at least and my personal collection of little rubber bands [a collateral benefit of subscribing] to continue to grow.
Very good news.
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