We'd like to provide our readers with a quick heads up about an item appearing on the agenda for this coming Tuesday's (12/9/09) Ogden City Council Meeting. Over past months we've devoted a fair amount of electronic ink to the subject of the Godfrey administration's proposed top of 36th street waters tanks; and this subject now returns to the calender for the council's consideration and deliberation:
7. Administrative Reports.In connection with this, we also link the council's 12/22/09 council packet, which consists of a brief summary of the Administration's proposal, an analysis of project obstacles and proposed solutions, fiscal notes, a necessarily-lengthy chronology of events, a proposed municipal ordinance amending the city Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), three exhibits and several other associated documents, etc..
a. CIP Amendment – 36th/46th Street water tanks and transmission line. Consideration of proposed Ordinance 2009-72; an ordinance modifying the FY 2008 through 2012 Capital Improvement Plan by making adjustments to project WU095 and adding projects WU100 and WU101 as detailed in the project briefs. (Receive public input; adopt/not adopt ordinance – roll call vote)
In a nutshell, the Administration is proposing that the council go ahead with the 5 million-gallon 36th street tank (whose cost seems to have increased), and that the council allocate the remaining $800,000 to engineering studies and land acquisition--but not construction--for the 1.25 million gallon tank and associated transmission lines.
Reading between the lines, it's also apparent from the series of documents enclosed in the packet that council leadership and staff have devoted a fairly substantial amount of effort over the past few months, in cooperation with the city's administration and engineering staff, to work out the "kinks" in the project. Moreover, and much to our alarm, it seems pretty clear that council leadership has probably committed itself to approving the Administration's proposal, even though the matter has never been deliberated by the full council, nor fully addressed by the public.
Adding insult to injury, information in the packet reveals that council leadership may be growing wary of a provision in the underlying Water Horizon bonding documents, which purportedly requires that 85% of bond proceeds be spent by June 11, 2010. As to this latter wrinkle, we'll speculate that Boss Godfrey is once again up to his old tricks, and has again painted the council into a corner with his usual calculated strategy whereby Godfrey gives the council nothing but yes/no choices, where "no" is unacceptable (i.e., don't spend the bond money at all) so they have to say "yes."
As we editorialized back in May of this year, we at WCF are also wary too... wary of at least three items in Boss Godfrey's bag of tricks which threaten our east bench open space. The 36th Street water tanks are of course at the top of the list.
Emerald City lumpencitizens urged the city council at least four months ago to hire their own independent independent engineer. Since then the council has however apparently been sitting on it's collective thumb. We're therefore going to go out on a limb and predict that the council's approval of Boss Godfrey's 5 million gallon 36th Street water tank is probably a fait accompli.
Nevertheless, we'll encourage our more optimistic readers to attend Tuesday's council session, and to contact the council with their own viewpoints through our WCF council contact link in the interim.
In a worst case scenario, meeting attendees can report back to WCF about the big smile which will be on Boss Godfrey's face when he receives his early Christmas present. And who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe the council will rethink the whole half-baked situation and we'll experience a holiday miracle.
