In the aftermath of "the world's most popular holiday", we'll attempt to get back in gear, with a short Emerald City news roundup this morning. Although northern Utah news sources aren't exactly brimming with nutritious red meat news this a.m., there's still enough to at least kickstart a reader discussion, we think:
1) Mainly for archival purposes, we'll make note of yesterday's Standard-Examiner story, which reports that "a drainage issue has been resolved, enabling work to resume on a planned 147,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter at 20th Street and Wall Avenue":
• Drainage issue cleared for Wal-Mart projectThis project has of course been "on" and then "on hold" for more times than we can count; and we thus suppose it will be a great relief to finally get Wal-mart onto the city tax rolls sometime in early 2011, we guess, assuming it moves forward smoothly from here.
Of course Boss Godfrey says the arrival of his long-awaited downtown Wal-mart spells nothing but good for the city economy:
The supercenter is expected to draw a large volume of customers and should increase business traffic for other stores downtown, Godfrey said.Whether this is true we do not know; but we will submit that Godfrey's general assertion that Wal-mart Supercenters are "good" for neighboring businesses does remain a matter of some considerable public debate.
"It's good for merchants in the area," he said
So what say our gentle readers? Will Boss Godfrey's soon-to-be coming Wal-mart Supercenter spur a wave of economic growth in in our downtown area and be a boon to existing businesses? Notwithstanding the fact that Boss Godfrey's long history of economic development pratfalls, we must remember that "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then," (according to the old folk ax).
Or will this mega-marketing goliath leave a slew of boarded-up smaller existing businesses in its wake?
2) For those who'd like to take another shot at Godfrey sychophant Rich Combe, whose 12/16/09 letter to the editor provoked a fair amount of reader discussion here on Weber County Forum on the same date, we're pleased to observe that Mr. Combe's pay-to-play mini-opus made the Standard-Examiner hard copy edition this morning:
• Godfrey's contributors wanted success in OgdenWe therefore happily give it a brief reprise, for those readers who'd like to take another bite of the apple, and offer further comment in the SE and/or WCF reader comments sections. Feel free to take another shot... if you don't believe we've already beaten the topic to death.
That's it for now folks.
Who will be the first to break the post-holiday comment ice?
