By Curmudgeon
The Standard Examiner has done it again! It has printed yet another "Godfrey announces that he expects to announce" story:
• Ogden River Project Moves AheadAfter having been burned by such stories so often in the past, you'd think the paper would learn its lesson. But no, apparently not.
This time, the story [politely so called] is that Hizzonah Mayor Godfrey has announced that he expects to announce, in just a few days, that a developer for the River Project [who of course he cannot now name] will submit to him a plan for developing Ogden's River Project. Since the announcement he has announced that he expects to announce is but days off, what possible reason could there be for running this non-story now, rather than a real story about he actual submission of the plan later this week? I've heard of slow news days when papers have to print filler, but this is ridiculous.
Oh, but wait.... isn't most of the River Project property owned by the former developer chosen by the Godfrey Administration, the much troubled Mr. Gaddi Leshem, or at least by the people the unfortunate Mr. Leshem now represents? Why, yes, that is so, says Ogden City business development czar Tom Christopolous. Mr. Leshem's associates own 60% of the River Project properties, he reports, and the rest belongs to "the city or other individuals." Well, then maybe the news in this story is that the new developer chosen by the Godfrey administration after its previous disastrous choice has arranged to acquire the properties held by Mr. Leshem and associates?
That would be news if it had happened. But it seems it has not. "It hasn't been determined," Mr. Christopolous says, how the new developer will acquire the 60% of the project properties owned by Mr. Leshem and his associates. Imagine that.
The final line of the story is, of course, our old familiar friend: "Leshem could not be reached for comment."
There was news here. But the Standard Examiner buried it. And so this morning the SE's subscribers will not be reading the headline and and story the paper should have presented them:
"LESHAM GROUP OUT AS RIVER PROJECT DEVELOPER; NEW DEVELOPER TO BE ANNOUNCED THIS WEEK."
