The Powder Mountain dispute is back on the front page of the Standard-Examiner this morning with this Dan Weist story, which is the first report we've gotten since yesterday's Rep. Froerer sponsored HB 218 public information session on Capitol Hill:
• Powder Mountain issue still far from a resolutionThis morning's story offers little information that we didn't already know, except for the following:
Rep. Gage Froerer, R-Huntsville, brought the proposal back this year, and the bill again is waiting for possible action in the remaining days of the session.Up until this point we'd assumed that Rep. Froerer had already worked out the procedure to move his bill forward to the Senate floor, notwithstanding its earlier failure in the Senate Government Operations Committee because of a tied 3-3 vote. Regular readers will of course no doubt recall our short 8:24 a.m. update of February 26, where we offered this comment from Rep. Froerer, in response to our inquiry about the bill's removal from the committee calender that morning:
But Froerer told about 15 residents and others at a Thursday meeting in the Capitol that this year was even more of an uphill battle.
To start with, the legislation never left committee after a tie vote.[...]
Froerer said some statehouse leaders want the people involved to settle the issue privately and not resort to legislation.
He was joined at the Capitol meeting by two other lawmakers who explained the complicated maneuvering to put the bill into motion.
Not on the agenda for this AM. We are expecting a letter from the Developers that would stay the litigation and the incorporation if this does not happen we will request to go directly to the Senate Board.Being concerned that Froerer's bill might be blocked from moving onto the Senate floor for procedural reasons related to the committee proceedings, we contacted Rep. Froerer this morning, and he assured us that his bill could be moved to the Senate for a vote with relative ease. But that's not the real problem he was alluding to in the upper quote, he said.
Get ready, folks... here's the kicker:
The real problem, Rep Froerer pointedly explains, is that the real estate development lobby has poured "at least $100 thousand" into killing this bill in the legislature; and that in order for his bill to succeed in the Senate, his bill's opposition will have to be met with commensurate lumpencitizen push-back. And here's the not so esoteric message Rep. Froerer delivered to us this morning, information that SE reporter Dan Weist did not report:
Ogden Valley citizens should be prepared to pony up at least $25 thousand to hire their own lobbyist; and this needs to happen very soon. Without the aid of a well-connected lobbyist, Rep. Froerer tells us that HB 218 is quite possibly toast. Email campaigns and repeated dunning phone calls won't cut it at this stage of the game either, Rep. Froerer informs us. The need for hard cash is the "unmentionable" element to which Rep Froerer was apparently referring, when he hinted about "more of an uphill battle," and "complicated maneuvering" it seems. Unfair as it is, that's how the "system" works, he candidly reveals.
That's your Utah civics lesson for the morning, gentle readers. We hope nobody loses their lunch.
Whether Ogden Valley citizens are at home this morning cracking open their piggy banks even at this moment, we do not know.
But our psychic sense does tell us we'll be hearing something very crabby from Gentle Ozboy on this topic very soon.
Update 3/5/10 9:11 a.m.: Ogden Valley Forum also has its own article up on this topic this morning, delivered with a slightly "chirpier" tone:
• HB 218 - The Meeting At The CapitolUpdate 3/5/10 10:58 a.m.: The above-linked OVF article has now been updated, with the addition of an interesting "tactical analysis" by prospective Powdervillian Steve Clark.
The World Wide Blogosphere of course awaits your ever-savvy comments.
