Breaking: Council Packets Set to Be Put Online Prior to Ogden City Council Meetings

Seeing will be believing, of course

Great news for Emerald City political wonks this afternoon (we think.) From Council Communications Specialist Amy Heaton we just received this:

• COUNCIL PROMOTES TRANSPARANCY BY LAUNCHING NEW MICROSITE AND PAPERLESS PACKETS FOR MEETING INFORMATION

If all goes well, we suppose we lumpencitizens who want to know what will be happening in regularly scheduled City Council meetings after May 4, 2010 will be no longer required to put up with uninformative crap like this.

Seeing will be believing, of course.

We'll be keeping our fingers crossed.

Mixed Economic Signals Call For Local Fiscal Prudence

Now is NOT the time for the taxpayers of Ogden to be burdened with further risky public debt

Interesting juxtaposition of articles in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune, with this chirpy story reporting earnings reports signalling "renewed strength in key companies" on the one hand:

• Economists hail uptick in spending...

And this story, which delivers the bad news that the Salt Lake City metropolitan area is still reeling from "the largest percentage increase in foreclosure filings the past year among more than 50 communities hardest hit by the nation's foreclosure crisis," on the other:

• Salt Lake hardest hit in housing

Putting it all in context, we note with astonishment that our home town newspaper is now strongly encouraging our city council to embark upon another round of massive public borrowing, in which connection we strongly urge the seven good folks on the Ogden City Council to be extremely wary.

With the above-described decidedly mixed economic signals, we encourage our City Council to treat our public monies with at least the same high degree of fiscal prudence which they would demonstrate in their own personal lives.

It's abundantly clear that the local economy isn't our of the financial woods yet. Now is NOT the time, we therefore believe, for the taxpayers of Ogden to be burdened with further risky public debt.

We should have learned some hard lessons about reckless pie-in-the-sky borrowing and spending from The Junction debacle...; but apparently we didn't. Hopefully our City Council will remember it's other people's hard-earned money they'll be gambling with.

That's our take and we're stickin' to it.

So what say our gentle readers about all this?

Council Overrides Mayor's Veto - Updated

No more continuous searchlights in Ogden, Yahoo!
Update: Teenybopper "dance club" manager sez: "Screw You"

For those readers awaiting a followup to Friday's WCF article, wherein Dan Schroeder provided a heads-up concerning a council agenda item calling for an override of Boss Godfrey's searchlight ordinance veto, we just received this information from gentle reader very skeptical, who attended tonight's council meeting:

Searchlight ordinance was overridden by the council. 7 for 0 against.
No more continous searchlights in Ogden, Yahoo!

A Weber County Forum Tip O' The Hat to the Ogden City Council for stickin' to their guns on this.

Update 4/28/10 6:49 a.m.: You're definitely not going to want to miss Scott Schwebke's Std-Ex writeup below, which includes (as an added bonus) dance club owner Laron Zaugg's candid admissions concerning a newly-hatched plot to solicit local neighbors to join in a criminal conspiracy to willfully violate the council's brand new light pollution ordinance:

• Spotlight ordinance to stay

Rules are only for the little people, of course. As everyone in Emerald City knows, the law which regulates the behavior of most of us is wholly inapplicable to Friends of Matt.

Salt Lake Tribune Poll: Looks Like Bob Bennett is Toast

Will Senator Bennett pull a rabbit out of his hat, with one last round of frantic pre-convention campaign spending?

On the heels of last Thursday's evidence, the Salt Lake Tribune offers up more polling data this morning to suggest that Utah's Junior Senator Bob Bennett may be toast:

Unless Sen. Bob Bennett's political fortunes change dramatically in the next two weeks, he could become Utah's first incumbent U.S. senator to lose his party's nomination in seven decades.
A new Salt Lake Tribune poll of Republican delegates shows Bennett running in third, behind GOP challengers Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater.
Lee logged 37 percent support in the survey, while Bridgewater came in at 20 percent, and Bennett lagged at 16 percent.

Read all about it here:

• Poll stunner: Sen. Bennett on brink of defeat

What about it gentle readers? Is it time to say bye-bye to Beltway Bob? Or will Bennett pull a rabbit out of his hat, with one last round of frantic pre-convention spending?

• Sen. Bob Bennett dropping big bucks before GOP convention

Here's the nutshell lowdown from the D-News on Bennett's last-minute campaign spending spree:

SALT LAKE CITY — Facing the strong possibility of elimination at the upcoming state GOP convention, Sen. Bob Bennett's campaign pulled out all the stops and spent a huge $271,000 in just the first 18 days of this month.
In comparison, that is almost as much as Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, spent in his entire two-year 2008 congressional race. Bennett's heavy spending this month also comes on top of the $428,000 that he spent in the first three months of the year (before the party caucuses) — for a total of nearly $700,000 in three and a half months this year.

Whew!

"Cash is king in politics," as all political wonks well know; and thanks to the generosity of the investment, banking, insurance and nuclear waste storage industries, Beltway Bob has a pot-load of it to spread around, in the ten days remaining before the Utah GOP convention.

The question is... "Will these great wads of campaign cash make any difference at all?"
So many questions, et cetera.

Update 4/27/10 1:00 p.m.: Standard-Examiner editorial page editor Doug Gibson is on this story, like a giant Rottweiler "finding and munching a tasty bone." Check out Doug's Std-Ex blog:

• Bob Bennett is cooked and ready to lose at convention

Chime in here or there, gentle readers.

And here we'd thought earlier this morning that we were once again mired in a slow news day.

Standard-Examiner Editorial: OUR VIEW: Walk the Ethics Talk

Call to Action: Utahns for Ethical Government needs more Weber County volunteer boots on the ground

It is particularly disheartening to see that Weber County fell far short of reaching the 10 percent plateau. Achieving positive change is more than mere talk. It requires action and taking time to stand against those who oppose reform.

Standard-Examiner Editorial
OUR VIEW: Walk the ethics talk
April 25, 2010

There's another fine editorial in this morning's Standard-Examiner, once again hammering the legislative ethics reform issue which has been a major topic of discussion here at Weber County Forum over the course of the past eight months:

• OUR VIEW: Walk the ethics talk

Among other things, the Std-Ex editorial board zeroes in on our own Weber County, wherein Utahns for Ethical Government sponsors inform us that that citizen inititiative petition volunteers have succeeded in gathering only a mere 40% of the requisite signatures necessary to qualify the initiative for the November 2012 ballot. Putting it all in context, we're informed that UEG volunteers have managed to gather more that the necessary number of signatures in Salt Lake, Davis and other counties, where there have been hordes of volunteers who've stepped up to circulate petitions. What's needed in Weber County... more UEG petition volunteers, we are informed.

In that connection, we've had discussions with our friends at the Ogden Valley Forum blog; and we've decided to join forces with the UEG organization, and try to help rustle up a cadre of Weber County volunteers to gather the 4,000 or so signatures necessary to put the UEG petition over the top in our own county.

As a matter of fact, our friend Larry, over at OVF, already took the first step in getting the ball rolling toward the effort this morning:

• Ethics Initive In Brief

Nobody will be looking for anyone to drop everything and make a full-time commitment here. All we'll be asking is that Weber County citizens within our respective readerships volunteer to put in a couple of hours manning a table at the library or a local shopping center, or to circulate petitions among your friends or other social networks.

We spoke with UEG organizer Dee Burmingham yesterday, who informed us that these petitions almost sell themselves. In a political atmosphere where a high percentage of Utahns favor robust ethics reform, the limiting factor in areas where EUG organizers have fallen short in their signature obtaining efforts has been demonstrated to be the relative shortage of volunteer boots on the ground, we are told.

We thus request that those ethics reform-minded readers send us an email via the upper contact link, in the event that you'd like to be involved in a new and re-energized Weber County petition gathering effort, folks. Your level of participation can be tailored to your own calender and level of commitment. If you'd like to have blank petitions and informational documents delivered to your door, we'll coordinate with the UEG people to make that happen.

Remember what the Std-Ex Editors said this morning:

Achieving positive change is more than mere talk. It requires action and taking time to stand against those who oppose reform.

Let's get crackin,' O gentle Ones.

Science Saturday On Weber County Forum

More great news from the science front

1) Attention Corporate Workers: are you fed up with employers who crack the whip, and complain when they find you napping in your cubicle? Well then send this new scientific data to your boss, whose tension level no doubt makes your workplace an unhappy and possibly hostile one:

• Naps and Creativity

Who knows? Maybe your nineteenth century-style Boss needs a nap himself.

2) Here's a new science story for automobile drivers, which adds new meaning to the standard "driver's ed" admonition... Keep your eyes on the road:

• Car Steered With Eyes, Computer Scientists Demonstrate

Just a helpful hint from yer Old Pal Rudi: please don't buy into this technology until you've actually had the brain implant.

3) The Hubble Space Telescope is having a birthday party:

• Hubble Space Telescope's 20th Anniversary

In our view, there's no machine earth society has ever made which so obviously and beautifully merits a great 20th Anniversary birth-day party. Check out the Hubble photo gallery below:

• Hubble Photo gallery Picture album

That's it for now, WCF science buffs.

Don't hesitate though, science-inclined WCF readers, to link your favorite science-oriented stories and links in our comment section below.

Over and out.

Mayor Vetoes Searchlight Ordinance

Possible veto override this Tuesday

by Dan Schroeder

If you live in Ogden and you ever look up at night, you've noticed the searchlight beam that's been "gracing" our evening skies every Friday and Saturday night since last summer. The light is located on top of the old Kiesel Building, just south of The Junction, and it's advertising The Vault, a dance club on the ground floor of the building.

I'm sure that people have different attitudes toward these kinds of searchlights. Some folks take them in stride as just another part of urban living. Others, including myself, are deeply offended that anyone would intentionally mar the beauty of the night sky for everyone within a five-mile radius.

Usually these searchlights are associated with some kind of special event, and they soon disappear. This one, though, seems to be a permanent fixture. These people have the audacity not only to disturb Ogden's night skies, but to do so every weekend, week after week, month after month, indefinitely.

You see, Ogden currently has no ordinance to regulate this kind of intrusion. And there always seem to be people who think that as long as something's not illegal, it's ok.

Fortunately, the City Council decided that enough is enough. It drafted an ordinance to limit the operation of a searchlight to no more than 12 nights per year, per location. Many other cities have similar ordinances, for obvious reasons. Other locations, such as Ogden Valley, prohibit searchlights entirely.

The City Council passed this new ordinance unanimously (6-0, with Van Hooser absent) at its April 6 meeting. I was delighted when I heard this news, but my delight was premature.

Now Mayor Godfrey has vetoed the ordinance. His rationale is that "History demonstrates that the use of spotlights self-regulates. They are used for a time by only a very few businesses and then they go away." The mayor does not state how The Vault's searchlight squares with his definition of "for a time".

This is the same mayor who says he wants to promote enjoyment of Ogden's beautiful outdoors, and who says he wants to attract businesses and residents who love that outdoors. Surely the mayor must realize that the night sky is an integral part of the outdoor environment that many of us cherish.

The City Council will vote this Tuesday, April 27, on a possible veto override (see agenda item #8), which requires 5 votes. The last time the mayor vetoed an ordinance that passed unanimously, the council sustained his veto. The meeting begins at 6:00 pm. You can also express your views to the council at citycouncil@ci.ogden.ut.us.

Salt Lake Tribune: Not All Spoken Is The Truth

Congratulations to KSL's John Daley for committing an act of good professional journalism

By Curmudgeon

Paul Rolly's latest column in the SL Trib has a good illustration of how journalists routinely fact-checking what public officials tell them can pay off in good stories:

• Rolly: Not all spoken is the truth

Here's how the column begins:

KSL-TV's John Daley provided a good example earlier this week of a journalism credo: Always be skeptical of what public officials tell you.

The Chairman of the UTA Board of Trustees told Daley that UTA exec salaries were "quite low" compared to the pay of public transit execs in other cities. And instead of simply printing that statement by a public official as uncontested fact [as a Top Of Utah daily which shall remain nameless here, but whose initials are TSE has been known to do], Daley decided to fact-check what he'd been told. And guess what he discovered? That, compared to transit execs' pay in other cities, UTA execs' pay is in fact "quite high":

• Outcry over UTA salaries growing louder

Both Daley's story and Rolly's column have the facts and figures so readers can compare the numbers for themselves.

Congratulations to Mr. Daley for committing journalism. Nice work.

Utah Tea Party Manifesto: "We've Taken Over The Utah GOP"

WCF reader query: Who believes Senator Bennett has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the upcoming Utah GOP Convention?

Way back on April 23, 2009 we published this Weber County Forum article, which featured a quite remarkable YouTube video, within which one of our favorite cable financial news channel reporters, CNBC's Rick Santelli, rallied the traders on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and called for the formation of a New Boston Tea Party, in the wake of another round of 2009 financial industry bailouts:


Well lo and behold, a lot has happened in the intervening twelve months; and the American Tea Party Movement has grown a quite muscular set of legs. Looks like Rick Santelli was definitely onto something, alright. Tea Parties are not just confined to the City of Boston any longer.

On 4/20/10 Gentle reader offered this comment: "Sen. Bob Bennett is in serious trouble," and provided this link:

• Bennett On Track to Get Bounced at Convention

And now in yesterday's Newsmax online edition we find this exceedingly confident headline statement. Some might even dub it a manifesto:

• Utah Tea Party: We've Taken Over the State GOP

Yesiree, folks; we do believe the Utah GOP 5/8/10 Convention will be a fascinating event to watch.

Keep in mind, WCF readers, that while Bennett was voting for the bailouts, he was not only a member of the Senate Banking Committee, but also one of the top recipients of financial industry contributions in the entire U.S. Senate.

So what about it, gentle readers? Is there anyone among us who believes that Senator Bennett has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the upcoming Utah GOP Convention? And amongst the long list of GOP U.S. Senate candidates, who has the best shot at winning the hearts and minds of this new pack of steely-eyed, constitutionally-minded GOP delegates... and winning the 2010 Utah GOP U.S. Senate nomination nod?

Plenty to talk about here on Weber County Forum, even on this otherwise tediously slow news day, we believe.

Don't let the cat get your tongues, O Gentle Ones.

Standard-Examiner: Downtown Project Gets a Green Light

Added Bonus: A powerful Standard-Examiner online guest commentary

This morning's Standard-Examiner finally lets the cat out of the bag, more or less, concerning the frenzy of chatter which has focused on mysterious activity in the Ogden downtown area along Washington Boulevard between 23d and 24th streets over the past several months. From this morning's Di Lewis story we learn that there are two big-dollar projects on Boss Godfrey's drawing board for this area:

• Downtown project gets greenlight

Piecing together the somewhat fragmented information which Ms. Lewis provides this morning, it appears the whole situation is lining up like this, with two projects in the Ogden City pipeline:

1) East side of Washington Boulevard (total bonding: $13 million):

A four-building retail development on the east side of Washington Boulevard between 23rd and 24th streets is proposed by Octagon Capital Partners, a Virginia-based company. A $9 million bond, which Octagon would repay, is going toward the $17 million retail development, while Ogden is getting a $4 million bond for a 250-stall parking garage behind the development.

2) West Side of Washington Boulevard (total bonding: $14 million):

The city is planning to bring another development, across the street from this one, to the county for bond money next Tuesday.
That development proposal is from Salt Lake City-based Sequoia Development, which would put in a 125- to-140-room hotel with possible other retail spaces and a subterranean parking garage.[...]
... $9 million for the hotel and retail and $3 million for the parking, which also would have 250 spaces.

Combined bonding for these projects: $27 million. Ouch! And who will be required to extend their municipal credit to bond for these two projects, O ye Gentle Emerald City taxpayers? Take a wild guess.

Other aspects of this morning's story remain fuzzy. In her opening paragraph Ms. Lewis offers this:

A Washington Boulevard parking garage and retail development project has received a financial go-ahead from Weber County.

Further down the story however, we find this:

Commissioners made sure they were not approving the construction of the parking structure, which is partially on county property, because the county is considering putting a secondary health department building on the land.

So at this juncture we're not provided enough information to determine with any certainty exactly what Weber County's role is in this, except to note that Ms. Lewis does inform us that Weber County will be throwing in an unspecified amount of federal grant money:

The commissioners unanimously voted Tuesday to allocate bond money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly known as stimulus money.

But then there's this paragraph, which adds to the confusion:

The city is planning to bring another development, across the street from this one, to the county for bond money next Tuesday.

(For the time being we'll assume that Ms. Lewis mistakenly used the wrong terminology here, and that she she did not mean to suggest that Ogden City would be asking Weber County to engage in its own bonding effort, but rather to inform Std-Ex readers that the Godfrey Administration would be making a pitch for the county's federal stimulus money, which is apparently already in the bag.)

And while we're on the subject of Washington Boulevard urban renewal, we'll take a short side tour and direct our readers' attention to an excellent and powerful guest commentery which popped up on the Std-Ex Live! website yesterday morning, wherein East Washington Boulevard property owner John Bowen comments about last Tuesday's Ogden City Property Confiscation Committee Hearing, in which he and some of his fellow adjacent property owners got ambushed by a council which apparently had its minds made up even prior the the blight hearing:

• Property owner questions blight designation

We extract this pithy paragraph from Mr. Bowen's compelling guest commentary:

Your readers need to know that this Entire Blight Meeting was a Joke. I believe the vote was determined ahead of time! It was meant to make us feel like the politicians were hearing our input, which was not true. They did not listen or care about any of the input that came from the property owners. There were almost no questions that were ask of the property owners by the City Council or the mayor. The only reason this meeting was conducted was to comply with the requirements in the law as it was written. If the City Council and Mayor really wanted the property owners input or had any regard at all for our desires, they would have met with us beforehand.

In closing, Mr. Bowen offers this sage advice:

I hope the voters will keep a watchful eye on what the City Council and the Mayor do, and hold them accountable at election time. Your property, which you feel is safe, may be next in the line of fire. Three weeks ago I thought my property was safe!

Duly noted Mr., Bowen; and we're certain that the ever-attentive Emerald City Lumpencitizens will carefully heed your advice.

Salt Lake Tribune: A Bar Too High

An invitation to WCF readers to roll up their sleeves and hit the streets to put the UEG petition drive over the top

It's the political equivalent of pole vaulting over the Wasatch Front. The Legislature has set the bar way too high for citizen ballot initiatives, making it nearly impossible for the people to exercise their constitutional right to make laws.

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial
A bar too high
April 20, 2010

Fine editorial in today's Salt Lake Tribune, chastising the State legislature for restrictive regulations undermining the right of the people to enact laws through the constitutionally provided citizen initiative process and urging the legislature to "lower the bar":

• A bar too high

Do we believe today's editorial will spark action in the legislature to lower the ridiculous high signature numbers bar? Fat Chance!

This morning's editorial follows up Friday's disappointing news wherein Kim Burningham, leader of the initiative group Utahns for Ethical Government, conceded publicly for the first time that the UEG drive probably fell short in at least some Utah districts:

• Ethics initiative probably out for this year's election

Sadly, we learn from the latter story that our own Weber County was one of the areas where the UEG petition drive probably came up short:

In Weber County, an estimated 4,400 signatures were submitted, far short of the 7,250 that would be needed to reach the 10 percent threshold, even if every one of them is valid.

Happily however, gentle readers, the UEG is not ready to simply throw in the towel. The UEG website will soon resume accepting electronic signatures; and petition sponsors inform us that within the next week or so, the organization will be seeking extra Weber County volunteers to assist in the commencement of a stepped up hard-copy Weber County signature drive. Even in the event that petition sponsors failed to meet the April 15 deadline with the requisite signatures to place the initiative on the November 2010 ballot, they'll now be shooting for a new mid-August deadline, to qualify the initiative for the 2012 ballot.

In that connection, we invite any WCF readers who'd like to roll up their sleeves and volunteer to hit the streets to put the Weber County petition drive over the top, to contact us via our email contact link in the upper right sidebar. We'll be compiling a list of those readers who'd like to get involved, and will attempt to help coordinate our WCF volunteers to work with UEG sponsors, in assisting during the next four months toward the UEG's renewed petition signature gathering effort.

Duty calls, Weber County proponents of robust ethics reform in Utah. If we seriously desire true ethics reform in our state legislature, this may well prove to be our last chance.

Message Bills Redux: Blowback From The Oval Office?

Are the Utah legislature's "message bills" and the Obama Adminstration's cancellation of Utah aerospace industry contracts causally connected?

During the past Utah legislative session, the northern Utah (and national) press has devoted a substantial amount of ink to the series of "message bills" which gushed out of the Utah legislature during the last general session, heightening the awareness of Utahns to the 2010 legislature's agenda to draw a line in the sand and stand up to the encroachment of the federal government upon the "sovereign rights" of Utah, as reserved to the citizens by theTenth Amendment. Northern Utah media chimed in on the topic recently here and here; and the topic even graced the pages of the New York Times late last month. The national cable news media have also been whipping up a political frenzy and bringing the "States Rights" movement to the national public forefront too, as the lower Fox News video attests:


Did ya's catch the part about the "civilist war?"

The Standard-Examiner carried a recent editorial on this subject, offering the opinion, in a nutshell, that despite all the legislative sound and fury, these "messages bills"... "will ultimately "fall on deaf ears."

As to that proposition we're not quite sure; and in that connection we'll direct our readers' attention to a troubling story which appeared in the Std-Ex on Friday:

• Obama plan leaves ATK outside looking in

Similar stories also appeared last week in the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune.

So what about it, gentle readers? Is the Obama administration's decision to cut one of Utah's top employers (ATK) out of the federal funding loop a mere coincidence? Has the Utah legislature's strident anti-federal states rights posture truly fallen on "deaf" oval office ears, as the Std-Ex suggests? Or is it possible that what we are now witnessing a demonstration of a cause-and-effect nexus between Utah legislative "sword rattling" on the one hand, and federal government retribution on the other? Is it inconceivable that the Obama Administration is replying to us with a strong "message" all its own? Is anyone willing to rule out the possibility that federal officials are now playing hard-ball in response to the state legislature's hard anti-federal stance? Do these initial state/federal menuverings signal the initial skirmishes in advance of what to come to be a new Utah War, Part Deux? If so, we all hope all conscientious Utah citizens have their emergency food supplies all stocked up. You DO HAVE an emergency food stash, right? And don't forget to load up the truck with them Utah-manufactured guns, just in case.

So many questions.. so few answers.

Let's hear it from our gentle readers.

Update 4/19/10 2:45 p.m.: Quickie quiz... Who is the greatest patriot in American history? Check out our WCF cheat-sheet:

1) Thomas Jefferson
2) James Madison
3) George Washington
4) Patrick Henry
5) Hunter S. Thompson
6) Carl Wimmer
7) Other

Just for fun, take our poll:

• Best American Patriot Ever

This poll will also be planted in our right sidebar for the next coupla days or so.

Another New Blogger In The Weber County Blogosphere

Be sure to check out Jennifer Neil's online efforts

Here's a little something for a slow news day:

It's with great delight that we announce that yet another Weber County Forum regular has fired up a brand new blog. Check out Jennifer Neil's online efforts at...

• The Lovely Jennifer

We've also added Jennifer's blog link in our right sidebar.

Welcome to the blogosphere, TLJ... and happy blogging!

Hopefully this will give that pink pageload counter of hers a nice kick-start.

Channel 4 News: Demo Rep Neil Hansen Files A Criminal Complaint Against GOP House Majority Whip Brad Dee

Ya gotta love Neil for having the guts and the integrity to go against the old boy's club rules, and point out the dog crap on the pretty green lawn when he sees it - Ozboy

By: Get Down Sit On A Bench

Wow, Did anyone see the ABC4 News at Ten? This is a juicy one that you need to see about the Great Brad Dee.

Here is the web page for it:

• Utah legislator files criminal complaint against House Majority Whip

Here is the video:


Here are the Facebook pages:

• Bill Hansen, - Facebook Wall
• Tell (Governor Herbert), to keep his paws off Our Pensions!

Thoughtful and temperate reader comments are invited, as always.

Update 4/18/2010 7:21 a.m.: The Standard-Examiner is all over this story too:

• Hansen files criminal complaint against Dee

Standard-Examiner: Ogden Will Appeal Hatch Act Ruling That Police Chief Must Resign

Isn't it time for Boss Godfrey to demand Chief Greiner's resignation?

Interesting new developments in the Jon Greiner Hatch Act matter within this morning's Standard-Examiner story, which reports that Ogden City will appeal Administrative Judge Lana Parke's decision that Senator/Chief Greiner violated the Hatch Act by signing off on a half-dozen federal grants that were in place during his Senate campaign:

OGDEN -- The city will appeal a judge's ruling that Police Chief Jon Greiner must resign or the municipality will be forced to forfeit about $215,000 in federal grants because of a Hatch Act violation.
John Patterson, the city's chief administrative officer, said he's confident Administrative Law Judge Lana Parke's decision last month to side with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel against Greiner will be overturned.
"There are procedural and substantive issues we want to raise through appeal, and we expect to prevail," he said.

There are a couple of elements within this morning's story which we believe to be particularly worthy of note:

1) In an April 2 story the Standard-Examiner reported that the Ogden City taxpayers had not been bearing the costs of this very expensive ongoing litigation, and that our insurance premiums would not even go up, as a result of the Ogden City's protracted legal maneuverings:

The Utah Risk Management Mutual Association, the city's insurance carrier, is paying Jim Bradshaw, a lawyer defending Greiner, and Stan Preston, an attorney representing the city administration, Patterson said. [...]
The Hatch Act case shouldn't increase the city's annual insurance premium with URMMA, Ball said. Premiums are based on the city's size and number of employees and not on individual claims, he said. The city's URMMA premium in 2009 was about $210,000.

To that reassuring news we breathed a sigh of relief in this April 2 WCF article. Unfortunately for the taxpayers of Ogden City however, Mr. Schwebke this morning reveals new and conflicting information. It turns out, as Scott Schwebke reports, that we were earlier misinformed about who will ultimately bear the burden for the costs and fees associated with this litigation:

The Utah Risk Management Mutual Association, the city's insurance carrier, is paying Jim Bradshaw, a lawyer defending Greiner, and Stan Preston, an attorney representing the city administration.
However, as part of URMMA's recapture loss program, the city will be required to fully reimburse the organization for defense costs, Patterson said. For each year that Bradshaw and Preston provide legal representation, he said, the city will be given five years to repay URMMA.

No surpises here, we suppose. Over the course of the five years we've been following the antics of the Boss Godfrey Administration here at Weber County Forum, we've grown painfully accustomed to receiving such false information.

Special thanks to Ace Reporter Schwebke for digging a little deeper into this issue, and setting the record straight.

2) Like all appellants commencing appeals, Ogden City Administration officials express confidence that they will prevail on appeal. Mr. John "Pureheart" Patterson generally refers to various "procedural and substantive issues":

John Patterson, the city's chief administrative officer, said he's confident Administrative Law Judge Lana Parke's decision last month to side with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel against Greiner will be overturned.
"There are procedural and substantive issues we want to raise through appeal, and we expect to prevail," he said.

Among those "issues" which Mr. Patterson mentions are these:

a) Parke prohibited the city from putting Assistant Police Chief Wayne Tarwater on the witness stand during a hearing in October. Tarwater would have testified that he oversees federal grants for the police department, Patterson said.
b) Greiner's signature on grant applications is a mere formality and a requirement for funding, he said.

We don't know whether Ogden City will prevail in this case on appeal. If an upper court determines that these alleged defects deprived Mr. Greiner and Ogden City of a fair trial in Judge Parke's court, an upper court might well "overturn" Judge Parke's decision. In a very real sense, an appeal in this matter amounts to a complete crap-shoot.

But lets cut through the legal mumbo-jumbo, folks. Even in the event that this matter is "overturned" on appeal, here's the likely remedy: The upper court will simply order a trial de novo.

And what's the meaning of this to the Emerald City taxpayers?

It means that even if the matter is sent back to the trial court for a brand new trial, attorneys Bradshaw and Preston will still be billing on the clock, and the city's already back-breaking legal bill, (which we've now learned will ultimately be borne by the dumb taxpayers), will continue to mount up.

So we're compelled this morning to ask whether it might be a more wise and fiscally-prudent course of action for the Ogden City Administration to simply demonstrate "the better part of valor," and throw in the towel:

Isn't it time for Boss Godfrey to demand Chief Greiner's resignation?

Yeah... moral victories are great... but such victories ought to be evaluated according to at least a rudimentary a cost v. benefits analysis we believe. And yes. We know Chief Greiner is a fine police chief, folks. But is he so indispensible to the Ogden City Police Department that we're willing to continue to bear the hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs, fees and forfeitures which have accrued, and will inevitably continue to accrue from the stubborn pursuit of this quixotic Hatch Act litigation?

Don't let the cat get your tongues, O Gentle Ones.

Utahns For Ethical Government Update

Bullet-point Post-Press Conference Report from the UEG's Utah Hero Kim Burningham

The lower text summary comes from UEG's Utah Hero Kim Burningham, via an email we received at 12:56 p.m. today:

Introduction

· Thanks to The supporters, the public, and to the executive committee and other key workers
· Overwhelming message: the public wants ethics reform (door to door, Arts Fest SG, Taylorsville library, Kent’s Market in Brigham)

Introduction to three main issues
1. Where we stand at the conclusion of April 15
2. Our delight at the temporary restraining order decision of the federal court
3. Our plans for the future * * *

Where we stand at the conclusion of April 15
· 77,000 signatures tabulated and delivered
· Other signatures turned in to local clerks: the number unknown
· Electronic signatures:
a. Many, whether the courts will determine they are allowed is unclear.
b. Wave of the future, but we suffered serious problems
1. In submission: in one location, they even refused to accept the copies of electronic signatures that we provided.
2. In keeping the web site open for people to sign
3. In long waits.

Our delight at the temporary restraining order decision of the federal court
· Yesterday in Federal court: request for a temporary restraining order
· Ultimately granted by Judge Waddoups, with an April 28 date set for the actual hearing
· I regard this decision as a victory for the rights of the citizens to privacy,
a. The right to remove names is not changed and appropriate.
b. But the decision to disallow public revelation of the names is akin to the sacred right of the secret ballot
c. This TRO is a move toward limiting harassment of petitioners throughout the State

Our plans for the future
· The game is not over!
· The drive to put the ethics reform initiative on the ballot has two deadlines
· Relative to deadline number one: April 15
a. In order to get on the 2010 ballot, yesterday’s April 15 deadline was our goal.
b. As I have explained, the actual outcome of that goal is not clear and will not be fully known for weeks.
1. The expectation that we would reach our goal in 26 of 29 districts is particularly challenging
· Relative to deadline number two: mid August
a. The law also says that an initiative effort has one year from the filing date to gain the necessary signatures (to put the issue on the ballot in November 2012 - Rudi).
b. deadline #2: We have four more months to make that goal!
c. At minimum, we are ¾’s of the way to that goal

Conclusion
a. Too close to call—we may not know the actual results exactly for some time
· However, the most challenging aspect of the requirements for passage of the initiative: the requirement that we reach the 10% goal in 26 of 29 Senate districts.

Basketball game analogy:
a. We have had a scrappy and tight battle to the end of the game
b. But like the basketball game where our team sinks the final bucket,
c. The game now goes to OVERTIME!

Open to questions:

Kim Burningham 801-292-9261 krburningham@utahethics.org

Dixie Huefner 801-359-6705 dshuefner@utahethics.org

Dang! Ya gotta love these hard working and stunningly community-minded UEG people!

Let's all step up and give them three cheers!

And let's all hang in there people, and devote all our efforts to beating down our autocratic Utah legislative tyrants, just as the founding fathers of America beat down the tyrannical King George III, way back in 1776:

"Nothing of importance happened today." - King George the Third - July 4, 1776 diary entry.

Breaking: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Sued for Fraud on Mortgage-backed CDOs

The SEC finally decides to enforce the law... what a novel idea

Surprise of surprises. It appears the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may have finally "grown a pair." Bloomberg.com reported about an hour ago that the SEC has sued Goldman Sachs for fraud, in connection with its Collateralized Mortgage Debt Security Scam (click the foregoing link even if you don't click any of the others on this page), which during the past year brought the world economy to its knees. Here's the lede from this morning's beaking Bloomberg.com story:

April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was sued by U.S. regulators for fraud tied to collateralized debt obligations that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The firm’s shares tumbled as much as 16 percent and financial stocks slumped.
Goldman Sachs misstated and omitted key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was starting to falter, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement today. The SEC also sued Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman Sachs vice president.

Read the full writeup here:

• Goldman Sachs Sued by SEC for Fraud Tied to CDOs

After sitting on its thumbs for over a year, it would appear that the SEC has finally gotten off its neoCON ass, and decided, however belatedly, to discharge its duty as the primary U.S. securities market regulator, and to actually enforce the law.

What a novel idea.

Salt Lake Tribune: Utahns For Ethical Government Lawyers Sue In Federal Court - UPDATED

Godspeed to the UEG lawyers
UPDATED: Temporary restraning order granted; press conference set for 11:00 a.m.

Interesting development on the citizen's initiative petition front, according to this morning's morning's story in the Salt Lake Tribune:

• Suit demands secrecy for ethics petition signers.

In Tuesday's WCF article we assured our readers that Utahns for Ethical Government's (UEG) lawyers were prepared to go to court, although we confess that we had no idea they'd be doing it quite so soon. From this morning's Cathy McKitrick story:

One day shy of the deadline to turn in 95,000 valid voter signatures, attorneys who drafted a pending ethics-reform initiative filed suit in U.S. District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the practice of making petition signatures public.
David Irvine and Alan Smith, two of the key legal minds behind Utahns for Ethical Government, requested a temporary restraining order -- and permanent injunction -- to block the release of signers' names, addresses and, in some cases, their age or birth dates. Current state law allows their release as soon as county clerks have accomplished the task of matching names to registered voters.
"There's a provision in Utah's initiative statute that once you've filed your packets with the county clerk they become a public record," Smith said. "We're challenging the constitutionality of that statute. In effect it chills the First Amendment rights of those who signed the petition."

We'd expected that Utah Republicans who'd signed the petition would experience a certain amount of needling from GOP jack-boots operatives for having deviated from the Party Line. What we hadn't expected was that ethics reform-minded GOP petition signators, in doing so, would be mean-spiritedly accused of having committed the equivalent of an act of political treason:

"We want to protect those who signed our petition from being harassed," Irvine said, noting that some signed just because they thought that people should get to vote on the question.
"The [state] Republican Party has said it will target our folks," Irvine added. "We've had Republicans in Utah County saying 'if you sign you're not fit to run as a Republican.'"

Old-fashioned right wing socialist Brown-shirt Politics, anyone?

Godspeed to the UEG lawyers.

Sign the petition here:

• Utahns for Ethical Government

Please be patient, folks. The UEG website has been up and down this morning, (and over the past day or two as well), due to user overload (which is a positive omen for initiative supporters, wethinks). If you get a page load error the first time around, come back later and try again. Today's the last day for the gathering of signatures by the way, so for those who've dawdled... please be persistent... and don't give up until your electronic signature has been lodged.

Update 4/16/10 6:00 a.m.: The Salt Lake Tribune reports that U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups granted the UEG's request for a temporary restraining order to keep petition signers' names secret:

• Ethics initiative 'close' to making ballot

We also received an email from UEG representative Kim Burningham about thirty minutes ago informing us that despite intermittent crashes of UEG's website throughout the day, "yesterday also brought great 'highs,'" and "that there is far more news--and even more exciting--that will be clear at the 11 a.m. press conference this morning."

We'll keep our ears open, tune into this morning's press conference and report back with any new developments arising in connection with the UEG petition story.

Gotta admit the suspense is killing us.

Stay tuned, WCF readers.

Open Space Meeting Tonight

Snoozers will be losers

For the benefit of those readers who may not already have put the matter on calender, we'll once again remind you of tonight's public meeting, wherein the Ogden Planning Department will unveil the first draft of Ogden's new Open Space Plan, and open up the floor for public input:

DATE: Thursday, April 15
TIME: 7 p.m. - 10p.m.
PLACE: Megaplex @ The Junction (2nd FL Meeting Room - 23rd & Kiesel)

As gentle reader BAT_girl aptly reminds us, "The more people attend and speak up, the more likely the lumpencitizens will be heard."

Snoozers will be losers.

Standard-Examiner: Ogden City Property Confiscation Committee Declares Four-block Downtown Area Blighted

The sky's the limit when your City Council gambles with other peoples' money, we guess

Scott Schwebke reports this morning on the results of last night's Ogden City Property Confiscation Committee (RDA) Hearing, and reveals that Boss Godfrey-style right-wing crony socialism remains alive and well in Emerald City. Here's the gist:

OGDEN -- By a 5-2 vote, the city council, acting as the municipality's redevelopment agency board, agreed Tuesday night to declare a four-block area in the east-central section of the city as blighted.
City council members who voted against the designation were Susan Van Hooser and Amy Wicks.

Read the whole sad story here:

• Four-block Ogden area designated as blighted; redevelopment to renew downtown

Fasten your seatbelts and hold on tight to your wallets, folks, as our new council majority of five (Comrades Blair, Garner, Gochnour, Stephens and Stephenson) throw fiscal conservatism to the wind, pick up where the financially reckless 2004-05 Gang of Five Council left off, and embark upon yet another round of foolhardy, borrow-and-spend, tax increment-financed BIG SPENDING.

Sadly, eight short months since the taxpayers bailed out Boss Godfrey's money-losing, tax-increment financed Junction Project Scam, it's blatantly apparent that our dreamy and fleeceable City Council has learned absolutely nothing from the experience.

The sky's the limit when your City Council gambles with other peoples' money, we guess.

Update 4/14/01 12:26 p.m.: Per Dan S:

Meanwhile, a separate SE article provides more detail about what the city has in mind for part of this area: Redevelopment of four buildings on the 2300 block of Washington by an Virginia outfit called Octagon Capital Partners, and a parking garage behind these buildings. The parking garage would have 250 spaces and cost $4 million (i.e., $16,000 per space). It would be built by the city and financed by a 20-year bond, repaid through a special assessment district encompassing properties that would benefit from the parking garage. [2d link added by your Blogmeister]

Thusly, the Boss Godfrey plot sickens!

Ogden City Property Confiscation Committee Hearing Thread

A whole new thread, for the benefit of those who'd like to live blog, or otherwise report on tonight's Ogden City RDA "blight hearing."

We just received this missive in a lower comments thread:

Are you interested in postings from the Ogden City Confiscation Committee hearing tonight?
I'm passing through Ogden and would be happy to do so.
If so, where would I do that? Here?
-Lone Gunman

The answer of course is a hearty "YES;" and in response to this inquiry, we're thus setting up this whole new thread, for the benefit of those who'd like to live blog, or otherwise report on tonight's Ogden City RDA "blight hearing."

Yes, Lone Gunman, we're happy to take you up on your gracious offer!

Have at it, O Gentle One(s).

We'll be standing by for what might well turn out to be a very lively event.

Let's just say "we're all ears."

Update 4/14/10 3:15 a.m.: Special thanks to drive-by podcaster Lone Gunman, who dropped into town last night and offered a spellbinding and gut-busting play-by-play narration of last night's farcical Godfrey Administration blight hearing presentation. Trust us, folks. You owe it to yourselves to check out LG's wry running commentary from last night's meeting, down there in our lower comments section.

Update 4/15/10 3:00 p.m.: Lucky us. The Ogden City Internet Technology Crew have finally gotten around to putting up the video of Tuesday's RDA meeting onto the City website. Check it out! Select the April 13 meeting from the lower video menu:

• Ogden City Council Videos

Watch the Five Boss Godfrey Comrades (Blair, Garner, Gochnour, Stephens and Stephenson) awaken from the dead of sleep at the end of a very long and boring meeting, and then rubber-stamp Boss Godfrey's right-wing socialist land-grab agenda, which was already their plan in the first place.

A Weber County Forum Tip O' The Hat to Councilwomen Van Hooser and Wicks, the only two apparently fiscally-responsible grownups left on the Ogden City Council.

Standard-Examiner Editorial: Allow Online Petition Signatures

It will be a shame if these citizens initiative petition efforts are defeated, by getting too few signatures

Fine editorial in this morning's Standard-Examiner, urging Lt. Governor Bell to reconsider his office's anti-democratic stance, against allowing electronic signatures for the Utah ethics reform and fair boundaries initiatives.

If however, it's necessary to overturn Bell's legally weak posture in court, Utahns for Ethical Government is fully prepared to do that. Remember, people, the Attorney General's opinion letter upon which Lt. Governor Bell relies does not have the force of law, and that such a letter is in fact by its own nature no more authoritative than any other opinion letter which might be issued by any other licensed Utah lawyer. UEG lawyers are prepared for litigation; and they'll soon be seeking declaratory relief in the courts, if necessary.

Citizens' initiative sponsors are still urging Utah voters to continue to go online to affix their electronic signatures to the petitions, pending a judicial resolution of this matter. In the event that these online petitions are ultimately ruled invalid (a low-probability outcome, in our opinion,) petition sponsors will still have your full contact information available, so they will be able to easily contact you to obtain a hard-copy signature.

As of April 2, UEG spokesman issued a press release stating that UEG anticipated reaching somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of its mandated 95,000 signatures of registered Utah voters by April 4, 2010. So with two days remaining, we'll put on one extra pre-deadline (April 15) push and strongly urge those of you who haven't yet signed the petition to do so now, without any further delay.

Once again, here are the links to the UEG and Fair Boundaries online petitions:

• Fair Boundaries
• Utahns for Ethical Government

You can also click on the graphic above, which will take you directly to the UEG's online petition data entry page.

As the Standard-Examiner editorial board emphasizes:

This is a unique opportunity for Utah residents to send a clear message to lawmakers that we are fed up with long-delayed ethics reforms and are taking matters into our own hands. It will be a shame if that effort is defeated, either by getting too few signatures, or having names gathered electronically struck down by the lieutenant governor.

Need we say more?

Big Emerald City RDA Meeting Tomorrow Night!

If you decide to attend tomorrow night's RDA session, be sure to bring along your steely eyes and flaming torches, etc.

For the sake of those readers who haven't been carefully watching their calenders, we'll helpfully provide a quick reminder of an important matter which is set for tomorrow's Ogden RDA Board agenda:

• Ogden City Redevelopment Agency Agenda - April 13, 2010 at 6:00 p.m.

Specifically, the only substantive item on tomorrow night's RDA calender is the Godfrey Administration's latest pet project, i.e., to enact "proposed resolution 2010-1, making a finding of blight (in preparation for a possible subsequent eminent domain condemnation action) in the area encompassing a full 4 downtown city blocks in the heart of Ogden's Central Business District, from 20th to 24th; and east from Washington to Adams Avenue."

We've previously discussed this matter at length on Weber County Forum; and we'll add that we've also heard from one affected downtown property owner who resides in the U.S. south-land, that he'll be driving cross-country (8 hours) to attend this Boss Godfrey RDA Dog-and Pony Show, to defend his individual property rights on Tuesday night.

What a shame it is that an out-of-town investor who put his money on the line, demonstrated his faith in Ogden's future, and purchased an investment property in Boss Godfrey's BossGodfreyWorld, is now compelled to travel half-way across the North American continent to Ogden, to defend his investment against Godfrey and his evil, land-grabbing, money-grubbing, right-wing socialist cabal.

No?

We do believe tomorrow night's meeting will be extremely interesting.

If you decide to attend tomorrow night's RDA session, be sure to bring along your steely eyes, popcorn, torches and pitchforks. Cymbals, cow-bells and megaphones might also be in order too, just to keep the Sleepy Gochnour 2010-11 Council from snoozing through the whole proceeding:

The "Villagers" prepare to "lobby" Boss Godfrey & the Gochnour Council

That's our take; and we're stickin' to it. Other "sadly misguided viewpoints" will also be entertained here on WCF, of course, as a result of our unrelenting courtesy.

So what say our gentle readers about all this?

Standard-Examiner Editorial: Dump Greiner!

If Gentle Curmudgeon were of suspicious turn of mind, he might be wondering...

By Curmudgeon

A pretty good editorial in this morning's Standard-Examiner:

• Why Give Up $215,000?

Good question. From the editorial:

Apparently Jon Greiner will remain as Ogden's chief of police and the city will pass up $215,000 in future federal grants -- its penalty for Greiner's violation of the Hatch Act when he signed off on federal grants while campaigning for his state senate seat....
Greiner was clearly guilty of violating the Hatch Act, according to Judge Lana Parke's 22-page ruling, which agreed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel....
Parke wrote, "By choosing to disregard Office of Special Counsel's warning, Chief Greiner voluntarily and knowingly placed himself at risk of prosecution...."
There is no need to keep Greiner as Ogden's police chief. Contrasted with the loss of $215,000, Greiner is expendable...

The SE editorial board got that right. Pretty good editorial overall, except that it continues the SE's long-standing policy of tip-toeing ever so g-e-n-t-l-y around the name of Hizzonah, Mayor Matthew Godfrey when attributing responsibility for the mess. Instead, the editorial talks vaguely about the responsibility of un-named "Ogden City Officials."

As I understand it, Ogden's police chief is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Mayor. All Mayor Godfrey had to do was ask his crony, Jon "Double Dip" Greiner for his resignation as police chief, and Ogden would be spared forgoing nearly a quarter of a million dollars in what the SE rightly identifies as "the people's money." Presumably Mayor Godfrey could still save the public's money by asking for Double Dip's resignation. He should. But he won't.

If I were of suspicious turn of mind, I might be wondering about now what Chief Double Dip Greiner has on Hizzonah that has guaranteed the Chief his continuing job at an additional and needless cost of nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the public's money.....

County Convention Post-mortem: UPDATED

The Demos renominate Neil Hansen; The GOP indulges in some ugly self-cannibalization

We'll briefly highlight two Standard-Examiner stories this morning, which report on the outcomes of the Democratic and Republican county conventions, which were held yesterday on the WSU campus:

• Incumbent Hansen wins nomination
• Delegates hear from candidates at Weber County GOP convention

Notably, the Democratic convention featured only one contested intra-party race, in which veteran House District 9 Representative incumbent Neil Hansen was again nominated for the 2010 General Election race by a substantial 67% margin, while GOP delegates indulged in a noticeable degree of political self-cannibalization, ousting county-level incumbents by large vote tally margins in two of three contested races .

Another interesting outcome of yesterday's Weber County GOP confab... Senator Bennett got hammered in the straw poll:

Weber delegates, in a straw poll, gave Bennett 22.75 percent of the vote. However two of his challengers polled stronger, with Lee receiving 32.19 percent and Eagar 27.68.

The straw poll was informational only, to be sure. And the polling involved county, and not state delegates. Nevertheless you can also be sure that even this informal result was the cause of some heartburn in the Bennett campaign camp.

That's it for now, gentle readers.

Who will be the first to comment?

Update 4/11/10 1:00 p.m.: Please take note that we've now updated our 2010 Candidates Roster, to reflect the elimination of unsuccessful intra-party candidates in the now concluded Demo and GOP conventions:

• 2010 Weber County General Election Candidate Roster

This roster, which is also linked from our right sidebar, is undergoing near-daily revisions. So be sure to check back frequently for all the latest updates.

Saturday Morning Emerald City Open Topic Thread

Who will be the first to lead the discussion?

Your blogmeister will be tied up for most of the morning on partisan political business, so we'll turn the floor over to our readers to set the tone for this morning's discussion with whatever topics float your boats.

And just to get everyone into the spirit, howbout this Standard-Examiner story, for starters? Seems like a week doesn't go by without someone from the Davis County GOP landing in "hot water." [wink]:

• Weber seizes computers / Campaign vendor for Davis candidate investigated over email

Who will be the first to lead the discussion within this morning's open topic thread?

Have at it, O Gentle Ones.

Standard-Examiner: Both Parties Converge On WSU Tomorrow For Their Respective County Nominating Conventions

Weber County Forum endorses GOP individual property rights advocate Craig Call in House District 6

This morning's Standard-Examiner focuses on tomorrow's Democratic and Republican County Nominating Conventions, where county delegates will attempt to thin the field of candidates in contested intra-party races. This morning's digital and hard-copy editions also provide a handy graphic, summarizing the contested races for each major party:


In yesterday's WCF article we proudly endorsed Terry Thompson for Sheriff and offered this comment, respecting that endorsement:

Seriously though, we're proud to join Sheriff Slater in endorsing Terry Thompson for Weber County Sheriff. Among all prospective candidates for all Weber County 2010 offices, we believe Terry's the most clear standout in any of the county-wide races.

With twenty-twenty hindsight however, and having now examined the above list, we confess we might have been a might hasty in narrowing our "standout" list to merely one single candidate.

And it's in that connection that we'll now shine the spotlight on yet another convention candidate whom we believe deserves a good long hard look. So Weber County GOP Leg. 6 convention delegates, please take note:

Within the State House District 6 race you'll find the name Craig Call. For those of you who are unaware, this is the same Craig Call who founded the Utah Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman and ran it for over ten years. Mr. Call has been a true friend of Utah property owners over the years, and as long-time WCF readers will remember, it was Mr. Call's office which leveled the playing field for Ogden River Project property owner Mike Moyal, with that office's 2007 ruling that Emerald City's then-existent and ill-conceived 6-month River Project property development moratorium was illegal under Utah law.

Inasmuch as Mr. Call hasn't apparently been deeply involved in Legislative District 6 GOP politics until quite recently, and may be an unfamiliar name to many of you, we're delighted to shine the spotlight on Mr. Call's candidacy. For Weber County Convention delegates, especially those from Leg. District 6, we urge you to visit Mr. Call's campaign website and learn a little more about an individual property rights advocate who deserves local star status, as far as we're concerned:

• Call on Craig for Utah State Legislator

Based on the foregoing, we hereby proudly offer our second pre-convention endorsement... for House District 6 GOP candidate Craig Call.

That's it for now, O Gentle Ones.

Who'll be the first to chime in respecting Mr. Call's candidacy, or concerning any of the other contested races listed in the graphic above?

Sheriff Slater Endorses Terry Thompson For Weber County Sheriff

Weber County Forum is proud to join Sheriff Slater in endorsing Terry Thompson

With the Weber County GOP Nominating Convention looming this weekend, we can't resist throwing in our own 2¢, concerning one of the County races wherein nominations will be made by Weber County Republican delegates on Saturday. Back on March 16, we published this article, wherein we focused on the three contenders running in the 2010 County Sheriff's race:

With the impending retirement of Weber County Sheriff Brad Slater, there are three fresh faces lining up for the Weber County Sheriff's job, with Democrat Gary Haws and Republicans Brett Haycock and Terry Thompson vying for the nomination from their respective County Conventions.

We'll also refer back to this January 12 WCF article, wherein we reported the impending retirement of our current Weber County Sheriff, Brad Slater.

Within the latter article we said this:

We duly congratulate Sheriff Slater for his many years of dedicated and highly competent public service; and we also agree that Sheriff Slater will be "much missed," after his retirement in January 2011.
Sheriff Slater also told us he'll be endorsing his preferred Weber County Sheriff successor, possibly as early as early the Weber County GOP Nominating Convention.
With this in mind, we can't wait to endorse Sheriff Slater's "Pick."

Well... for the benefit of Weber County delegates who'll be in attendance at Saturday's Weber County Convention, the waiting is over. Sheriff Slater has weighed in on the subject:

• Sheriff Slater Endorses Terry Thompson

We'll join Sheriff Slater in endorsing Terry Thompson for Weber County Sheriff, and we'll add that we're not merely doing so merely because he's Brad Slater's pick. Your blogmeister has had the opportunity to work with Terry Thompson over the years on a variety of volunteer projects, and we're convinced his combination of brains, management skill and street smarts make him the ideal candidate to pick up where Sheriff Slater will be leaving off.

If you liked Sheriff Slater's savvy and highly-professional approach to Weber County law enforcement and Sheriff's Office management over the years, you'll love Terry Thompson, we have no doubt.

For more information on Terry, be sure to check out his most informative website:

• Terry L. Thompson For Sheriff of Weber County

And for Facebook fans, here's a little added online bonus:

• Thompson for Sheriff 2010

We don't know about the rest of our Weber County convention delegates (yes, your blogmeister is also an eager county GOP delegate); but we do believe Deputy Thompson's own mugshot would be a danged fine addition to the Sheriff's Department historical photo gallery too.

Seriously though, we're proud to join Sheriff Slater in endorsing Terry Thompson for Weber County Sheriff. Among all prospective candidates for all Weber County 2010 offices, we believe Terry's the most clear standout in any of the county-wide races.