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.Read the whole sad story here:
City council members who voted against the designation were Susan Van Hooser and Amy Wicks.
• Four-block Ogden area designated as blighted; redevelopment to renew downtownFasten 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!
