Here's an item in this morning's Standard-Examiner well worthy of note:
In the wake of last year's Marshall White Center brouhaha, Ace Reporter Schwebke reports this morning that last year's Ogden-Weber Community Action Partnership (OWCAP) management contract is working out great:
• Better times: Marshall White Community Center finds success once againNotably, all that federal grant money which OWCAP and Boss Godfrey had been banking on never came through:
Ogden's administration had initially hoped that OWCAP would be able to obtain grants to completely operate the Marshall White Center without any financial subsidy from the city, said Mayor Matthew Godfrey.A Weber County Forum Tip O' The Hat to the Ogden City Council for wisely picking up the reins on this, overriding the Mayor's veto and providing the monthly funding to keep MWC afloat (and the pool open).
As that hasn't happened, the management agreement has proven to be an effective option enabling OWCAP to succeed in running the Marshall White Center, he said.
Unlike last year, it appears that Boss Godfrey is now happy as a clam:
As that [federal funding]hasn't happened, the management agreement has proven to be an effective option enabling OWCAP to succeed in running the Marshall White Center, [Matthew Godfrey] said.We'll assume therefore at this point there'll be no further talk of mayoral civil disobedience or nasty administration lawsuits.
"They accomplished all the objectives we hoped for," Godfrey said in an e-mail to the Standard-Examiner. "The Marshall White Center is far better utilized by the community, it's cleaner and they are doing it for less money."
All's well that ends well, as we opined before.
Being the ever-eternal optimists here at Weber County Forum, we'll also assume Boss Godfrey learned a little about the operation of democratic government in the bargain.
5 comments:
Rudi:
You wrote: "we'll also assume Boss Godfrey learned a little about the operation of democratic government in the bargain."
Uh huh. Right.
You believe that, Rudi, you'll be glad to learn that I've just acquired exclusive ownership of this bridge in Brooklyn I can let you have for a very good price... small unmarked bills only, please.
Yer full of it Rudi!
The little emperor learns nothing from experience. He already has complete and perfect knowledge of all things. Exalted being like he come to this earth pre packaged with every thing they will ever need to know to administer the needs of mankind.
With as much experience as you have had with the Lord's own personal representative in Ogden, one would think that a smart feller like you would have caught on by now.
PS - the word verification on this comment is "dicster"! How appropriate for the subject of the lord mayor!!
I thought this was a pretty good article, but I'm still gonna criticize it.
The article opens with a big of "history", carefully selected to avoid any mention of what last year's dispute was really about. Only after turning to the continuation and reading several more paragraphs do we learn that the promised grants never came through. And nowhere does the article mention that the mayor's proposed "fix" for the Marshall White Center was to close the pool, zero the budget, hand it over to OWCAP, and hope that they could get by on grant money alone.
The lesson here is that when the council stands up to the mayor, the world doesn't come to an end. Things can actually work out pretty well. Let's hope they do it more often.
Right on the money, Dan. The article does not convey to readers not already familiar with the Council/Mayor dispute over MWC funding last year that the center is still operating the pool and other programs thanks to continuing funding provided by the Council, which over-rode the Mayor's veto taking that funding out. Absent the Council's actions, public funding for the Center's pool and some other programs would have ended when the grants the Mayor told us he was "confident" would be coming didn't.
Policy wonks [aka WCF readers] familiar with the story could add in the connecting details for themselves, but readers not already familiar with the story didn't get a very clear of the history of the fight over the MWC's public funding, and thus were not provided with the necessary context for understanding the story in full.
Another oblique example of the Standard posing as a "watch dog while actually being a Godfrey Lap Dog"
(Thank you Blackrulon)
In this case the Standard is holding back a lot of info that Dan pointed out, which of course is stuff that would make the Mayor look like the little pecker head that he is if it were printed. (That is where the "lap dog" part comes in)
Bottom line, this is just another case of lame press release journalism. All the stuff that makes Godfrey look good comes from Godfrey - unchallenged by the Standard.
The credit really goes to the council, as pointed out by Mr. Curmudgeon & Dan, the city is coughing up the Thirty Grand a month and private parties are running it. Apparently a good combination considering how much it was costing and how poorly it was doing when the thoroughly incompetent Godfrey was running it - into the ground.
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