By Dan S.
I see that the Godfrey administration has gotten away with another little fib. Yesterday's Standard-Examiner reported that the state water quality board awarded the city another $1 million for the river cleanup. As part of its application, the city submitted documents saying it was undertaking a campaign to raise additional private funds, in cooperation with America First Credit Union:
• Utah Water Quality Board awards $1M for Ogden River restorationBut today the paper reports that the credit union denies any involvement in such a campaign:
• River grant still a go, but Ogden mayor says he's troubled by fundraising exaggerationImagine that.
25 comments:
Dan:
Well, let's give the SE a little credit: it attempted to check the Mayor's claim rather than simply accepting it as fact without checking. From the original story: "Officials with America First could not be reached for comment Wednesday regarding fundraising plans."
And the SE at least did not let Hizzonah "get away with" his latest dissembling. Two days after the first story, it ran a no-bones-about-it-the-Administration-filed-false-papers story, as you note. Here's the lead from it:
OGDEN — Contrary to documents provided by city officials to the state, America First Credit Union has no intention of assisting in fundingraising efforts for the Ogden River Restoration Project....
And from further down in the story:
Nicole Cypers, who handles public relations and community outreach for America First, said Thursday the credit union never committed to participating in the campaign.
Hard to mis-read that.
All told, I think the SE did not automatically accept the Administration press releases at face value and it promptly and in no uncertain terms nailed the Administration's dissembling within a day. In light of this latest example of the paper being fed a load of codswallop by the Mayor, let us hope it will be even less likely to accept Godfrey press releases uncritically in the future.
How the Water Quality Board that made the grant feels about having been mis-led by Ogden City is something the SE might want to look into in a follow-up story.
Mayor Godfrey lying? NO SHIT !!!
Curm: I never meant to suggest that the S-E was fooled by the lie. I meant that the lie achieved its purpose, helping the city get the grant. I agree that the S-E has done a good job with this aspect of the story, although I would quibble with their handling of the word "exaggeration". (Also, now that a consultant is taking the blame, I wish the paper would tell us why a consultant is involved and how much the consultant is being paid.)
For the record, it should probably be stated that I wrote this "article" (as a comment in an earlier thread) before seeing the article in today's (Saturday's) paper. There was also a "brief" in Friday's paper, covering the credit union's denial but not the consultant taking the blame.
Dan, I think I'd do more than quibble with the use of the word exaggeration. When I read the headline I assumed that the administration had said something like we've raised an additional $1 million, when in fact they'd only raised $100,000. Not until I read the article did I realize that they simply lied about having AmericaFirst funding at all.
the real problem is that this kind of thing is so common from this administration that it's almost not news.
wordsmith: Good point. It wasn't an exaggeration at all--it was a fabrication, based on nothing but wishful thinking. It's fine for the S-E to quote Bradford using the word "exaggerated", but they shouldn't have used the word themselves, and if Godfrey used it (which isn't clear) they should have quoted him directly.
And you're right about this kind of thing being commonplace. The city's ice tower RAMP grant application comes immediately to mind, but there have been many other examples and in fact, it might be hard to find a city grant application that wasn't at least deceptively embellished.
This incident also brings to mind the UTA streetcar study, much of which has been deceptive. In both cases, the use of consultants helps shift the blame away from public officials.
Ah, once again the Godfrey Administration's only defense against the charge of duplicity is incompetence.
I wonder if this latest example will cause the SE to re-think its editorial thumping the Council for hiring an facilitator to serve [I presume] as a traffic cop to make sure information flows freely at the 25th Street height allowance work session.... For an Administration with as long a record of not providing information it should to public bodies, and of providing false information, some precautions to insure full and honest disclosure don't seem unreasonable to me.
And I too would like to know more about this consultant and what the city shelled out for what the Mayor claims now was incompetent work.
The SE seems to be staying on this story. Maybe it will tell us.
Embellish is Godfrey's middle name; oh, wait, not it isn't: its Bullshit.
Still more interesting revelations deep down in this morning's story, like this one about the Mayor's work habits:
" Mayor Matthew Godfrey said Bradford [the Colorado consultant the Administration hired to prepare its pitch to the Water Quality Board] handed him material regarding the proposed campaign just minutes before Wednesday's Water Quality Board meeting, adding he did not review them in advance."
So, apparently, neither he nor any of his staff so much as read the final proposal he gave to the Water Quality Board. He got it minutes ahead of submitting it and just tossed it over the transom onto the table.
Someone remind me, what are we paying him per year for that kind of work?
The Mayor's defense now seems to be: "It's not my fault. I just hired the consultant, and spent the public's money to pay her, but you can't blame the false claims in the report on me or my administration because neither I nor any of my staff read it before we submitted it to the Board."
Uh huh. Once again, his defense against the charge of duplicity is to admit to incompetence instead.
Mr. Curmudgeon
You wrote:
"fed a load of codswallop"
What the hell is that? is it anything like a load horse biscuits?
I think the whole deal with Godfrey and his consultant is typical of the Godfreyites in that they have always had a problem keeping their lies straight.
oz:
I've been thinking lately that I for one would not be afraid to stand up and declare "Horse Biscuits!" to godfrey in a council mtg or work session, whenever warranted ...
as meatloaf said: "You took the words right out of my mouth
Oh, it must have been while you were [tricking] me ...
You took the words right out of my mouth,
Oh I swear it's true
I was just about to say [...]"
Horse Biscuits!
TLJ
Meatloaf-you took the words right out of my mouth
As a whole, our management staff took it upon ourselves to contact the paper. Had we not notified them and voiced our displeasure, I doubt there would have been a retraction of sorts.
they have blocked the sound on all those Meat Loaf vids on you-tube ... or is it just me.
js
BB
Make sure you don't have YouTube videos muted,BB.
Check your Youtube settings
I've been googling around trying to figure out who Caroline Bradford is. At first I thought she must be with the city's engineering consultant, RiverRestoration.org; but I can't find any confirmation of that guess. I did find something that mentions an outfit called Grand River Consulting, but details are scarce.
Meanwhile I found this article from the Trib:
Ogden river restoration to finish next year
Here's another, more recent which names her former director of the Eagle River Watershed Council.
and this google page gives lots of reports she consulted on
TLJ
I oops'd it on the first links --- \
Dan S.
try this link on Caroline Bradford, Executive Director Eagle River Watershed Council in Colorado
and see where it takes you
Maybe she used to work there, and is now a consultant ...
Here's an article from 2008 in re: Caroline Bradford
TLJ
Regarding Godfrey, a quote from Benjamin Franklin:
"We are all born ignorant, but one
must work hard to remain stupid".
Oz:
Just back from Salt Lake Book Fair and found your question. The quick and dirty definition of "codswallop" is "nonsense" but in common usage, any of the many rich and colorful synonyms for "nonsense" will stand as working definitions too, like oh say "roadapples."
If Matthiew Godfrey, our Esteemed Mayor of All Things Rotten in Historical Ogden Utah, was a crayon, what color would he be, and why?
puce is the color: 1787, from Fr. puce "flea," from L. pucilem (nom. pulex ) "flea," cognate with Skt. plusih, Gk. psylla, O.C.S. blucha, Lith. blusa, Arm. lu "flea." It is the color of a flea.
a colour varying from deep red to dark purplish-brown
js,
BB
Magenta - - Da mayor would be shit brindle brown cause he is a little turd.
Viktor:
the mayor would be puce
deep red to dark purplish brown
it is the color of a flea
and puce is also unpleasant to say
js
(and I hate repeating myself)
BB
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