Updated Reader Query: Is our Ogden City Council slowly morphing into a Boss Godfrey rubber stamp?
Here's a heads-up regarding tonight's City Council and RDA meetings, where it appears that the Council/RDA Board stands poised to rubber stamp the financing for Kevin Garn's Junction Hotel Project:
What: City Council/RDA MeetingsThe full council packets for tonight's meetings are set forth below:
When: Tueday, November 16, 2010; 6:00 p.m.
Where: Lincoln Elementary, 1235 North Canfield Drive
• 11/16 City Council Regular SessionFor the benefit of bandwidth challenged WCF readers among us, here's a link to the portion of the RDA Board packet which specifically pertains to the hotel project:
• 11/16 City Council-RDA Special Session
• Abbreviated 11/16/10 RDA Board PacketAs per usual, we'll leave the lights on in our lower comments section, for anyone who'd like to comment on this topic before, during or after tonight's Council/RDA sessions.
Update 11/16/10 11:45 a.m.: One of our gentle readers reminds us that there's another WCF-topical item on tonight's council calender, i.e., a budget opening in the amount of $38,375, to be prospectively reallocated from the "CIP Futures Fund" to Boss Godfrey's proposed $38,000 "Fieldhouse Study," which we discussed on WCF yesterday. Check out this council packet excerpt for further details:
• Field House CIP Futures reallocation Council Packet excerptFascinating to observe how the administration has deviously dodged a public hearing in this matter, by characterizing the transaction as a mere reshuffling of already "committed" taxpayer dough.
Update 11/17/10 7:45 a.m.: The Standard-Examiner reports this morning that the Godfrey administration scored a clean sweep last night for its ongoing pet projects:
• Ogden council OKs hotel proposalSo what about it, WCF readers? Is our Ogden City Council reacquiring the lazy traits of our 2005 "Gang of Six" council, and slowly transforming into a another Boss Godfrey rubber stamp?
• Ogden OKs $38,000 study for new rec facility
Update 11/17/10 8:35 a.m.: Per Dan S.: "Here's Cathy McKitrick's write-up in the Trib:"
• Ogden gives Garn go-ahead for hotel"(Be sure to read the sidebar about the velodrome study approval.)"
Ed. Note: The Trib comments section ain't half bad either.
Update 11/25/10 6:52 a.m.: View the full Council and RDA videos here:
• 11/16 City Council Regular Session
• 11/16 RDA Special Session
20 comments:
It appears that this thing is to be competitively bid....should be interesting to see if that is what really happens
Will Kevin Garn appear at the meeting to speak on behalf of the fundng proposal? If he appears will the city council be able to ask questions regarding funding or building guarantees?
Good point BR...
Where is the accountability as to how the funds are distributed by the developer and used?....here's 9mil...have a nice day?
Br:
And if he will be there, the next question is, are there council members ready and willing and well informed enough on the funding pyramid to ask solid questions. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't know.
OT: whats with the dirt that the City is moving around just north of St. Annes...busy as beavers down there today
Nicely Done, prep work for where Lord Gadfly will bury the bodies..
Here's Cathy McKitrick's write-up in the Trib:
Ogden gives Garn go-ahead for hotel
(Be sure to read the sidebar about the velodrome study approval.)
Dan:
Thanks for the pointer to the sidebar. I notice Ms. M's summary of all the goodies to be packed into the Godfrey Dome does not include an "indoor water park" other than the proposed olympic-sized swimming pool, though she repeats "indoor water park" in her opening. Anyone have any idea what, other than the pool, this "indoor water park" is projected to include? Wading pools? Water slides? What?
Nor does it give any indication of where the Administration wants the Godfrey Dome located beyond "downtown."
To all those who've disparaged here Hizzonah's prowess as a politician, and have predicted his imminent demise through two re-elections, and his losses in Council races: he has once again, I am sad to say, taken a Council of which several members were elected on platforms promising to be independent voices, not mere Moyoral sock puppets like Mr. Stephenson, and has crafted a brand new, fully operational rubber-stamp Council that does his bidding on cue with few questions asked.
Can you say Rubber Stamp? I knew you could. If things had gone right in the last election and Phipps had not waited until after the primaries to jump his campaign ship -- and if the other eligible candidate had won, at least this would have been a 5-2 vote, that's for sure.
just sayin
BB
Anybody read the Orwell novel "1984"? Remember the Screaming Room in the story - a place citizens were required to go to vent their daily or weekly frustrations and let off steam?
Can we delegate and dedicate the area right outside the 9th floor elevators as a local Screaming Room? Just go in there and holler at the top of your lungs for 2.5 minutes, get on the elevator and leave.
js,
BB
Someone oughta at least get a photo of Godfrey and Garn together, for use in the upcoming mayoral campaign, should he decide to run.
I found this comment by a bed-bug extermination guy on the news last night to be hilarious; he said "bed bugs can be found anywhere, clean or dirty. They can be found anywhere from some of the nicest rentals in Park City, to Ogden, and anywhere in between.". Now that may not be the exact word for word statement, but pretty close. It caught my attention with a big chuckle where he compares the nicest Park City spots to "Ogden", and anywhere in between. Sounded an awful lot to me like Ogden was noted (deliberately or not) as the dirtiest. Were my wife and I the only ones who caught that? Not so sure a new bed bug hotel is a great idea for Ogden!
Way to go, exterminator guy! snicker snicker
6 to ONE vote. Wicks dissents.
What a shock.
@talley taker:
In 1964, the US House of Representatives voted 416-1 in favor of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, ensuring the US entry into Vietnam.
So, what's YOUR point?
I heard through the grapevine that the Garn Hotel proposal was changed at the last minute before the council approved it on Tuesday. It seems that the $1.5 million federal grant for the parking garage fell through, so they had to increase the amount and duration of the special assessment district, and also increase the amount of the tax increment financing.
Presumably, the increase in the special assessment will make the project less viable economically.
The good news is that the special assessment is apparently in "first position" to collect on the property if the project fails. The bad news is that the IOU for the land itself is apparently in last position, so there's a significant risk that the city will never get repaid for the land.
I'll try to get details and post them when I can.
@Dan:
SH&* !!!!!
those robber barons and carpet baggers, out to make a buck and don't care who they fleece.
The point is that if a bookmaker could make a spread on CC votes being 6-1, a guy could make a fortune as long as Ms. Wicks, bless her heart, occupies a seat. Seems to me that an initiative, or proposal, if Godfrey is behind it and even if it has the potential to be a positive for Ogden, Ms. Wicks will vote against it because of Godfrey's being behind it.
Just an observation. Quite a leap from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to the Ogden City Council, by the by. As sad and outlandish as some of these replies are, they occasionally make me chuckle. This one sure did: the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Maybe we should discuss the Nazis at Nuremberg and see how that analogy might fit in here someplace.
OK, talleytaker onewhoknows whatelseisnew BlaineCarl, let me explain this slowly and carefully so you understand.
Just because the vote on something is overwhelmingly one-sided, doesn't mean the minority member is wrong.
Not often, but sometimes, a person who votes against something is right and the majority is wrong.
I think you should consider that Councilwoman Wicks may have motivations just a tad deeper than "Godfrey's behind it". Maybe, just maybe, she's voting in what she believes are the best interests of Ogden's citizens.
Even though I disagree with Councilman Stephenson on many things, for example, I believe that he votes because he feels his vote is in Ogden's best interest, not because "Godfrey's behind it".
Nothing is sadder and more outlandish than the same person, with the same IP address and writing style, writing replies under four or five different sockpuppet names.
I find disturbing that the administration uses the RDA to circumvent the requirement of the city government to put bonding issues to a vote and for the city council in the role of the RDA members to go along with it.
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