Standard-Examiner: Ogden Wants to Extend BDO Projects

A vote by the Taxing Entity Committee to approve the BDO RDA extension would constitute a flagrant breach of the fiduciary duties owed by committee members to the taxpayers of Weber County

In Thurday's Weber County Forum writeup and analysis, Dan Schroeder reported that the proposed extension of a then unspecified redevelopment area "would divert property tax revenue from the various taxing entities to the field house project" and that the an extension of such an RDA area "would presumably require a vote of the Taxing Entity Committee, whose members represent several of the larger taxing entities."
Today's Standard-Examiner story now identifies the particular RDA area which would be subject to Boss Godfrey's knuckle-headed financing scheme and reports that $15 million would come from a 5-year extension of tax increment collection from Business Depot Ogden (BDO) beyond its scheduled expiration in 2019:

• Ogden wants to extend BDO projects

BDO tax income is about as reliable a source of tax revenue as any taxing entity could hope for; and in our view these taxing entities would have to have rocks in their heads to give up five years of reliable tax revenue and go along with Boss Godfrey's BDO-based RDA extension scheme. In our never humble opinion, the approval of a five-year extension of the BDO area RDA would not serve the best interests of these taxing entities; and a vote by the Taxing Entity Committee to approve such an extension would constitute a flagrant breach of the fiduciary duties owed by individual committee members to the taxpayers of Weber County.

Although Ogden City Community and Economic Development Director Richard McConkie suggests that the $15 million in lost tax revenue "could ultimately be offset and surpassed by taxes generated by downtown development sparked by the field house," it's not the role of tax entity committee members to gamble with taxpayer money on "iffy projects."

That's our opinion and we're stickin' with it.

And what say our gentle readers about all this?