We'll update this article through the day, as additional news stories roll in
Just got off the phone. Word's just in. According to one of our gentle readers (Neil Hansen) who attended this morning's municipal building press conference...
Godfrey's NOT runnin' again.
We'll update this article through the day, as additional news stories roll in.
Update 3/31/11 10:53 a.m.: Read Godfrey's pre-press conference announcement obtained and submitted a coupla minutes ago by Dan Schroeder:
Update 3/31/11 11:19 a.m.: The Standard-Examiner is now carrying this politically-uplifting story too:
Update 3/31/11 3:37 p.m.: The Salt Lake Tribune is also now running a version of the this story, which includes a series of weird, pro-Godfrey reader comments, touting the big spending right wing socialist Boss Godfrey as some kinda outgoing local hero:
Looks like time for some of us who know the real story to get online and set the record straight.
Update 3/31/11 9:00 p.m.: For some genuinely creepy video footage of yesterday's press conference, view the KSL News and Standard-Examiner sites:
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
38 comments:
Remember folks, if his lips are moving he is most likely lyin!
My guess is that we will now see a "ground swell" of support from supporters publicly begging him to reconsider, and like the reluctant and blushing bride he will succumb to the mass pleadings of the people to stay in office. After all, how can a man of good faith ignore the will of the masses!
Underlying this wild guess of mine is still the idea that no company in it's right mind would hire a guy like Godfrey who's only claim to fame is losing a hundred million bucks in a long series of wild eyed and losing schemes. That and his incessant need for secrecy and lying in his dealings. The only good he would be to any company is his ability to tap into free public money for the benefit of his cronies. Once he is out of office, he of course could no longer tap into that money.
Dang! I was hoping for something a little more like this:
Richard Nixon's "Last" Press Conference 1962.
You know... "You're not gonna have Matt Godfrey to kick around anymore."
I'll confess I'm feeling at least slightly cheated, heheheh.
Great comparison and contrast, Rudi. Nixon and Godfrey, I mean.
History certainly repeats, doesn't it, Rudi?
I'm sure he is backing someone for mayor who has promised him a better paying job at city hall.
He will take his election money, buy a big home in Shadow Valley or Salt Lake and keep up apperances.
If he doesn't run what does happen to his election campaign money, is it taxed as personal income?
Happy to see he's decided to bring his talents to the private sector. If it's to a publicly traded company and he's in a decision-making post, might be time to go short on the stock.
The SE and Council need to excercise a little heightened scrutiny over the closing months of his term. Lame Duck mayors do not have to worry about the consequences of their actions as they run out their terms: they won't be there to deal with the consequences, particularly the financial consequences. Be prudent to keep a close watch until the office actually changes hands.
Regarding his "accomplishments" as mayor... Anyone can run up a credit card balance and make their house look really neat with shiny new stuff they can't afford. That doesn't make them a good Mayor. In this case he didn't even finish following the assembly instructions on some of that shiny new stuff.
He finally admits he respects Dan Shroeder and considers him a friend! ;) You two should go out for beers some time.
Lastly... Thank God(frey) he is leaving! This coming from a guy who voted for him TWICE before the whole gondola thing made me realize what an asshat he is.
Curm-Worrying whether Godfrey as a lame duck Mayor will worry about the consequences of his actions is not necessary. He has never worried about the consequences of his actions before.
BS: I didn't receive Godfrey's announcement directly; I got it from a city employee.
Curious 1
Here is the city's law that answers your question of what happens to a candidates campaign money when he/she decides not to run:
G. Permitted Uses Of Campaign Funds: The candidate or the candidate's personal campaign committee may use the monies in campaign accounts only as follows:
1. For political purposes;
2. For expenses incurred in connection with duties of the individual as a holder of a city office;
3. For charitable contributions defined in section 170(c) of the internal revenue code of 1986 (26 USCS section 170(c));
4. For transfers to a national, state or local committee of a political party;
5. For donations to federal, state or local candidates; or
6. For any other lawful purpose unless prohibited by subsection H of this section.
H. Personal Use; Prohibition: A contribution shall not be converted by any person to personal use. For purposes of this subsection, a contribution or donation shall be considered to be converted to personal use if the contribution or donation is used in a manner that would cause the candidate or former candidate to recognize the monies as taxable income under federal tax law.
Wonk, thanks. I hope someone keeps track of his campaign fund out of office, and his filing on time.
"Decency," wrote H. L. Mencken, "is the habit of viewing with tolerance and charity the acts and ideas of other individuals, the habit which makes a man a reliable friend, a generous opponent, and a good citizen. A politician's eagerness to bring all his fellow citizens into accord with his own dull and docile way of thinking, and to force it upon them when they resist, leads him inevitably into acts of unfairness, oppression and dishonor."
According to Mencken's standard, Mayor Godfrey's 12-year reign has been quite indecent. His hostility to dissenting subordinates, political opponents, and non-Mormon habits are well-known. These might be mitigated, slightly, if his legacy were not overwhelmingly characterized by grandly announced projects whose sites have lain fallow, useless, and in many cases disgusting year after depressing year.
I hope the next mayor is capable of running Ogden like a city, not a stake.
"I don't see that I'm needed here so it's time for me to move on"!!!
Fucking what a mess this teenage all me bright eyed Savior mentality has left; mostly empty and already decaying ego-structures claimed as progress, 100 million when slightly more than half would have sufficed to accomplish far more, and a spend our way out of the poorhouse sense of finacial accumen.
All this, and leaving with near indictments and shady pending deals still hounding and nipping.
Next time you show up to save a problem by shoving other peoples money at it Matt, please come with an adult mind set.
Oh; nice job on the re-branding, though.
!ADVENTURECITYOGDEN! and the types of people that flock to individual competition sports guarantees a steady supply of good liquor, nice organic drugs and whatnot, leggy athletic sorts, and parties.
Just what Ogden needed, and at 500% of the price!
If Blain Johnson helps disburse the campaign money, good luck tracking it. Dan S. will need to take sabbatical because this will be a full time job!
Dan S. has been on political sabatical for some time now. How could any fully-employed person possibly have more time on his hands? Weber State should be required to file a campaign finance statement.
Sour grapes, O? If you gave a hang about the financial condition of Ogden, you'd be clamoring to give Dan S. a key to the city for his ceaseless and unselfish efforts to shine a bright light upon the bad deeds of the Godfrey administration. Instead, all you can offer is criticism. Why is that, O?
I'll play the devil's advocate here and ask: who will you guys kick around now?
It'll be interesting to see who will come out of the woodwork to run for Mayor. Hansen? Wicks? Van Hooser? Boy! Ain't that comforting.
Godfrey will leave much to be cleaned up and many projects to be finished when he leaves. Every department head has served at his pleasure, and what if they should leave, or get replaced? Then what?
What would the new guy do if that should happen once he takes possession of #9?
This whole thing might become very interesting.
So WTF is up with Godfrey? You just gotta know the sneaky little dick is up to something!
I loved his statement:
“Fry cook, dog catcher, street sweeper — you know, anything I’m qualified for,” Godfrey quipped of what might lie ahead." He said it in jest, but he just might be a whole lot closer to the truth than he ever imagined.
I can't imagine any big time company paying him big dough. His whole history is about spending easy tax payer money on loser deals. His track record at actually making real deals that make real money is pretty flippin slim. Running up a hundred mill debt and not having any thing to show for it but a bunch of busted out projects that need more tax payer supplements every month to keep them afloat ain't exactly a resume burner!
He also doesn't really have any big time political friends that would make him worth while to be hired for his connections. I mean really, I don't know of any politicians on the state level or above who actually likes the punk - other than his relatives and maybe this Peterson kid who is keeping Neil's seat warm.
I predict that Lord Godfrey will either go to work for Boyer - as pay back for dropping tens of millions of our tax payer dollars in their pockets; Go to work for the Church in their real estate empire, or go be a mission president some where. He doesn't have enough integrity to sell used cars for Rusty.
Of course all of this could just be another Godfrey ruse and he will change his mind at the last minute due to great and clamorous public demand!
What ever he does, I go on record as predicting the arrogant little prick is going fall on his ass if he gets in the free market. Remember, this is the guy that didn't think what Val Southwick did was all that bad, certainly not bad enough to actually be sent to jail for!
Maybe little Matt will keep it up with the slippery and skanky MO in the private sector, get busted in the real world where he ain't protected by the system, and get his skinny little ass thrown in Point of the Mountain with Val! Gawd what a delicious dream that is, especially the part where Matt gets introduced to his new cell mate "Bruno" the biker boss.
Sure hope, for good old Ogden's sake, that some one with their shit together gets elected and is able to make heads or tails out of the huge debt and biz mishmash that they will be inheriting. It could be bad for a guy's career to get in that driver's seat and be there when the plane hits the cliff, like many folks are certain is going to happen - me included. Godfrey may very well have finally recognized that the collision with the cliff is inevitable and he is bailing out now so that the next mayor gets the blame for screwing up the great work he did. In his speech he seemed to make a lot of what he represented as a great thing he has done for Ogden, that the pieces are all now in place for the complete and glorious recovery and that he is no longer needed. That of course is a pretty big stretch for him to say, which then begs the question - what's the little dick head up to, and WTF are we gonna do when we don't have Matt to kick around anymore?
Godfrey made a lot of the idea that the things he has set in place will continue on without him.
We certainly hope they will not. He was done as mayor whether he ran again or not. That's because people in Ogden are simply sick and tired of his way of operating, and especially of his policies.
And we can only hope that the next mayor will give the "great team" standing next to Godfrey their pink slips, that will be part of a serious course correction for this city.
Hizzonah has announced he's moving on. Suggests to me that there's little point in engaging in a Godfrey Bash Fest then. He's been driven from the field, or has fled, or some combination of both. The mix doesn't matter. He's not running.
So, seems to me, the time from now to election day might be better spent collecting information about the declared candidates, and others who might declare, lobbying others to jump into the race if you're not happy with the field so far, and collecting suggestions for cleaning up the messes Hizzonah will leave behind [e.g. a Junction project still significantly unleased and hemorrhaging public money, a moribund River Project, RDAs all over the place cutting into tax revenues, 25th Street projects still hanging fire, some publicly subsidized, some placed in the hands of FOMs to develop and they havent --- Windsor Hotel project, the old Noodle Parlor project, etc. And thinking about ways to continue progress in the areas, unhappily few, where Hizzonah was effective and improved things: rebranding Ogden as an outdoor sports base camp, playing a part in bringing Amer Sports and others here, helping bring several recurring sporting events to the city [Dew Tour, Exterra events, etc.], improving Ogden trails system in conjunction with Weber Pathways [which has to be balanced against the destruction of trails by moving the new water tanks at the last minute, etc.]
That will take some thought: finding ways to fix what he left broken while maintaining and building upon what he left improved and growing. Thinking on all that would be time better spent than indulging in more Godfrey-bashing, however good it might feel.
Or so it seems to me.
I've often wondered about the time Dan and Curmudgeon spend prattling about this blogosphere as opposed to teaching their classes. Instead of being "sour grapes," I think "O" was quite clever in calling for Weber State to file a campaign financial statement.
Curm,
Were his lips moving when he said he was moving on and not running for a 4th term?
js
BB
o and P,
You gotta be kidding.
You sit in front of the TV, beer in one hand and with the finger of the other hand up your nose, complaining about somebody who spends some spare time trying to make things better.
They should build a monument to Dan Schroeder for the real good he has done for this city. The list is a very long one.
"Genuinely creepy video footage" is right. What's up here? These videos show Godfrey's eyeballs looking like they're reader to jump out of their sockets; and his bruised brow ridges and forehead, and his puffy and slightly blackened eyes could be construed by a good forensic physiological scientist as suggesting that "somebody" wailed the daylights outta Boss Godfrey, before he threw in the towel yesterday morning.
Danny:
You want to build a monument to Dan Schroeder? Fine, I'll match a dollar for every dollar others are willing to donate to the cause. I think a nice plastic trophy can be purchased with the $10 dollars raised.
Of course, all bets are off if you let Dan contribute, for he is willing to pay any price to build a monument to himself.
Po:
The lying, stealing, cheating and intimidation of the electorate by this administration goes considerably broader and deeper than has been brought into the light at this point and spreads far into the trusted dealings of the small people of this city to line the pockets and increase the power of those of the this power structure and friends therof. Dan S. can not only walk and chew gum at the same time, but listen, write, hike, lecture and on and on and on at the sametime. I for one am truly grateful to Dan for taking the time and energy, when few others would speak truth to power. THANK YOU DAN. I, for one, would like to see prosecution for at least some of the fraud and theft that has been foisted upon us.
Voter:
There will always be people who seek to be important by becoming the chief critic of important people.
What is interesting is your undying devotion to Dan Schroeder's cloak and dagger stories about Godfrey even though he has never been able to deliver on single one of his many allegations. Dan has sought out a half dozen government agencies to prosecute Godfrey on dozens of conspiracy theories over the years. The result is not a single prosecution.
How can Godfrey be both be an idiot and fraud, as is often concluded on this blog, and yet never be charged on a single one of the unending Dan Schroeder slam-dunk conspiracy charges over the years?
Answer: you've labelled the wrong person an idiot and a fraud.
Dan and you see only what you want to see, because you believe that someone who disagrees with your political positions must be evil. Each time, you find what you expect to find. Truth be damned.
Blain Johnson won't be sending Dan S. a birthday card or any other holiday gift for that matter. Transparency seems to only be desired by these types when it is catching "obvious" bad guys. The arrogance of the possible "white collar" criminals in our government system somehow affords them a completely different set of rules. Although most know these crime committing folks will receive their just reward somewhere down the line, without someone contributing research time like Dan S., these people would readily trample the laws the rest of us are required to abide by. Stay within the laws, play by the rules, do not set up fake campaign fund raising organizations and Dan will have little effect in your life. (And the effects his efforts do have will be positive.) THANK YOU Dan!
o:
My problem is those people who are elected to represent and serve the people who feel they are so important that they use that importance ie.power to lie, steal and cheat the people that they are elected to represent and protect. And yes, had I sufficient funds, I would take legal action and I am not the only one. THANKS DAN!!!
Curm: First, I absolutely agree that we need to start educating ourselves about the declared mayoral candidates and perhaps encouraging others to run.
But I also think it's valuable to reflect on what Mayor Godfrey has and hasn't accomplished, for several reasons. First, he may run for office again someday and then his record will be of great interest to voters; we should document the facts now, while memories are fresh. Second, others (such as his successor) may wish to learn from his example, so it's important to establish what he did in order for those lessons to be learned correctly. And third, history is interesting for its own sake.
On the other hand, I see no value in publicly debating Dan Schroeder's accomplishments (if any).
Blake, I mean, O, I mean P, I mean Abe Shreve, I mean Bill Glasmann: You have not one-tenth the intellect it takes to match wits with a guy who has a Ph.D. from Stanford. You jagoffs barely got through high school. HIGH SCHOOL. I think maybe Blake might have gone to college; who knows? I know REALTORS Abe and Bill certainly did not. Here's a clue, Bill G. and Blake and clearly alternative Abe: we're done with your kind> Move on. Get out. I suggest Farmington.
I'll bet it is that genius Blake! Blake F. He once had a blog where he was going to expose all the corruption of the "detractors," but he got caugt using word bandwidth. What a shame, old Blake: he's got eight shitpile cars in front of his yard, is five-foot-five, used to take roids but now is fat, loves Godfrey's forehead and wants to heap pejoratives on one of the smartest people in this town: Kings to you, Blake! I hope you can take your shirt off, even as fat as you now are, and show everybody what a fat dwarf Godfreyite looks like!
Blake F. "...is five-foot-five, used to take roids but now is fat..."
Well thank goodness! Considering the crowd in which Blake's been hanging, it's a near miracle (if) he hasn't contracted AIDS.
Still, I'd recommend that the now "fat" Blake beat feet over to his Doctor for an AIDS test... just to be sure.
Blake is not five foot five.
He took off his elevator shoes over at my house when we were making love the other day, and I'll guess he's closer to 5'2"
Just trying to help.
Who the hell is Blake and what does his height or any of this immature, ignorant raving about him and others have to do with Godfrey not running? I thought this was a blog where a mature and insightful discussion could take place instead of having to wade through the lying bullshit written by bobcurt and these other losers.
Excellent point, Roland.
Yes! Sometimes here when people try to make their points when nobody has a clue what they're talking about.
Which brings us to the question, Roland. WTF are you complaining about, Roland?
Redundancy, text abbreviations, the like....boring.
The comments above about Blake Fowers are relevant, since he is one of the people who were such avid supporters of Godfrey, and are now shown to be shallow losers.
More importantly, they are the most entertaining posts on this thread. Man does not live by bread (or dry commentary) alone.
Roland:
On any open forum blog, where people can post pretty much what they please, the thing to do is just skip over posts you find not worth reading. I recommend it. [I've recommended to several people my posts seem to annoy that they simply skip over them.]
I can't think of any blog/comment board I read regularly where I don't do that. Too much interesting to quit reading an interesting blog or comment board because you find some of the posts trivial or annoying or whatever.
Post a Comment