Big Emerald City Council Meeting Tomorrow Night

Proposed CIP ordinance amendments would reduce Emerald City government transparency, hand Boss Godfrey even more discretionary power and much more...

On the heels of the 2/15/11 Ogden City Council meeting, we'll provide an additional heads-up concerning tomorrow night's Regular Council Session, wherein the Council will give further consideration to pending proposals to substantially (and detrimentally) amend Ogden City's Capital Improvement Project rules.

As we noted in our 2/14/11 article on this topic, these proposed amendments for the most part fall into two chief general classes:

1) Raising of Capital Improvement Project Limits. The Administration proposes to raise the threshold for discretionary Administration capital expenditures "from the current $10,000 to $30,000 before the administration is required to go to the City Council for permission to spend additional taxpayer dough." Raising this threshold would have the obvious effect of allowing more money to be spent by the Administration on projects without prior public knowledge, of course.

2) Establishment of "Slush Funds." The Administration proposes the establishment of an array of new self-administered "accounts":

• Contingency Fund (Cost overruns - $100k expenditure cap)
• Future Projects Account (No $ cap)
• Study Account ($60k cap)

We've of course taken the liberty of characterising these as "slush funds." But given Mayor Godfrey's cavalier disregard for the boundaries of various departmental accounts over the years, we believe such characterization is apt. We contend the establishment of such accounts is a very bad idea... "a frightening proposition, given the Little Lord's well demonstrated "spending propensities."

For those readers who'd like to consult the Council Packet for tomorrow night's meeting, click the link below:

• 04/05 City Council Regular Session

Once you've had a chance to check out these documents we're certain you'll agree that these ordinance changes would reduce transparency, allow more money to be spent on projects without prior public knowledge, substantially and detrimentally relinquish existing Council financial oversight and and unreasonably hand even more discretionary spending power over to Boss Godfrey.

We'll invite you all to throw in your 2¢; but before we do, here's a little something extra, a query tossed into the CIP ordinance amendment discussion in one of our lower comments sections:

Currently as the CIP budget is now put together the projected expenditures are of some 2.25 mil for next year, with 1.0 mil of that amount being for the field house.
Why would we be committing this much money to the field house when we haven't even decided whether we're going to build it or not?"

Great question, Ogden Resident, BTW! How the hell DID $1 million in Fieldhouse Project funding wind up on the CIP list, actually?

The floor's open, O Gentle Ones.

Who will be the first to chime in?

Update 4/6/11 7:33 a.m.: Scott Schwebke reports that the Council bought the full proposed CIP amendment package, hook line and sinker, by a 6-1 vote:

• Ogden amends CIP ordinance

Fiscal prudence in Emerald City? Fuggedaboudit.