As a followup to Sunday's Weber County Forum writeup, which narrowly focused on the Godfrey administration's "stealth" proposal to "extend the Ogden River Project Redevelopment Area tax increment period through Tax Year 2027," we'll issue a second reminder of tonight's various Ogden City Council/RDA sessions, which include a variety of other interesting and important agenda items, as more particularly set forth by WCF reader/contributor Dan S. in Sunday's article comments section:
Just looked over all the agenda packets for tomorrow's meetings, and there's a lot in there.For the convenience of those WCF readers who'd like to dig in even a little more deeply, we link all of tonight's Council/RDA packets below:
The River Project materials indicate that the project's budget has been cut from the original estimate of $105 million down to a revised estimate of $85 million. The projected tax annual tax increment has correspondingly decreased. About 28% of the tax increment is being passed on to the taxing entities, so they're not losing out completely. The debt to other city funds stands at $3.7 million and it says the city will have to shell out at least another $2 million, with "similar, if not greater, levels of public assistance" for the Lincoln-to-Wall phase.
Also on the RDA agenda is an agreement with the new anonymous owner of the Earnshaw Building for use of additional parking spaces, allocation of some parking structure space for a chiller, and an "aerial easement" for a pedestrian walkway between the parking structure and the building. It mentions that the number of condos in the building is being increased from 28 to 40.
The City Council special meeting agenda includes the long-awaited rezone of most of the city's public parks to the "open space" zone. This will provide some additional protection against any mayor who tries to sell off park land, because the land couldn't be developed without another rezone by the council.
The Council work session agenda includes a meeting with Laura Lewis, their water rates consultant, to review the current water rates and the work that went into establishing those rates four years ago. This is the first step in the process of revising the rates to address several concerns that have come up in recent months.
- 12/13 City Council-RDA Work Session
- 12/13 City Council Work Session
- 12/13 City Council Special Session
- 12/13 City Council-RDA Regular Session
- 12/13 RDA/Council Study Session
In accordance with our usual practice of course, we hereby dedicate this thread to any Ogden City political wonks who'd like to comment before, during or after tonight's meetings.
Update 12/14/11 7:15 a.m.: The Standard-Examiner reports this morning that the RDA Board last night scheduled the Godfrey administration's proposed Ogden River Redevelopment Project Area Extension for a January 17, 2012 "public hearing":
- Ogden RDA sets public hearing (Updated)
8 comments:
I'm not gonna try to live-blog everything that happens tonight, but I did just get here in the middle of the council meeting (after RDA meeting ended). They council has just unanimously passed the modifications to the open space zone, intended to accommodate all the properties to be rezoned in this category.
All council members are present, as is the chief administrative officer. The mayor is not here.
"OUR VIEW: Greiner Must Go
Ogden city Police Chief Jon Greiner needs to end his tenure as Ogden's police chief, and Ogden's mayor-elect, Mike Caldwell, needs to be the one who states that forcefully..."
The Standard Examiner is right on! This online article goes on to make a strong case for Mayor elect Caldwell to do the right thing. Dump the chief. Good job, Std-Ex
The rezone ordinances themselves also passed unanimously. Now for the event I came down for: work session on water rates. Consultant Laura Lewis is reviewing the process that happened four years ago. Probably no further blogging for a while, unless something unexpected happens.
The water rates discussion ended at a little after 9:00. Lewis talked long and fast, reviewing all the issues that came up during the water rates study four years ago. What I found remarkable, though, was that she never mentioned the actual rates that were set as a result of the study. She alluded to the rates in general terms but there were no numbers and no charts. So there was really nothing specific to focus the council's attention. Similarly, nobody brought up the specific gripes about the rate structure that the mayor first raised a few months ago. It seems very odd that after all that (mostly legitimate) concern on the mayor's part, nobody would have mentioned it tonight.
It's simply astonishing that this morning's S-E article fails to mention the November 10 vote of the Taxing Entity Committee.
Don't throw in the towel, Rudi. A lot of people read who don't/can't comment. Godfrey is a world-class piece of crap and a lot of that wouldn't be evident without you.
Really Dan. After all these years you are still expect the S-E to act like a responsible newspaper?
The answer to your question as to why the S-E did not cover the story was answered by you in the first comment. "the mayor is not here". Since Schwebke cannot quote the mayor on the subject he simply declines to mention the story.
Post a Comment