Disappointing news this morning concerning Choo-Choo’s Kafe, at Ogden's Dining Car/Tourist Welcome Center. As long-term WCF readers will recall, the Tourist Welcome Center project landed the previous mayoral administration in embarrassing political hot water back in 2009, when the Ogden City Council caught the Godfrey Administration red-handed, "[secretly] dipping into an internal services fund account within the city's Fleet and Facilities Department" to the tune of an extra $80 thousand, and spending these funds on Dining Car/Tourist Info Center overages," which jacked up the cost of the project from the originally Council-allocated $34,501 to a whopping $115,000.
Sadly, the cafe's current proprietor, Jeanie Ortiz, is shutting the restaurant down, according to this morning's Wasatch Rambler column:
"Not to worry," columnist Trentelman "hasten[s] to add." "The restaurant will not go away. Pete Buttschardt, owner of Rooster’s and Union Grill, is making extremely positive noises about taking it over," Trentelman reports.
Further down the column, Mr. Trentelman provides this:
Richard Brookins, the city facilities manager, said he’s in active talks with Buttschardt to take over the cafe, “and the city does intend to keep it open in the interim.”In this connection, WCF reader and frequent contributor Dan S. raises several pertinent questions in the comments section beneath this morning's Trentelman column, relating to this now-floundering Godfrey-legacy city project:
How exactly will the city "keep it open in the interim"? How much will it cost the city, and which department's budget will it come out of?The "devil's always in the details" of course, isn't it? And frankly, we're more than a mite surprised that the normally perspicacious Mr. Trentelman didn't ask these obvious questions himself.
So what about it, O Gentle Ones? Is the looming Choo-Choo's Kafe "bailout" the first of a long line of financially shaky Godfrey Administration legacy projects which will unduly preoccupy the attention of the City Council and the new Caldwell Mayoral Administration in the days and months to come? Will Mayor Caldwell be in a position to effectively initiate his own agenda, now that he's been sworn in and assumes the reins of city government administration? Or will Mayor Caldwell be hog-tied "fighting fires" such as this, as Boss Godfrey's precariously assembled "house of cards" finally starts tumbling down?
Who'll be the first to throw in their 2¢?
