Ogden City Friday News Roundup

Ya gotta admire Mike's raw enthusiasm, don'tcha think?

A coupla Ogden City-related news items worthy of note this morning as we approach the weekend.

1) The boyz over in the Ogden City Business Development Department are whoopin' it up as they breathlessly announce, via their trusty Standard-Examiner mouthpiece, an encouraging new residential development project in Ogden. Here's the the nutsell nitty-gritty via S-E reporter Mitch Shaw:

OGDEN — Work will start this week on a housing development that city officials say will help change the face of the east-central area of downtown Ogden.
The project, dubbed Lincoln Cottages, sits on an undeveloped, vacant 2.5-acre lot at 27th Street and Lincoln Avenue and will feature fourteen 1,200-square-foot homes with three bedrooms and two bathrooms...
The entire project is expected to cost about $1.4 million, with the anticipated selling price for each home around $117,000.

And the beleaguered Ogden City lumpentaxpayers also have something to cheer about, we suppose inasmuch as we learn that not only will this project spruce up a badly dilapidated part of Ogden's Central City, but also that the bulk of project is to be financed on somebody else's dime:

Sponsored by Ogden city, the Utah Non-Profit Housing Corporation and Habitat for Humanity, the city will contribute $225,000 to the project, while UNHC, which owns much of the land and is acquiring more, will cover the balance.

We'll helpfully provide Mr. Shaw's full writeup here:

• Work begins this week on $1.4 million housing project 

And nope. We checked. Neither the project contractor,  Stacey Enterprises itself, nor any of the contractor's key personnel appear on Mayor Mike's 2011 campaign donor "friends" lists. Happily, Mayor Mike seems to have ushered in a whole new (non-crony capitalist style) way of doing business in Ogden, we guess.

2) And as a followup to our earlier Weber County  Forum reporting on Mayor Mike's recent China Junket, we'll embed for your edification and viewing pleasure this informative video story obtained via ABC4 News, wherein our globe-trotting Ogden City mayor devotes almost seven minutes to explaining his trip motives, strategies and hopeful expectations:



Ya gotta admire Mike's raw enthusiasm, don'tcha think?