Standard-Examiner: Ogden City Votes to Eliminate Private (Secret) Straw Polls

Added bonus: Final 2013 Ogden City Municipal Election campaign finance disclosure tallies

According to this morning's Standard-Examiner story, and as a followup to our earlier Weber County Forum writeup, "[s]ecret votes will no longer be a part of the Ogden City Council's officer election process. In a special meeting held Monday afternoon, the council voted unanimously to do away with a "straw poll" voting system it had been using when selecting the chair and vice chair positions on the council. The council put the new election process to use on Monday, nominating and electing council members Richard Hyer for chair and Caitlin Gochnour for vice chair:

•  Ogden city votes to eliminate private straw polls

A Weber County Forum Tip O' the Hat to the Ogden City Council for finally getting around to doing what they ought to have done years ago.

"Also at the meeting, Blair, Neil Garner, Doug Stephens and Marcia White were sworn in after winning their council races in November," Mitch Shaw further reports.

Here are the official results, gleaned from the Ogden City website:

• City Council Special Meeting Agenda Results

Now that our 2014-16 Ogden City Council is sworn in, and Council "leadership" has been chosen, we think the timing is right to post the final 2013 campaign finance tallies, to wrap up our WCF  2013 Ogden Municipal Election coverage.  Here is a table, incorporating the Fourth Set of Campaign Finance Disclosure Statements, submitted by each Council candidate on or about December 5, 2013: 

Office	12/5/2013	12/5/2013	Cumulative	Cumulative
Candidate	Contributions	Expenses	Contributions	Expenses
Municipal Ward 1
Neil K. Garner	$0	$1,229	$2,550	$2,575
Pamela Stevens*	$0	$0	$0	$25
Municipal Ward 3
Turner C. Bitton	$550	$0	$10,355	$9,696
Doug Stephens	$0	$1,708	$6,150	$5,744
At-Large "A"
Stephen D. Thompson	$39	$183	$2,445	$2,442
Marcia L. White	$850	$6,307	$18,339	$16,003
At-Large "B"
Bart Blair	$0	$1,209	$1,875	$1,338
Courtney Jon White*	$0	$0	$320	$290

* Disqualified

Best wishes to our new Ogden City Council, which appears to be firing on all cylinders (at this point, at least).

2013 Ogden City Election Candidate Financial Disclosure Statements (Third Set)

The latest financial data, fresh from the City Recorder's Office

With less than 7 days remaining prior to next Tuesday's 2013 Ogden City Municipal election, we're pleased to present the Third Set of  timely-filed Ogden City Council Campaign Finance Disclosures, which are linked and summarized in the handy table below.   We've put the emphasis on the phrase timely-filed, inasmuch as two candidates, Pamela Stevens and Courtney White, missed yesterday's deadline, although Mr. White did manage to get his papers on file this morning.

These omissions could have significance, folks, as the potential penalty for a late filing could involve a tardy candidate's complete removal from the ballot.  Here's the applicable ordinance Ogden City ordinance, folks, which should provide "relief" to each of these candidates, provided their failures to file were "inadvertent" and not "willful":

• 1-8-6: FAILURE TO FILE; INACCURATE OR INCOMPLETE

In the meantime, while the City Recorder and City attorney get these interesting irregularities sorted out, click the highlighted links to see how each of these candidates is doing with his or her fundraising, as we stand on the cusp of electing a new Ogden City Council::

Here's the latest financial data, fresh from the City Recorder's Office, peeps:

Office	Current	Current	Cumulative	Cumulative
Candidate	Contribution	Expense	Contribution	Expense
Municipal Ward 1
Neil K. Garner	$1,050	$1,241	$2,550	$1,346
Pamela Stevens*	No Filing	No Filing	$0	$25
Municipal Ward 3
Turner C. Bitton	$3,602	$5,607	$9,805	$9,696
Doug Stephens	$1,840	$1,724	$6,150	$4,036
At-Large "A"
Stephen D. Thompson	$438	$989	$2,406	$2,259
Marcia L. White	$4,365	$3,598	$17,498	$9,696
At-Large "B"
Bart Blair	$1,875	$84	$1,875	$109
Courtney Jon White**	$61	$100	$261	$261

* No Filing - Disqualified
** Late Filing - Disqualified

Your ever-savvy comments and analysis are now invited, of course.

Fresh From the Ogden City Recorder's Office: 2013 Ogden City Election Candidate Financial Disclosure Statements (Second Set)

1-2-3-GO! Don't hesitate to offer your own opinions of "what's up" in the ongoing Ogden Council 2013 election campaign finance free-for-all

With a little more that 60 days left to tick down on our right sidebar 2013 Ogden City Municipal General Election clock, we're pleased to present the Second Set of  timely-filed Ogden City Council campaign finance disclosures, which are linked and summarized in the handy table below. Click the highlighted links to see how each of these candidates is doing with his or her fundraising, and perhaps even more importantly to find out which Ogden City "political kingpins" are "voting in advance" with their checkbooks:

Candidate	Contributions	Expenses
Municipal Ward 1
Neil K. Garner	$1500	$80
Pamela Stevens	$0	$0
Municipal Ward 3
Turner C. Bitton	$1505	$355
Doug Stephens	$510	$0
At-Large "A"
Stephen D. Thompson	$100	$702
Marcia L. White	$3118	$2714
At-Large "B"
Bart Blair	$0	$0
Courtney Jon White	$120	$129

Front-runner among the "big-time" fundraisers remains At-large "A" candidate Marcia White, who can now boast of  a cumulative total of $13,133 in contributions to date, which during this reporting period notably includes a whopping $1500 contribution from the Northern Utah Association of Realtors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Biggest and Baddest PAC in the Land.

On the other end of the campaign finance spectrum is At-large "B" Council incumbent Bart Blair, who's so far raised a grand total of exactly $0 (zero) dollars, and has "expensed" a mere $25 "filing fee" out of his own pocket, it would seem, raising the question of whether Councilman Blair believes his race against second-time council challenger Courtney White is already "in the bag," or whether Blair's just quietly bowing out of the race with a "bag" over his head.

Check out all this this new data, folks; and don't hesitate to offer your own opinions of "what's up" in the ongoing Ogden Council 2013 election campaign finance (not so) free-for-all.

1-2-3-GO!

Hot Off the Press: 2013 Ogden City Election Candidate Financial Disclosure Statements (First Set) - Updated

Money isn't everything in municipal politics... but a fat campaign warchest helps a heckuva lot

With the 2013 Ogden City Municipal Primary looming a little under six days hence, we're delighted to provide a glimpse of the first set of campaign financial disclosure statements of our nine Ogden City Council candidate hopefuls, which were duly filed with the Ogden City Recorder's Office by 5:00 p.m. yesterday, pursuant to applicable provisions of Ogden City's Campaign Financing Disclosure ordinances, which arrived on the heels of the Ogden City Council's 2009 campaign finance reform.  

"Cash is King" in politics, as the old saying goes; so click the highlighted links below to discover which candidates are Ogden City's fund-raising "royalty," at least at this juncture:

Candidate	Contributions	Expenses
Municipal Ward 1
Neil K. Garner	$0	$25
Pamela  Stevens	$0	$25
Municipal Ward 3
Turner C. Bitton	$4,698	$3,734
Doug Stephens	$3,800	$2,312
At-Large "A"
Sheri Morreale	$1,000	$997
Stephen D. Thompson	$1,868	$568
Marcia L. White	$10,015	$3,384
At-Large "B"
Bart Blair	$0	$25
Courtney Jon White	$80	$32

Our compliments to candidates Marcia White, Turner Bitton and Doug Stephens, who've already put together particularly impressive "ground games."  Money isn't everything in politics, of course, but as we've learned the hard way in Ogden City municipal politics, and  looking at the the "big picture," a fat campaign warchest  helps a heckuva lot. 

Special thanks to Ogden City Recorder Tracy Hansen, a model of helpfulness and efficiency, who worked late, graciously furnishing the above reports early yesterday evening.

Plow through these reports, O Weber County Forum political wonks; and whatever you do, please don't keep your cranky opinions and comments to yourselves.

Update 8/8/13 10:00 a.m.:  Interesting discussion developing over at the Ogden Ethics Blog, where blogmeister Dan Schroeder questions the propriety of Mayor Caldwell's $500 donation to the Marcia White campaign. So whatddaya think, O Gentle Ones?  Even though such a donation is completely lawful, is it ethical?  And even assuming it is ethical, is it politically proper?