A Novel Proposed Approach - Selling to the Highest Bidder

This morning's Ace Reporter Scott Schwebke story confirms what some of us had suspected: Boss Godfrey crony Chris Peterson has wisely allowed his ill-gotten Bootjack LLC purchase option to expire.

For the benefit of readers who missed out on the substance of this story the first go-round, we link background articles here and here.

What remains apparent from this morning's article is that Mr. Peterson and his de facto business broker, Boss Godfrey, still have every intention to proceed with the transaction however. This time, they evidently plan to engineer the transaction the old-fashioned Boss Godfrey way: pegging the sales price by means of a low-ball appraisal, without ever offering the property to other potential buyers on the open market.

For those babes in the woods who are unfamiliar with the practices of the real estate market by the way, custom-designed appraisals (low-ball and high-ball) are one of the "dirty little secrets" of the real estate appraisal industry.

This morning's article notes that the Emerald City RDA board implemented new policy in the wake of the Bootjack stealth option revelation: "As a result of the Bootjack incident, the RDA has adopted a policy that requires full disclosure regarding the identity of property buyers before it approves land sales."

This improved RDA Board approach only solves half the problem however. What is needed now is an RDA policy that requires economically significant RDA-owned properties (such as these Frontrunner Station adjacent parcels) to be placed on the open market for a reasonable period of time, in order to generate competing offers.

We have already heard from one interested potential buyer who lodged a verbal $300 thousand cash backup offer with the Emerald City Economic Development Department. We are curious to know why this fact was not mentioned in this morning's Std-Ex article.

It's time, we think, for our RDA board to act on this before it is too late. At the very least, this property ought to be advertised for sale in the newspaper, if not on the Weber-Davis Multiple Listing Service.

The RDA board has a fiduciary obligation, owed to the citizens of Emerald City, to generate the highest possible sales price for any property it sees fit to remove from its inventory. Such is particularly true as to these parcels, which are key to our Emerald City downtown development.

Whether our Rip Van Winkle RDA Board will properly fulfill that important obligation is a question which remains to be answered.

A Friday morning query to our gentle readers: Will the RDA Board allow itself to be bush-wacked yet again?

Little Bobby is Back

The Standard-Examiner provides a special treat this morning, as we drop into another Emerald City weekend. This morning's edition features a nasty bullet-point rant by Lift Ogden Windbag Bob Geiger, raging against our Emerald City RDA Board of Trustees, which is now preparing to call Boss Godfrey on the carpet with new procedures guarding against future insider transactions, such as the now notorious Bootjack sweetheart purchase option. We'd recently thought Tom Ellison and the Peterson crew had wisely and cautiously kept the flamboyant Junior Geiger under careful wraps. That's all changed utterly. Little Bobby is back.

The facts surrounding this transaction are quite clear. We've discussed the situation thoroughly here, here and here. In point of fact, Boss Godfrey deceitfully concealed and suppressed the fact that his croney Chris Peterson was the true owner and principal of the Bootjack shell entity, prior to the transaction. Yes, The RDA Board had previously asked for disclosure, but approved the transaction anyway, in spite of the administration's continuing and wilful failure and refusal to disclose Chris Peterson's identity. As we've learned subsequently in our below threads on this subject however, the RDA Board was pressured into going along with Boss Godfrey because the transaction was characterized as a financial emergency. Cost overruns were jeopardizing the Junction Project timetable, the Board was told by the administration. The RDA Board, in its incessant effort to be cooperative, thus opted to drop its request for disclosure. In its effort to be a "team player," the Board ultimately found itself with egg on its face. In the aftermath, this lapse in judgment proved to be most imprudent, as the Board has learned during this past week. Looking at the situation from the Board's viewpoint, it's hard to conceive, however, that any one of them might have imagined, at the time the purchase option was approved, that Boss Godfrey would have had the audacity to flagantly pawn off three parcels adjacent to the FrontRunner terminal in a stealth transaction to a close associate like Peterson.

Mr. Geiger complains that the RDA Board would discriminate against Boss Godfrey's croney, that Chris Peterson's money is just as good as anybody else's. Boss Godfrey's cronies should be able to benefit from secretly-arranged deals. Economic perks are, after all, one of the prime benefits of being a Godfrey croney. That's how it works in our Brave New MattGodfreyWorld. Mr. Geiger thought everybody already knew that.

Mr. Geiger lays in particularly brutally upon council members Garcia, Wicks and Jeske this morning. The whole brouhaha is politically motivated, he says. This is of course the accusation that Boss Godfrey always drags out, whenever our conscientious council resolves to do its duty, and possible ethical or criminal breaches on the part of Boss Godfrey become part of the public discussion.

We were admittedly a little overly hard on the RDA Board over the past week or so, after first learning about this "smelly" Bootjack transaction. Our email box had been crammed with angry reader missives. It was the same in our comments sections. We weren't the only ones who experienced a visceral reaction. In hindsight we stand chastened, and applaud out RDA Board, who've tried over past months to adopt a posture that would seem co-operative and progressive. Hard lessons are the best lessons, however; and hopefully the Board has now learned that the RDA Board of Trustees simply cannot fulfill their primary roles (as public trustees,) and trust Boss Godfrey simultaneously. If Boss Godfrey says the sky is blue, we're sure that our RDA members will now have learned to take a peek out the nearest window. If Boss Godfrey shows up to the next RDA meeting and sits down in the RDA Director's chair, we do hope Chairman Garcia will instruct the Board Sergeant-at-Arms to check the Boss's ID.

The floor is open. Who amongst our gentle readers would like to comment on the latest Bob Geiger lunatic rant?

We always appreciate a good red-meat article to chew on as we move into the weekend; and we thank the Standard-Examiner for providing us just that.

Keep the Fires Burning, Joe

We find two stories this morning in our home-town newspaper which ought to be of interest to our gentle readers.

First in immediate importance, Scott Schwebke reports that our Emerald City RDA is taking immediate remedial action to prevent further occurrences of Boss Godfrey insider dealing:

OGDEN — The Ogden Redevelopment Agency is considering a new policy to require “full disclosures” from property buyers before it approves future land sales.
The RDA, made up of the city council, may vote to adopt the policy on March 6. The proposed policy changes follow complaints from the RDA that it was not notified by Community and Economic Development Director Dave Harmer that would-be developer Chris Peterson owns Bootjack LLC, which has been granted an option to purchase three RDA parcels downtown.
The proposed policy change comes on the heels of the community and economic development director’s failure to voluntarily divulge the name of the principals of Bootjack LLC in spite of the obvious public significance and interest to the board of this fact,” the RDA said Wednesday in a prepared statement.

We're thrilled that the RDA board seems disinclined to just let this matter pass. And we're encouraged by this Council Chair Garcia quote:

“The board needs to ensure there is full disclosure of who is involved when the RDA is selling property,” Garcia said in a prepared statement.
“The board desires to have a cooperative, trusting and open relationship with those city employees who provide services to the RDA. The lack of communication in this case (the land sale involving Bootjack) does not foster this type of relationship.”

Boss Godfrey needed to be called on the carpet, and it appears the RDA Board is doing just that.

We would further suggest the RDA Board also look into implementing policy to provide adequate public notice to all potential buyers whenever RDA properties are to be sold. In a comment in a lower thread, Curmudgeon suggested a 30-day public notice period whereby outside offers would be publicly solicited and entertained any time an RDA property had received a single purchase offer. Not a bad idea, we think, although we believe a 90 day MLS listing would be a better solution. RDA policy should require that "surplus" properties always be advertised publicly. Implementation of such a procedure would allow the free market to peg the true fair market value, and would eliminate criticism that properties were sold at below-market prices.

Secondly, Utah has again joined the ranks of states which permit condemnation and seizure of private property for economic development purposes. House Bill 365 sailed through the Senate in the final day of the legislative session with a unanimous 26-0 vote yesterday, we learn from this morning's Jeff DeMoss story.

A room-ful of grinning Utah senators yesterday applauded the legislature's latest foray into communalist practices. The new legislation of course has a gimmicky majoritarian twist. From now on, individual proprty rights will exist subject to the whims of neighborhood apparatchiks:

Unlike a previous law that was repealed in 2005, where a single property owner could hold up an entire project, HB 365 requires an 80 percent majority of residential owners or 75 percent of commercial owners in a project area to give approval in petition form before redevelopment authorities can exercise eminent domain.
A project could also be cleared with approvals representing the equivalent of 70 percent of total residential property value or 60 percent of commercial value in the area.

The bill's sponsor, Comrade Senator Scott Jenkins, uttered an odd comment upon passage of the bill yesterday:

“What ends up happening a lot of times is the minority ends up trumping the majority,” Jenkins said.
“You end up in a situation where one person can make it so the rest can’t get rid of their property. This sets a very, very high standard for the majority.”

Some of us were heretofore unfamiliar with the notion that individual property rights ought to be subject to the whims of the majority in America. And since when is it the proper role of government to help dissatisfied property owners "get rid of their properties, we ask?

Somewhere in a warm very warm place down near the earth's core, Old Joe Stalin has to be smiling.

"Keep the fires burning, Joe," we muse. "Comrade Senator Jenkins will be joining you down there one day soon."

The floor is open.

Hoodwinked and Flim-flammed Again

When will the council wake up?

Late to the party again, the Standard-Examiner finally gets around to reporting a story which broke days ago on these very Weber County Forum pages. Chris Peterson's stealth acquisition of three Wall Avenue properties directly adjacent to the new FrontRunner train station is front-page news with this morning's Scott Schwebke piece.

Ace Reporter Scwebke has done some reportorial "digging" since we first published the story, and has come up with some very revealing facts and quotes.

First, we learn that that the principals in the transaction were in fact Chris Peterson and his brother:

Community and Economic Development Director Dave Harmer confirmed that F.L. Peterson and Chris Peterson are brothers and are likely going in together on the purchase of the parcels at 2127, 2131 and 2151 Wall Ave.
The Ogden Redevelopment Agency, made up of the City Council, authorized Mayor Matthew Godfrey in December to sell the land for $270,000 to Bootjack LLC, operated by F.L. Peterson.

Secondly, we find out that the Godfrey administration wilfully (and fraudulently, we think) concealed and suppressed this highly material information from the Emerald City RDA Board:

A city government official, who asked not to be identified, said the administration sent a memo earlier this month to City Council Executive Director Bill Cook explaining why Bootjack’s ownership was not initially divulged.
“It would have created too much controversy and questions,” the official said... .

Boss Godfrey has been caught red-handed with his grubby little paws squarely in the cookie-jar in this transaction, folks. Boss Godfrey and his soul-less lacky Dave Harmer very well knew that disclosure of the identity of the actual Godfrey crony principals in the Bootjack LLC would cause an uproar; and they thus intentionally withheld this troubling and incriminating information.

Once again our Council/RDA Board has been flim-flammed and hoodwinked by the crafty, conniving and ethics-challenged Boss Godfrey. The conduct revealed here is reprehensible, we think.

And we ask once again... WHEN WILL THE CURRENT "RIP VAN WINKLE" COUNCIL WAKE UP?

The floor is open.

Update 2/22/07 8:42 a.m. MT: Ace Reporter Schwebke again furnishes more particulars on this topic with this morning's story, wherein Chris Peterson finally comes clean, admitting that he's the true owner of the purchase option for the Bloom Recycling parcels. Asked about his plans for the property, Chris resorts to his usual schpiel.: "It's a secret," says Boss Godfrey's very best buddy.

"I think that people will be intrigued by and excited about the plan when it is released," says Chris. We're sure that's true, say we. We are always thrilled whenever Boss Godfrey's cronies are lined up preferentially to reap real estate profits hand over fist, as the result of Boss Godfrey's sweetheart deals.

Meanwhile our dumbfounded council/RDA board sits idly, scratching its head and twiddling its thumbs; and Boss Godfrey continues his unfettered tenure as Emerald City's Rogue RDA Executive Director.

Strike Three

By Ogden Red

In baseball, three strikes and you’re out. Within Ogden City three strikes and the City Council should rein you in. The Ogden City administration in my book has now taken that third strike with our City Council. But to recount how we got to strike three please remember that strike one was the botched Chianti/Shupe-Williams land sale in which the administration told the City Council that they had a completed deal to sell the Shupe-Williams land to Chianti so the council needed to approve the sale. Chianti then publicly stated that they had no interest in the transaction as the City had proposed it and weren’t buying the property. Strike two was the St. Anne’s Shelter move in which the administration assured the Council that the Shelter wanted to move from their current location and that the Council needed to request money from the State Legislature to assist with the Shelter’s move. We have since learned that the Shelter’s Board of Directors didn’t even know of the discussions with the City and yet the City is still asking the State for money for people that don’t want the money. Now we go on to strike three as presented below.

Once again our administration is up to no good and most people would call this a definite strike three. It has just come to light that the Ogden City RDA has recently sold a very desirable piece of property on Wall Ave. to a crony of the administration for $270,000. The property was sold under an option agreement to Bootjack LLC which turns out to be none other than Chris Peterson and company. A true copy of the operative December 22, 2006 option agreement is linked here.

This property was sold without any public bidding process and involves a piece of land approximately an acre in size, which has tremendous retail and commercial value once the Frontrunner comes to town. It is located on the same side of Wall Ave. between 21st and 22nd Street as the Frontrunner terminal. Of course the excuse that the administration will put forward is that the money was needed for The Junction (cost overruns, which the administration won’t acknowledge) but why aren’t the residents able to bid for these prime pieces of Ogden real estate? Why are these sales made in private? Is the city getting the best price; and why aren’t the same demands being made of this purchaser as with others?

Point in fact is that Bootjack LLC has no stated viable use for the property or timetable for developing this property. More than likely they will just profit off of Ogden City’s administration’s generosity with the residents' money. Remember that when the Union Station Foundation wanted to bid more money for the Shupe-Williams property than the next closest bid by more than, something like 50%, they were told that their bid was no good because they could not give a timetable for the development of that property. Bootjack LLC has neither plans to build nor any timetable. Clearly this lack of consistency in reasoning is an example of how this administration is operating. This latest land sale, and the land’s huge potential for appreciation with the coming of the Frontrunner, appears to represent the administrations subsidy of Mr. Peterson’s development efforts with our money. With the Frontrunner so close to arrival, why did the city sell this property now? Why didn’t the City get a loan against the property to meet any short term requirements or open the sales up to the public that would have realized the potential of the location and possible offered a much better price to the City than it received from this sale? A public sales process would have only taken 30 to 45 days to complete and this option agreement allows the buyer up to 90 days to close the deal. This sale reeks of favoritism and there is a high likelihood that the City did not get the best price for the property.

Rumor has it that Peterson has suggested that he will offer this property to Weber State University in exchange for property behind the University. Logically one would find it hard to see why the University would find one acre isolated 5 miles from their main campus of much use. The property would need to be much larger for any use other than retail (its highest value usage) and in order for that to happen the city would need to exercise eminent domain on all the houses behind this property. Not that the current administration is above doing that, but one would still have to feel that the University would not find two separate campuses so close together and yet so far apart, to be of much benefit. As such Mr. Peterson’s or the administration’s use of this excuse as to the potential use of this land is to say the least once again lacking for reasonability. Secondly, if the University doesn’t show any interest in the property, then we have squarely placed an administrative crony in the middle of any future real estate dealings involving property on that side of Wall Avenue.

What is very apparent here is that as a friend to the administration, the City is for sale and as a resident you are expected to pay for that friendship. It’s about time that the residents of the City start expressing their discontent with this out of control administration that operates behind the closed door, under the table and has excuses for everything after the fact.

It’s about time that the City Council starts counting up the strikes and starts to meaningfully change the way that they conduct business with this administration.

The administration shows no respect for the City Council’s authority in their dealings with the Council and shows no intent on changing that either. This administration has shown that they cannot be relied upon to operate within the legislative intent of the law, something that has worked with prior administrations. The current administration feels that the end justifies the means, so if the Council interferes with the administration, the administration simply goes around the Council, or doesn’t provide the Council with the needed information to make an informed decision or doesn’t tell the Council about something until it’s a done deal. The Council needs to start enacting resolutions that require their approval before things happen in this City rather than after they have happened.

It is each City Council Member’s responsibility of office to be the checks and balances to the administration and it is each City Council Member’s responsibility to write if needed or to amend the City Laws to make sure that the administration operates within the City Laws and their intended meaning.

The Council should consider their staffs as assistants to that purpose but understand that they can only provide a basic frame work for any resolution that needs to be amended. Any Council Member that expects anything more from their staff is shirking their own responsibility of the position. The Council Members need to be the ones that generate the amended language to any modified resolution and the Council need to discuss these proposed additions to the resolution with other Council Members in order to arrive at a majority agreed upon intent and wording. Council members are the checks and balances, not the staff. The City Council cannot allow these recent types of actions by the administration to continue.

The Council needs to add stronger language to all our City Laws that in effect will require the administration to fully inform and seek the Council’s prior approval before the administration makes any moves that involve the Council's involvement or consent, a modification that wasn’t needed with previous administrations.

This is be the only way to safeguard our community from the administration's uncontrolled actions and the only way to protect the Council from further administration actions that end up as a Council embarrassment.

The City Council cannot consider that they are doing their job if they allow these types of actions by the administration to continue. This property sale to Mr. Peterson can only be called one thing, strike three.