A Call for Weber County Forum Citizen Action: Sign the Support Healthy Utah Petition

Call on state legislators to act now so 89,000 Utahns who are struggling will have access to affordable health coverage

In the interest of spurring a little much-needed Weber County Forum citizen action, we'll highlight this morning's strong Salt Lake Tribune op-ed, wherein AARP Utah state director Alan Ormsby sets forth why his organization supports Governor Herbert's "Healthy Utah" mini-Medicaid expansion plan, which, despite recent Utah legislative setbacks, still remains on the table, as we approach the upcoming 2015 Utah legislative session. Here's Mr. Ormsby's "pitch," in a nutshell:

[The Governor's plan would drive] down the cost of uncompensated care by providing more Utahans with access to affordable health coverage could save the state as much as $51 million a year.
Bottom line: The Healthy Utah Plan makes smart economic sense for our state, while giving tens of thousands of hard-working Utahns the opportunity to stay healthy and build financial security.
We applaud Gov. Herbert for his tireless work to find a Utah solution to this critically important issue — and we call on state legislators to act now so 89,000 Utahns who are struggling will have access to affordable health coverage.

Check out Mr. Ormsby's full guest commentary here:

• Op-ed: Healthy Utah is especially needed for those 50 to 64

It's in this connection that we present the below-linked online petition for your consideration, folks:

• Support Healthy Utah Petition

Please sign the petition and "urge the Utah Legislature to accept Healthy Utah. Help 146,000 of our most in-need citizens get health care, create thousands of new jobs, and bring back to our state $647,700,000 each year by 2021."

Is Utah a truly compassionate state as AARP director Alan Ormsby contends?

We guess we'll soon find out.

Disappearing Ink: Former Journalists Say The Decline Of The Salt Lake Tribune Stems From A Conspiracy Between The Paper's Corporate Owner And The LDS Church

Imagine, if you will,  a world where the Deseret News winds up as Northern Utah's only remaining major newspaper, peeps 

In any situation where there’s a quasi theocracy ... any state where it’s politically or religiously dominated, an independent voice or a countervoice for that matter, is critical to the survival of diverse thinking.

Former Tribune Editor Jay Shelledy
Disappearing Ink: Former Journalists Say The Decline Of The Salt Lake Tribune Stems From A Conspiracy Between The Paper's Corporate Owner And The LDS Church
May 14, 2014

My sense is that the entire industry has tried to lay print to rest before it’s ready to die, and I see that as a mistake. I think the revenue most places still comes from print—most of the revenue—and that’s why the new split hurts the Tribune so much.

Former Tribune Editor Nancy Conway
Disappearing Ink: Former Journalists Say The Decline Of The Salt Lake Tribune Stems From A Conspiracy Between The Paper's Corporate Owner And The LDS Church
May 14, 2014

Much of what the Tribune does, involves going to court with the government over open-records requests—an often thankless and costly process undertaken so that Utahns know the business being conducted on their behalf. [The Tribune has] always been a very strong, strong investigative watchdog newspaper. I’d hate to see it go. It would be a bad thing.

Joel Campbell, professor of journalism, BYU
Disappearing Ink: Former Journalists Say The Decline Of The Salt Lake Tribune Stems From A Conspiracy Between The Paper's Corporate Owner And The LDS Church
May 14, 2014

The Trib Receives a
D-News "Warm Embrace"

Humdinger of a journalistic tour de force from Salt Lake City Weekly this morning, for those WCF readers who'd like to fully bone up on the current plight of Salt Lake City's top-selling newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune.  A giant Weber County Forum Tip O' the Hat to SLWeekly reporter Colby Frazier, for one of the most robust and well-researched journalistic pieces which we've featured on these WCF pages in years. Read up, folks:

• Disappearing Ink: Former Journalists Say The Decline Of The Salt Lake Tribune Stems From A Conspiracy Between The Paper's Corporate Owner And The LDS Church

Within this morning's story, Mr. Frazier has embedded this handy link, which opens this important online petition:

• Save the Tribune

We urge all WCF readers to chime in on this right now. Can't hurt; might help.

Imagine, if you will,  a world where the Deseret News winds up as Northern Utah's only remaining major newspaper, peeps.  If that distressing prospect won't motivate you to take immediate political action, we suppose nothing will.  For a little extra inspiration however, please view the image embedded above, which lays it all out in graphic form, wethinks.

The Sea of Troubles Continues to Boil in the Ogden School District This Morning

The plot sickens; 250 "reading coaches" tossed overboard

OSD "Captain" Smith

The "sea of troubles" continues to boil in and around the Ogden City School District this morning, in the wakes of Ogden School Superintendent Brad Smith's Ogden School District Media Specialist/librarian Massacre and his Adult Education Program "Friday Surprise," as the Standard-Examiner runs a couple of new items this morning demonstrating that our seemingly desperate and suddenly pinch-penny OSD Captain Smith is apparently nowhere near done with cutting the Ogden City Schools' budget clean down to the water line.

Check out this morning's Nancy Van Valkenburg's story, folks, which reports that Ogden City school-kids will be suddenly doing without the services of 250 "reading coaches" who'll be tossed overboard very soon:

• More than 250 reading coaches latest casualties in Ogden School District

And here's an eye-opening Standard-Examiner video piece showing the reaction to this news from the reading coach "crew":


"Who's gonna help the kids read?" one short-timer reading coach asks.

"Will the The Captain" "go down" with the apparently sinking OSD ship?" That's our sodden question, Peeps.

We'll close up Ms. Van Valkenburg's morning OSD article series with a story about the online petition we wrote about and linked a couple of days ago:

• Mom petitions over firings

Here's another quick link to the petition, by the way... just in case you "forgot" to sign it [wink-wink]:

• Petition to the Ogden School District: Retain Certified Librarians in our schools district wide 

And please don't let the cat get yer tongues (whatever you do).

Online Petition to the Ogden School District: Retain Certified Librarians in Our Schools District-wide

You know what to do. Do it on the internet

Thanks to a tip from yet another sharp-eyed and alert WCF reader, we're delighted to report this morning about a new and highly encouraging development concerning the ongoing Ogden School District media specialist/librarian "massacre" flap. It was inevitable, we suppose, that some enterprising Ogden lumpencitizen would get around to putting together an online petition; and surely as the night follows the day, we find that one such such civic-minded person, aka Heather Turner, has done just exactly that.

You know what to do...
Do it on the internet

You know what to do.  Do it on the internet:

• Petition to the Ogden School District: Retain Certified Librarians in our schools district wide

Tell our Ogden School District administrative fatcats (and their Ogden School Board lapdogs)  that you'll  tolerate neither the "gutting" of the OSD library system," nor their continuing knuckle-headed policy of  "educating" Ogden City school-kids "on the cheap."

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial: Swallow Must Go

An invitation to roll up your sleeves and actively engage in the political process, by affixing your electronic signatures to one or both of the petitions below 

For those readers breathlessly following the white-hot John Swallow attempted bribery scandal, here's the latest from the Salt Lake Tribune, another scathing editorial pulling no punches and demanding Swallow's immediate resignation. "The professional reputation and political capital of Attorney General John Swallow have been so severely damaged that it is hard to see how he can effectively carry out the duties of his office," sez the Trib editorial board... and that's just the tip of the editorial iceburg, so to speak. Read up, folks:

• Swallow must go

At least one Trib reader boils it all down nicely, wethinks:

Even if we give Swallow the benefit of the doubt that he did nothing illegal, he still was either incompetent or stupid enough to do things that looked bad. Simply put, a man in his position should have known better.  And, not knowing better shows a weakness and vulnerability we don't need in an AG.

And for those WCF readers who'd like to hasten the result which this morning's Trib editorial strongly urges, we submit for our readers' perusal not one, but two online petitions aimed at nudging Mr. Swallow into doing "the right thing," O Gentle Ones:

• Petition: Time for Utah Attorney General to go
• Petition: John Swallow please step down and Resign from the Utah Attorney Generals Office

So once again, as we've done many times with many other issues in the past, we urge you all to roll up your sleeves and actively engage in the political process, by affixing your electronic signatures to one or both of the above petitions, folks.

It can't hurt and might help, as far as we're concerned. 

Looks like a "no-brainer" to us.

Utah Post-2012 Legislative Session Wrap-up

Sign the Petition... Consider this an early opportunity to accomplish something useful and positive this morning folks.

Now that the 2012 Utah legislative session has drawn to a close, here's a wrap-up of the most important legislative "achievements" of the now completed of the latest round of legislative "madness," gleaned straight from the pages of the Salt Lake Tribune and Standard-Examiner morning editions:

Salt Lake Tribune:

• Schools: Lawmakers focus on sex ed, educator accountability
• Legislature recalls, changes bill after veto threat
• A bit more money for prisons, new troopers
• Utah open-carry gun bill put on ice
• Divorce waiting period passed
• Legislature hands-off on immigration
• Lawmakers overhaul environmental boards
• Unwed fathers, parents and drug users get attention in 2012 Utah Legislature
• Lawmakers tackle SLC idling rule, ethics oversight
• GRAMA battles quiet this year
• Liquor changes won’t affect consumers
• Utah higher ed gets 3 percent bump, but many funding requests languish
• Utah lawmakers block LGBT-related bills
• Transportation bills hit bumpy road
• 2012 Utah Legislature adjourns; session focused on sovereignty
• Utah moves to triple abortion waiting period

Standard-Examiner:

• Senate approves Aubree Jo's Law on final night of session

And for those readers looking for a little post 2012 Regular Session activist action, the Trib also reports that "[t]housands of people have signed an online petition urging Utah’s governor to veto a bill lawmakers passed this week to prohibit instruction about contraceptive use during sex education classes and allow schools to drop such classes altogether":

• Thousands sign petition asking for veto of Utah sex ed bill

Unfortunately, for unknown reasons, the Trib neglects to provide a link to the actual petition; so we'll pick up where the Trib left off.

In that connection, and for the benefit of those readers who agree with us that HB363 is possibly the most irresponsible legislation of the 2012 session, click the link below to view and Sign the petition that the Trib merely mentions, urging Governor Herbert thusly: "Governor Herbert, please veto HB363. Our children need to be given enough information about sex and contraception that they are able to make good decisions concerning sex":

• Petition: Gov. Herbert Veto HB363 (sex education)

Consider this an early opportunity to accomplish something useful and positive this morning folks.

Update 3/11/12 9:00 a.m.: The SL-Trib editorial board provides another good 2012 legislative session summary this morning:

• Thumbs: Short takes on Legislature ‘12

Petition: PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks the Internet

Congress needs to hear from you, or these bills pass

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo
The video above discusses the Senate version of the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In the Senate the bill is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). SOPA has gotten more attention than PIPA because it was moving faster in the legislative process. But PIPA is just as dangerous, and now it is moving faster.
PIPA would give the government new powers to block Americans' access websites that corporations don't like. The bill lets corporations and the US government censor entire websites and cut sites off from advertising, payments and donations.
This legislation will stifle free speech and innovation, and even threaten popular web services like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
The bill is scheduled for a test vote in the Senate on Jan. 24th: We need to act now to let our lawmakers know just how terrible it is. Will you fill out the form above to ask your lawmakers to oppose the legislation and support a filibuster?
Click the link below to sign the electronic petition:

• PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks the Internet

The good news is that in the face of massive Internet protest yesterday, key Senate and House backers of the SOPA and PIPA web censorship bills – including Senators Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt, John Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, John Boozman and Jim DeMint, and Representatives Ben Quayle and Lee Terry – have dropped their support.

The bad news is that But SOPA’s key sponsor – Lamar Smith – is sticking with the flawed bill. In fact, the Senate is set to vote on PIPA on January 24, 2012, and the House Judiciary Committee continues its markup of SOPA in February:

• Update on SOPA and PIPA

Do not dawdle on this folks... Sign the petition Today!

Salt Lake Tribune: Utahns For Ethical Government Lawyers Sue In Federal Court - UPDATED

Godspeed to the UEG lawyers
UPDATED: Temporary restraning order granted; press conference set for 11:00 a.m.

Interesting development on the citizen's initiative petition front, according to this morning's morning's story in the Salt Lake Tribune:

• Suit demands secrecy for ethics petition signers.

In Tuesday's WCF article we assured our readers that Utahns for Ethical Government's (UEG) lawyers were prepared to go to court, although we confess that we had no idea they'd be doing it quite so soon. From this morning's Cathy McKitrick story:

One day shy of the deadline to turn in 95,000 valid voter signatures, attorneys who drafted a pending ethics-reform initiative filed suit in U.S. District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the practice of making petition signatures public.
David Irvine and Alan Smith, two of the key legal minds behind Utahns for Ethical Government, requested a temporary restraining order -- and permanent injunction -- to block the release of signers' names, addresses and, in some cases, their age or birth dates. Current state law allows their release as soon as county clerks have accomplished the task of matching names to registered voters.
"There's a provision in Utah's initiative statute that once you've filed your packets with the county clerk they become a public record," Smith said. "We're challenging the constitutionality of that statute. In effect it chills the First Amendment rights of those who signed the petition."

We'd expected that Utah Republicans who'd signed the petition would experience a certain amount of needling from GOP jack-boots operatives for having deviated from the Party Line. What we hadn't expected was that ethics reform-minded GOP petition signators, in doing so, would be mean-spiritedly accused of having committed the equivalent of an act of political treason:

"We want to protect those who signed our petition from being harassed," Irvine said, noting that some signed just because they thought that people should get to vote on the question.
"The [state] Republican Party has said it will target our folks," Irvine added. "We've had Republicans in Utah County saying 'if you sign you're not fit to run as a Republican.'"

Old-fashioned right wing socialist Brown-shirt Politics, anyone?

Godspeed to the UEG lawyers.

Sign the petition here:

• Utahns for Ethical Government

Please be patient, folks. The UEG website has been up and down this morning, (and over the past day or two as well), due to user overload (which is a positive omen for initiative supporters, wethinks). If you get a page load error the first time around, come back later and try again. Today's the last day for the gathering of signatures by the way, so for those who've dawdled... please be persistent... and don't give up until your electronic signature has been lodged.

Update 4/16/10 6:00 a.m.: The Salt Lake Tribune reports that U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups granted the UEG's request for a temporary restraining order to keep petition signers' names secret:

• Ethics initiative 'close' to making ballot

We also received an email from UEG representative Kim Burningham about thirty minutes ago informing us that despite intermittent crashes of UEG's website throughout the day, "yesterday also brought great 'highs,'" and "that there is far more news--and even more exciting--that will be clear at the 11 a.m. press conference this morning."

We'll keep our ears open, tune into this morning's press conference and report back with any new developments arising in connection with the UEG petition story.

Gotta admit the suspense is killing us.

Stay tuned, WCF readers.

Standard-Examiner Editorial: Allow Online Petition Signatures

It will be a shame if these citizens initiative petition efforts are defeated, by getting too few signatures

Fine editorial in this morning's Standard-Examiner, urging Lt. Governor Bell to reconsider his office's anti-democratic stance, against allowing electronic signatures for the Utah ethics reform and fair boundaries initiatives.

If however, it's necessary to overturn Bell's legally weak posture in court, Utahns for Ethical Government is fully prepared to do that. Remember, people, the Attorney General's opinion letter upon which Lt. Governor Bell relies does not have the force of law, and that such a letter is in fact by its own nature no more authoritative than any other opinion letter which might be issued by any other licensed Utah lawyer. UEG lawyers are prepared for litigation; and they'll soon be seeking declaratory relief in the courts, if necessary.

Citizens' initiative sponsors are still urging Utah voters to continue to go online to affix their electronic signatures to the petitions, pending a judicial resolution of this matter. In the event that these online petitions are ultimately ruled invalid (a low-probability outcome, in our opinion,) petition sponsors will still have your full contact information available, so they will be able to easily contact you to obtain a hard-copy signature.

As of April 2, UEG spokesman issued a press release stating that UEG anticipated reaching somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of its mandated 95,000 signatures of registered Utah voters by April 4, 2010. So with two days remaining, we'll put on one extra pre-deadline (April 15) push and strongly urge those of you who haven't yet signed the petition to do so now, without any further delay.

Once again, here are the links to the UEG and Fair Boundaries online petitions:

• Fair Boundaries
• Utahns for Ethical Government

You can also click on the graphic above, which will take you directly to the UEG's online petition data entry page.

As the Standard-Examiner editorial board emphasizes:

This is a unique opportunity for Utah residents to send a clear message to lawmakers that we are fed up with long-delayed ethics reforms and are taking matters into our own hands. It will be a shame if that effort is defeated, either by getting too few signatures, or having names gathered electronically struck down by the lieutenant governor.

Need we say more?

Salt Lake Tribune: Foes Cry Foul On Petition Law Fixes

Sign the petitions, folks! You can tell the anti-ethics goons to "go to hell" later

"Putting an issue on the ballot for public discourse is democracy at its finest," she said. "The effort to scuttle that debate is tantamount to tyranny."

Attorney Lisa Watts Baskin
Salt Lake Tribune
Foes cry foul on petition law fixes
March 18, 2010

Excellent Cathy McKitrick writeup in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune, reporting on the reaction to Sen. Howard Stephenson's SB275, which "removes the [statutory] requirement for a notary to get signatures removed from petitions, and gives opponents an extra inning to play after the other team has left the field."

More from Watts Baskin:

"Opponents have a full month" -- until May 15 -- "to take potshots by name and address," Watts Baskin said. Overturning just one Senate district -- the one with the slimmest margin -- keeps an initiative off the ballot.

Fed up with watching the spectacle of power-mad Utah legislators fighting like badgers to preserve their current pay-to-play legislative system?

Distressed at the prospect of having anti-ethics goons showing up at your doorstep to strong-arm you into removing your signature from the petitions?

Here's the simple two-step anti-tyranny process, folks:

1) Sign the petitions NOW:

• Fair Boundaries Redistricting Initiative
• Utahns For Ethical Government (UEG) Initiative

2) You can tell the goons to "go to hell" (and call the cops) LATER.

Utah Citizens' Initiative Petition Update

You know what to do... Do it on the internet

Red meat news is a mite skimpy this Tuesday morning, so we thought we'd take the opportunity to make yet another pitch for the Utahns For Ethical Government Ethics Reform Petition Initiative drive, which has a little over a month remaining before the April 15, 2010 signature submission deadline.

Weber County Forum readers got a pretty harsh dose of reality regarding the depth of ethical problems in the Utah Legislature just last week, of course, when Rep. Gage Froerer candidly informed us that elements within the Utah Senate were putting the arm on the Ogden Valley citizens for a cool 25 Grand... you know ... to hire a lobbyist to grease the skids for his HB 218 [wink-wink]. It's in that context that we thought UEG's new TeeVee commercial might strike a lumpencitizen nerve, and spur on any readers who haven't yet signed the petition to get to it right now:

And for those readers who might require a little extra convincing, check out the two most recent Standard-Examiner editorials on the subject:

• OUR VIEW: Utah House nixes spending limits • OUR VIEW: More legislative ethicsphobia

Here's the link to the UEG electronic petition; and here are the links to the other two petitions (including Fair Boundaries) which are still in circulation and in need of your signatures.

You know what to do.

Do it on the internet.

Salt Lake Tribune: Initiative Group Rolls Out Final Push

If ever Utah citizens are to put their legislature's feet to the fire and enact strong Utah legislative ethics reform, the time to do it is RIGHT NOW!

It's been a while since we last provided a writeup on the pending citizens initiative petitions which are circulating through Utah even now, so we'll put the spotlight on this morning's Salt Lake Tribune story, to again return the topic to the Weber County Forum front page:

• Initiative group rolls out final push

From this morning's story:

On the steps of the State Capitol, and underneath a threatening March sky, Utahns for Ethical Government announced its last big push --- a "march to the ballot."
The grassroots group now has less than six weeks to finish gathering the 95,000 signatures needed to place a broad ethics reform initiative on November's ballot.
Strategy includes a revamped Web site, a television ad and Saturday gatherings scheduled at local libraries from noon to 3 p.m. More information can be found online at www.utahethics.org.
"The citizens deserve a real opportunity for real ethics reform," said UEG Chairman Kim Burningham, comparing the Legislature's ethics package -- which lawmakers have rolled out over the past six weeks -- to a "crust" of bread.

The Utah legislative majority of course which has dropped all pretense of standing for robust ethics reform during the current legislative session, continues its unsavory war against the citizens of Utah, and is also "doing its part" to undermine the UEG Citizens' Ethics Reform Initiative:

Initiative proponents now find themselves facing steep opposition from a majority of Utah's lawmakers who have denounced their effort.
Just an hour before UEG's noon announcement, House members approved Sen. Howard Stephenson's SB275 in a 50-24 vote, which makes it easier for petition signers to remove their names [from petitions] after having second thoughts.

With six week left before the petition submission deadline, we agree that it's time to get into gear for that "last big push --- a 'march to the ballot.'"

So once again, here's the link to the now-revamped Utahns For Ethical Government website, where those readers who haven't yet signed the UEG petition can do so in electronic form. And for those cautious readers among us, those who'd still prefer to do it the old fashioned way, you'll find a hard-copy petition locations module in the right column of the same page (and at the bottom of the page), with convenient county-by-county contact links.

And for the benefit of those readers who'd like to take a look at the full array of citizen petitions on the 2010 Utah citizens' "grass roots smorgasbord," check out our handy WCF archive link below:

• Pending Utah Citizens' Initiative Petitions

Time's running short, O Gentle Ones. If ever Utah citizens are to put the legislature's feet to the fire and enact strong Utah legislative ethics reform, the time to do it is RIGHT NOW!

Salt Lake Tribune: Initiative Groups Taking Their Signature Drive(s) Online

Sign the petitions, folks... Let's not be hoodwinked by our legislature this go-round

Encouraging Cathy McKitrick story in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune, reporting that sponsors of the various citizen initiatives which are percolating through the State of Utah are embracing applicable provisions of Utah law, which permit use of electronic signatures for online "transactions, " and are putting their their government reform petitions online. According to this morning's story, the following two petitions are already uploaded and ready for your signatures:

• Fair Boundaries Redistricting Initiative
• Peoples Right Anti-bribery & Anticorruption Initiatives

This morning's story also reports that the folks from the Utahns For Ethical Government (UEG) are not far behind, and that they'll have their own broad ethics reform petition ready for your online signatures imminently:

• UEG Ethics Reform Initiative

We'll of course keep a close eye on developments, and let you know as soon as the latter petition is up and running online.

We applaud these citizen activist groups for entering the electronic age, and making these online resources available to the broad range of citizens who regularly use the internet. In that connection, we urge our readers to navigate to the above two sites, to affix your signatures.

As we've already reported, Utah legislative leadership is working in the back rooms on Capitol Hill to put together their own "ethics reform package(s)." Whether this will result in a genuine attempt to enact robust ethics reform, or result in a mere "an empty vessel" we do not know. One thing we do know however... legislative leadership will be a lot more inclined to treat ethics reform seriously this year... if there are several certifiable petitions ready for the ballot this coming November. We accordingly urge our readers to keep our Utah legislature's feet to the fire on this, by signing the various online citizen petitions. According to the most recent polling, the vast majority of Utahns continue to strongly favor broad state government ethics and campaign reform. Sign the petitions, folks. Let's not be hoodwinked by our legislature this go-round.

For the benefit of our WCF readers we'll also note that we've placed a new module, "Active Citizen Petitions," (which includes the three above-mentioned petitions) at the top of our right sidebar. And in the interest of making all active citizen petitions easily available to our readers, we've also added these other active citizen petitions within this new module:

• Powder Mountain Disincorporation Petition
• Ogden Streetcar Petition

Have at it, O Gentle Ones!

Sign the Streetcar Petition!

We're down to our last night before the stakeholders make their final recommendations

By Chris Bentley

Hello, dear friends!

Well, we're down to our last night before the stakeholders make their final recommendations. That means that there's still time to make a difference in this historic and critically important decision. Go to:

• trolleydistric.org/petition

and sign the petition to show your support of smart development, revitalization, and bringing back the life of the core of our community: the east central neighborhood from now on to be known as the Trolley District!

Thank you for all that you are doing to promote good things for Ogden. Please ask all of your friends to sign the petition and join our great effort.

Yours,

Chris

Powder Mountain Update: A New Citizen Petition

Please do your part to help free the beleaguered Ogden Valley citizens from Utah-style corporo-fascist tyranny

There's more frenzied activity on the Powder Mountain Township front, as the valiant citizens of Ogden Valley mobilize yet again to get our from under the Powder Mountain Developers' thumb. House Representative Gage Froerer and State Senator Allen Christensen are planning to introduce a new bill in the upcoming 2010 state legislative session, which will be substantially similar to last year's H.B. 201, the bill which was mercilessly killed by real estate developer-friendly Senate Leadership during the last hour of the 2009 legislative session. In connection with this, the aggrieved Powdervillians have established a new citizen petition on the Ogden Valley Forum blogsite, calling upon Utah citizens to chime in with their support for this bill.

The object of this bill is concisely set forth in the body of the citizen petition:

This bill applies only to town incorporation petitions currently pending under the provisions of the 2007 HB466 law (in effect from June 2007 to March 2008), which allowed incorporation of a town and selection of town officers by large, non-resident property owners without any participation of the voters of the town. The proposed change would remove the requirement for a 24-month waiting period prior to a disincorporation election, allowing the voters of the town to decide immediately whether or not a town is in the best interest of the majority of citizens and property owners.

In our view, this new legislation would be exactly what the doctor ordered for the prospective citizens of Powder Mountain Town, who are being unwillingly impressed into a corporate-controlled municipal entity, with absolutely no say in the matter.

We therefore urge all fair-minded Weber County Forum readers to navigate to the Ogden Valley Forum site, to affix your electronic signatures to the petition:

• Be the first to sign the petition

Please be sure to do your part to help free the beleaguered Ogden Valley citizens from Utah-style corporo-fascist tyranny.

There are already 94 citizen signatures on the petition as we publish this. Let's do what we can to seriously run up the count.

Sign the Streetcar Corridor Alignment Petition

Let the UTA bureaucrats know that the lumpencitizens of Emerald City WILL NOT SETTLE for a hokey 36th Street streetcar alignment

For those following current developments in the ongoing UTA Ogden Streetcar study, please take note that one of our gentle readers has furnished a copy of a draft of the UTA Project Team's streetcar corridor alignment recommendation:

• Ogden-WSU Transit Corridors AA-EIS Project Status, Conclusions and Recommendations

In a nutshell, it turns out that Mr. Wilson's 11/10/09 Standard-Examiner letter, (which we highlighted in our own 11/11/09 WCF article) proves to be most prophetic. It seems indeed that the UTA Project Team has "rolled up the maps, folded up the (public) comments, and apparently thrown them in the trash." From page 11 of the above-linked draft recommendation:

The recommended alignment would run east from the Intermodal Center along 23rd Street to Washington Boulevard and then southbound on Washington Boulevard to 36th Street. All operations on 23rd Street and the segments of Washington Boulevard between 23rd and 25th Streets would be mixed flow. Operations would employ centerrunning dedicated lanes from 25th Street until 36th Street on Washington Boulevard. Operations along 36th Street would be mixed flow with a queue jump lane at Monroe Street. Upon reaching Harrison Boulevard, the alignment would either turn east into the campus on Dixon and Edvalson Dr. and operate in a dedicated guideway through the campus or continue south on Harrison Blvd. The line would have a stop at the Dee Events Center park-and-ride lot and also cross Harrison Blvd. at 4400 South, with the end-of-line at the McKay Dee Hospital campus.

The "next step" in this process is described on page 14:

Continuation of the project requires concurrence or all project sponsor and stakeholders with the recommended alignment and mode. The Project Team will be holding a joint meeting of the Management and Policy Committees on Thursday November 19th 2009 at the Weber County Municipal Offices in Ogden. At this meeting the Project Team will present the recommended Locally Preferred Alternative along with the supporting data used in determining that recommendation. The Project Team will work with all of the members of both committees to come to a general consensus on the recommendation in order to move forward with the next steps in the study.
Once a general consensus has been reached the Project Team will proceed with the
final publication of the Alternatives Analysis and begin with environmental analysis work on the recommended alternative.
If no consensus can be reached among the committee members, a plan of action will
need to be established to determine whether or not the project will continue.

With this crucial meeting coming up on November 19th, those of us who see a 25th Street east-west alignment as essential to the economic development and revitalization of our central city have our work cut out for us; and we're operating on a tight timeline. In that connection we once again urge our readers to navigate to the Ogden Trolley District website and sign the online petition.

As set forth above, it's the Management and Policy Committees (and NOT the UTA bureaucrats) who will have the ultimate say regarding the final proposed alignment. Let's not sit on our thumbs in this matter. Let's all put our names on the petition and let the Management and Policy Committees know that a centrally situated east-west streetcar corridor is what the lumpencitizens demand, and that we WILL NOT SETTLE for a hokey 36th Street alignment.

Once again, folks... let's get crackin'. If you haven't yet signed the petition... please do so now.

Ogden Streetcar Planning Update: Sign the Danged Petition - UPDATED - Software Bug Fixed

One last chance to tell the mind-number UTA/UDOT bureaucrats what's up with the Lumpencitizens of Emerald City
Happily, the little glitch in the online petition software which was earlier reported in this space... has now been fixed

In the wake of yesterday's WCF article, wherein we shined the spotlight on this most excellent Standard-Examiner letter to the editor, and asked for reader suggestions as to how we, the ever-downtrodden Lumpencitizens of Emerald City, could help jar the mind-numbed UTA/UDOT bureaucrats into recommending an east-west streetcar alignment which would actually benefit Ogden, we received something important from one of our gentle readers via email late last evening.

Here's what we received from the most remarkable Ogden City activist Shalae Larsen, via an email transmitted from her Facebook page:

Subject: Sign the petition, bring back the streetcar!
We need your help!
Please visit the website and sign our petition to bring the streetcar back to the Trolley District.
Tell your friends! This is our last opportunity to tell UDOT and UTA how we feel. Thank you all!

Well Shalae, that's exactly what we're doing at Weber County Forum. We're telling our friends. And believe-you- me... we have thousands of them.

If you're in favor of a 25th/26th streetcar corridor which would actually serve the heart of Ogden, be sure to navigate to the link provided above, and enter your information to the petition.

If you're in favor of the 36th street alignment... just go fishin'. I hear they're catchin' 24-inch "Tiger Trout" hybrids on Burch Creek.

Let's get crackin', WCF readers... log you names onto the petition.

A seven-lane highway is what UTA/UDOT have ultimately planned for Ogden's already overbuilt Harrison Boulevard; and according to at least one well informed gentle reader's speculation, that's why UTA/UDOT is holding out.

If you're mad as hell, please chime in with your comment. If you're madder than hell, chip in twice.

Whatever your current state of mind may be however, please be sure to "sign" the petition.

Update 11/22/09 6:;59 p.m.: Happily, the little glitch in the online petition software which was earlier reported in this space... has now been fixed.

Here's the petition link again:

• Sign the online petition

Have at it, O Gentle Ones...

Powder Mountain Petition Reminder

Put your electronic signature on the online petition before it's too late

For the benefit of those who may have missed it down-page, we posted an article on Sunday, updating the Powder Mountain development situation, and urged our readers to sign Ogden Valley Forum's online petition, asking state legislators to pass legislation to thwart developers from engaging in the rape of Ogden Valley, one of the most flat-out gorgeous mountain valleys remaining in America.

For those readers who missed our Sunday article, here's the link.

And for those readers who already know the score about Powder Mountain's attempt to impose town incorporation upon unwilling citizens of unincorporated Weber County, in order to circumvent county planning ordinances, you can go straight to the petition here.

Please don't sit on your heels on this, gentle readers. Time is running out; and as Roy City's Ernest D. Smith expressed in yesterday's Std-Ex letter to the editor, the Powder Mountain developer's aggressive action to abuse the defects in the provisions of last year's flawed HB-466 adversely affects all of us downstream in Weber County and neighboring counties.

Don't forget to include your zip code.

Thanks!