Jason W. Plays It Straight

Two Standard-Examiner letters to open this morning's reader discussion.

Just to get the discussion rolling this Monday morning, we'd like to shine the spotlight on a fine Standard-Examiner letter to the editor appearing in this morning's edition, penned by the always civic-minded Jason Wood:

I was bemused, then nauseated,while reading the puerile house editorial of June 10, "Support Ogden Ice Climbing."
Apparently, the Standard-Examiner's editorial board is comprised of those who easily fall prey to the irrational bleatings of Ogden's top high-adventure carnival barker, Mayor Matt Godfrey.
These people urge the city to allocate $100,000, "even $200,000," in taxpayer funds toward the erection of a nonsensical refrigerated ice tower, open for climbing all the year long.
In energy, mainenance costs and projected users, the idea is farcical on its surface, laughable in conception and utterly ridiculous on paper.
But not according to our delusional mayor and the leaders of our town's only newspaper; both entities seemingly think Ogden is a giant amusement park that needs circus ride after circus attraction to garner some sort of faux recreational cachet the community already possesses due to our natural wonders and the assets Godfrey often threatens.
We are a real city, home to real people who have real problems. Our infastructure is in need of repair, our firefighters are using equipment that's four decades old, we suffer from crime and gang violence, our police officers are underpaid.
But by all means, according to the solipsistic Standard, let's spend public money on another of Godfrey's silly boardwalk apparatuses; let's "get behind" Godfrey, Jeff Lowe and the ice tower.
Jason Wood
Ogden

For those readers who haven't yet made the connection, the above-signed author is the same playful fellow who posts those highly stylized and ever-cranky comments under the handle Jason W. right here on this forum. You know -- the ones which are amply laced with references to "Chris Peterson's squirrel patrol," "onions," and "THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE."

As we lumpencitizens are painfully aware, keeping a lid on Boss Godfrey's crackpot schemes is a 24/7 job here in the upside-down, inside-out universe of MattGodfreyWorld. Today Jason has done his part. A Weber County Forum Tip O' the Hat to Jason this morning, for helping to deliver the message of truth and rationality to the general readership of our home town newspaper.

And for those readers who are disappointed that Jason at least slightly deviated from his signature literary style, and abandoned his "schtick" -- thus depriving Std-Ex readers of the full impact of his mighty pen -- we think that's OK in this instance. Somehow, we think many Std-Ex readers simply wouldn't "get it" at all. Golly heck. Even a few of our own Weber County Forum readers sometimes don't seem to get it either.
Amazing though, innit, what Jason can accomplish when he decides to play it straight?

And while we're on the subject of today's letters to the editor, here's another good one from this morning's Std-Ex letters page, delivering a grand tongue in cheek broadside against Godfrey, et al., on another perennial WCF favorite topic, the Mt. Ogden Golf Course.

Sell the El Monte Golf course and apply sale proceeds to improving our Mt. Ogden Golf Course crown jewel? Now there's one danged fine idea.

Time to clear out the weekend cobwebs, gentle readers.

The floor is open for your comments.

Death of the American Conservative Movement?

One danged fine historical summary and analysis from the New Yorker

Only a few years ago, on the night of Bush's victory in 2004, the conservative movement seemed indomitable. In fact, it was rapidly falling apart. Conservatives knew how to win elections; however, they turned out not to be very interested in governing. Throughout the decades since Nixon, conservatism has retained the essentially negative character of an insurgent movement.

The New Yorker
The Fall of Conservatism
May 26, 2008

Classy tome in the May 26, 2008 New Yorker magazine examining what NYM contributor George Packer speculates to be "The Fall of Conservatism."

The article traces the origins of the American conservative movement from Barry Goldwater through the heady days of Ronald Reagan, and up to the Dubya adminstration, a time when our elected American president failed even to tally a majority vote, and Ronald Reagan's "big tent" seemed to be a mite tattered.

Borrowing from American author Sam Tanenhaus, author Packer moves on to draw some intriguing historical parallels between resulting political movements which may have been later generated, even in the wake of failed presidential campaigns:

Goldwater was to Reagan as McGovern is to Obama. From the ruins of Goldwater’s landslide defeat in 1964, conservatives began the march that brought them fully to power sixteen years later. If Obama wins in November, it will have taken liberals thirty-six years. Tanenhaus pointed out how much of Obama’s rhetoric about a “new politics” is reminiscent of McGovern’s campaign, which was also directed against a bloated, corrupt establishment. In “The Making of the President 1972,” Theodore White quotes McGovern saying, “I can present liberal values in a conservative, restrained way. . . . I see myself as a politician of reconciliation.”

The article also adds some insight into John McCain's possible strategy in Packer's conjectural American post conservative era, wherein the odd Nixon/Reagan coalition of economic conservatives, religionists, super-patriots, etc., has arguably fallen apart at the seams.

This is a truly meaty piece. No brief summary can do it justice; so we won't even try.

Read George Packer's full New Yorker article here.

And please don't forget to come back with your comments, once you've fully digested this most-excellent article.

Fleecing the Faithful Flock

Observations on the social psychology of religion in the marketplace

By Curmudgeon

Interesting piece in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune on Val Southwick's use of his LDS faith to rope in the marks for fleecing, and his ability in some places to get local church leaders to rope them in as well.

NB: before allegations of Mormon bashing begin, let me note that the focus of the article is on Southwick's abuse of his faith connections, and on some Mormons' tendency [despite counter-urgings from the Church's leadership] to assume that co-religionist pitchmen are likely to be trustworthy because they are co-religionists, along with a tendency in some Mormons to believe that visible wealth, flashy cars, grand homes, are signs of God's favor, indicating that the possessor of those things --- like Southwick --- is a moral and upright [and therefor favored by God] individual.

It really is an interesting article on the social psychology of religion in the marketplace [so to speak]. And no, the problem is not at all limited to Mormons.

Powder Mountain Update: Commissioner Dearden Hints That Negotiations Near Completion

Keeping our fingers crossed Commissioner Dearden won't "negotiate away the store"

It's been a little over three months since the Weber County Commission tabled consideration of the "Powderville" town incorporation petition, and entered into negotiations with the Powder Mountain Developer to seek a compromise which would prevent the formation of a new company town, with the attendant political disenfranchisement of those Weber County citizens who are unlucky enough to reside within its borders.

This morning's Standard-Examininer reports a possible breakthrough in negotiations. We incorporate the pertinent paragraphs from this morning's Brooke Nelson story below:

EDEN — Powder Mountain officials have put their plans to become their own town on hold and will continue negotiating other options with Weber and Cache counties, the Cache County Commission learned this week.
Weber County Commissioner Craig Dearden attended the Cache commission meeting on Tuesday in Logan along with a representative from Powder Mountain.
“I was there to confirm information about the negotiations taking place,” he said.
Dearden asked the ski resort in March to hold off on its proposal to become incorporated and, instead, work toward a compromise with Weber County.
Since that time, Dearden said he has met with Powder Mountain officials five or six times.
To Dearden’s knowledge, Tuesday’s meeting was the first time the Powder Mountain group let Cache County know of the change in plans.
“As far as I know, nobody had talked to them,” he said.
Negotiations between the resort and the two counties the development would impact have been largely separate up to this point, Dearden said. As the groups get closer to an agreement, though, the three groups will have to work together more closely.
If things go well, negotiations between Weber County and Powder Mountain could possibly be complete in the next three weeks, he said. [Emphasis added].

Up until this point, the prospect of successful County commission-propelled negotiations have seemed anything but bright, inasmuch as the Powder Mountain developer's bargaining posture has been, shall we say, hard-nosed. For example, as we noted in an update to this this earlier article, the Developer, being on the brink of completion of it's township petition application, opened negotiations by demanding a near threefold increase in the number of residential units to be permitted upon the development site, over and above the earlier recommendations of the Ogden Valley Planning Commission:

To the surprise of nobody with functioning grey matter... the Powder Mountain people responded to the County Commission's negotiation overtures, by upping the ante from the initially-proposed 3700 units at Powder Mountain to 9000 units. So much for "good faith bargaining," we snarkily observe.

We did have an opportunity to speak briefly in late March with commissioner Craig Dearden, who, according to the most recent media reports, is in charge of the county's side of ongoing negotiations. Dearden told us at the time that he believed the county had substantial bargaining leverage in this matter. Although he was nonspecific, he did admit that the prospect of a citizen lawsuit was one of several factors which would keep the Powder Mountain Developer at the bargaining table, negotiating in good faith.

At the very least, we'll chalk up today's story as an indication that we're about to open the next chapter in the Powderville saga. Whether any negotiated settlement will even remotely resemble the original recommendation of the Ogden Valley Planning Commission is anybody's guess. Hopefully Commissioner Dearden won't negotiate away the store.

It's been a long and valiant fight for the beleaguered citizens of Ogden Valley. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed for an acceptable outcome.

Ogden Community Treasure Trentelman Waxes Poetic Yet Again

Get the straight skinny here on a heart-warming story, per Trentelman

Extremely touching article in the Standard-Examiner today. When it comes to the ability to "strum" the strings of the human heart, nobody in the print media anywhere does it better than the Std-Ex's Ogden City Treasure, Charles Trentelman.

We incorporate below the lead paragraphs of today's awesome Trentelman article:

OGDEN — The replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall on display at Newgate Mall may be connecting a dead soldier’s daughter with relatives who didn’t even know she existed.
They’re still working on it and hope this article helps, but the guys at Ogden’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1481, which is sponsoring the wall’s visit, are still getting goose bumps just at the idea that this is happening.
The wall replica, part of the “Old Gloryous” Flag Day observance, is a halfsize, 250-foot-long duplicate of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. It shows the names of every American killed during the Vietnam War, 1959 to 1975.
Dennis Howland, a member of the post, said he and others were assembling the wall Wednesday when a woman approached and asked if she could get help finding a name.
“I said, ‘Sure,’ so we went up and found the name in the books. We went over and I showed her where it was, then stepped away, and she put her hand on the name and started to cry.
“She came over to me a few minutes later and said, ‘That was my father. I never knew him.’ ”

Today's Trentelman piece is truly awesome, we believe.

Read Trentelman's full story to to learn about the happy, albeit bittersweet story ending.

Dang. We'll betcha a burger at "Big Jim's" that Trentelman will soon be appearing on national TeeVee with Oprah.

And don't forget we gave you all a heads-up about the Ogden patriotic event that's still running through Sunday.

We already knew, BTW, that Ogden's Vietnam Vets would be showing up in force to attend this event. We also suspected that veterans of other US wars would show up to express their solidarity -- which they have.

What's important though, even for Ogden citizens who've never "worn the uniform," please.. at at least cruise down to the Newgate Mall to pay your respects.

Vietnam War vets remain today the least appreciated soldiers in any American War. They desperately deserve even this belated tribute.

Time to close the books on that, wethinks.

Debate Night With the Utah GOP

The Northern Utah print media report on last night's GOP "debates."

Both the Salt Lake Tribune and the Standard-Examiner provide brief writeups this morning on the topic of last night's Weber County GOP "debate," wherein Legislative District 7 candidates Glen Donnelson and Ryan Wilcox were invited to field questions from GOP voters from their legislative district. From this morning's Kristen Moulton article:

OGDEN - What was supposed to be a debate turned into a town hall meeting Friday night, giving candidate Ryan Wilcox, challenger to the absent Rep. Glenn Donnelson, a chance to tell 75 District 7 residents his views on everything from property tax reform to energy policy.
The nondebate attracted a much bigger crowd than Weber County Republican Chairman Matthew Bell expected. The high turnout was due in part to media reports that the state Republican Party told Bell it was a bad idea to host a debate between an incumbent and challenger.
"We're going to do it more often," Bell said after the forum. "There is nothing wrong with Republicans debating Republicans."
Donnelson said Wednesday that he would not debate Wilcox because he and Bell could not agree on the format and because Friday is his date night with his wife.

The article suggests Donnelson's decision to decline debating his challenger may have exacted at least some political price:

Christy and Kevin Bailey, noting that it was their date night, too, said Donnelson only hurt himself.
"I was shocked when I heard him say [on a radio show] it was of no interest to him," said Kevin Bailey, a former Pleasant View council member. "Anytime you have an exchange of ideas, it's a good thing. Maybe he's just too confident that he knows what his constituents think."

According to the Tribune report, candidate Wilcox comported himself well, deftly responding to at least the one key question which precipitated a political firestorm within the Utah GOP during the past week:

"What's the motivation for running against a proven conservative incumbent in one of the most conservative districts in the state?" he asked.
"First, I believe in competition. That's part of being a conservative. That's good in business and it's good in politics," said Wilcox, who works for a cell-phone company. "The issue is, it's time for new representation."

As we said, the Standard-Examiner's Scott Schwebke also contributes additional information about last night's event in his own report.

All-in-all, it appears from these two print media reports that Chairman Bell capably moderated the event; and aside from the fact that the incumbent candidate declined to participate, the event otherwise went off without a hitch This of course is something Weber County Republicans have come to expect, under the leadership of Weber County Republican Party Chairman Matt Bell.

We'll also make parenthetical note of another intra party GOP debate which was held last night. Unlike last night's Weber County Leg. 7 event, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that last night's 3rd Congression District Cannon/Chaffetz debate was a genuine old-fashioned knock-down brawl. We have to admit we're sorry we missed that one.

So what about it, gentle readers? Should the Utah GOP (indeed all parties) adopt a firm policy requiring all party candidates to debate prior to party primaries? Should this be a condition for a political party's endorsement? Does the public interest in "openness" and "transparency" trump an incumbent's "right" to conduct his own campaign in the manner in which he sees fit?

It will be interesting, we believe, to examine the post-primary results in the Legislative 7 and Congressional District 3 races, to compare the results for an incumbent who did debate, with the outcome for one who didn't.

And we again invite any readers who attended either of these Friday night GOP debates to chime in with their own observations and comments.

The Latest Godfrey Video Blunders

KSL News devotes an entire story and video clip to Ogden City's most notorious dunce

By Danny

Now KSL has an entire article and video just on Godfrey's sentencing hearing statements about Val Southwick and the response to those statements.

Our mayor's appalling comments, and the response of state officials to those comments, speak for themselves.

City council take note. Matthew Godfrey is a psychopath, a law unto himself, with no contact with reality. Good and evil are defined solely by who his friends are, in his mind.

Be sure to watch the video too.

• Ogden Mayor's courtroom statement upsets many victims.

Well....?

Why Savvy Judges Immediately Remand Convicted White-collar Criminals

Crafty Val Southwick lookalike fraudster remains "on the lam."

By Curmudgeon

Here's why judges are often reluctant to grant those convicted of major fraud facing long sentences weeks to "make arrangements for their families" before reporting to prison:

A manhunt continued on Thursday for a hedge fund manager who disappeared Monday hours before he was to have reported to prison to serve a 20-year federal sentence for conspiracy and fraud in a scheme to cheat investors out of $450 million....
Mr. Israel’s sport utility vehicle was found abandoned on the Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson River less than two hours before he was expected to report to a federal prison in Ayer, Mass., Monday afternoon....
Mr. Israel pleaded guilty in September 2005 to charges of conspiracy and fraud after squandering millions of dollars and producing fake audits of the hedge fund’s performance to hide losses. He was sentenced in April to 20 years.

The judge in the case, at sentencing, told the convicted scammer this:

At Mr. Israel’s sentencing in April, Judge Colleen McMahon of Federal District Court in Manhattan also ordered Mr. Israel to pay $300 million in restitution, adding that “people who commit crimes while wearing a tie do not get a break.”

A sentiment the judge in the Val Southwick case clearly shared.

The excerpts above are from a story in today's NY Times.

Big Debate Tonight: Leg. Dist. 7 GOP Challenger Debates... Nobody

League of Women Voters documents provide some possible ground rules for an "empy chair" debate

There's been a fascinating political development in Weber County politics this week, as is highlighted by this morning's Standard-Examiner lead editorial.

Some time in the interim since the March Weber County GOP nominating convention, county party chairman Matt Bell decided to schedule a debate, pitting four term veteran House Legislative District 7 incumbent Glenn Donnelson against upstart intra-party challenger Ryan Wilcox. Donnelson and Wilcox had emerged from the county convention with a virtual tie vote, and chairmen Bell thought it would be a good idea to hold a debate event, allowing Legislative District 7 GOP voters a pre-primary opportunity to compare and differentiate between the two candidates. So far, so good.

Unfortunately the devil was in the details, and the situation began to spiral downward last week. We'll attempt to set forth the sequential development of this story below:

The first public hint of dissension appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune last Friday, when columnist Paul Rolly reported that the Executive Director of the Utah Republican Party had allegedly taken action to stifle the debate. The Tribune followed up with a similar second article later that day.

The situation appeared on the Weber County public radar screen on on Tuesday, with a Scott Schwebke story, which basically reiterated the information contained in the two earlier Tribune articles.

Also on Tuesday, Chairman Bell offered his own assessment of the situation on the Weber County Republican blog, touting principles of "open government" and populist democracy as trumping any single candidate's interest in exploiting "the power of incumbency."

Although it's not entirely clear from any of the above articles whether Representative Donnelson ever formally agreed to participate in this debate, it's evident at this juncture that Donnelson has indicated he will not appear, and that tonight's event will be what's called in savvy political circles an "empty chair debate." And that's where the situation gets tricky, we think.

Being the curious type, we navigated to the the League of Women Voters website, looking for guidance on the touchy question of how to handle a debate when only one candidate is expected to participate. LWV procedure is the "gold standard" for the conduct of political debates, in our opinion; and here is what we found on the LWV site:

Guidelines For State And Local League Debates Including “Empty Chair” Debates.

We provide below a few selected excerpts from this LWV article:

"Empty Chair" Debates
It sometimes happens that only one candidate in a contested election accepts a debate invitation or that a candidate cancels a debate appearance after agreeing to participate, leaving the debate with only one participant — often called an "empty chair" debate. If only one candidate accepts the invitation, the debate should be canceled. While cancellation is also the most prudent course of action when a candidate fails to appear at the event or backs out shortly before the debate, Leagues may need to consider whether and how to proceed should they find themselves in an empty chair debate situation. [...].

We cite below LWV guidelines for state and local (non federal) debates:

• An empty chair debate should not be conducted if all but one candidate decline the League's offer to participate in a debate. It would be very risky for the League to sponsor the debate, knowing from the start that there will be only one participant.
• An empty chair debate could be conducted only if one or more candidates pull out of a scheduled debate after agreeing to participate, and rescheduling is not feasible. (A League could also choose to cancel the debate in this situation.)
• The closer to the scheduled debate that the candidate cancels his/her appearance, the stronger the arguments that going forward with the debate is not a partisan political activity.
• If the candidate cancels well enough in advance of the debate to allow the sponsoring League to make other arrangements without charge or penalty, the League should make some effort to see if the debate can be rescheduled.
• In announcing that a candidate has canceled his/her participation in a debate, the League should present the factual reasons given by the candidate, if any, without any editorial comment. If no reason is given by the candidate, the League should simply state that it was contacted by the candidate or his/her campaign and told that the candidate would not be able to appear at the debate; the League can also state that the candidate provided no reason for canceling his/her participation.
• To maintain a clear record, the League should correspond in writing with candidates concerning invitations to appear at debates, attempts to accommodate each candidate's schedule, confirmation of scheduled debate appearances, confirmation of the cancellation of a debate appearance and attempts, if any, to reschedule a canceled appearance.
• In conducting any empty chair debate, the League should maintain, to the extent practicable, the debate format. The League must prevent the debate from turning into a candidate appearance that has the look, feel and content of a campaign rally for the only candidate attending the debate. The moderator and other panelists, therefore, should ask nonpartisan questions, the length of the candidate's response should be limited, and if possible, the moderator and other panelists should act as devil's advocate, asking probing questions and follow-up questions. [Emphasis added].

Consider that to be our "two bits." Single candidate "debates" can be tricky, as we said. Hopefully tonight's event will closely follow true debate format, as set forth in the final paragraph above, and the event will not be allowed to descend into something resembling a single candidate's campaign rally.

If any of our readers plan to attend tonight's Leg. 7 event, we hope they'll take the time to report back on how it all shook out.

Ogden Scammer Val Southwick Earns a Minimum Nine-year Stretch With His New Prison-pal, Bubba

Boss Godfrey shows up in court to defend Utah's worst ever investment scammer

Excuse me. Channel 5 news at 4:30 just showed Val Southwick sentenced to prison for 9 counts of investor fraud. Also Mayor Godfrey was there and he didn't look too happy coming out of the courtroom. Doesn't he ever smile his idiotic "angelic smile" anymore?

Lets look at the video... oh yes... there's little Matt, standing in line to pay tribute to the biggest fraudster in Utah History.

Isn't that Matt Godfrey among the folks "standing up" for Southwick's blatent fraud?

Oh my...

And this dippy little apologist is our Ogden City Mayor...

"Birds of a feather stick together"... according to the time-worn folke axe.

Update 6/13/08 8:05 a.m. MT: The Standard-Examiner adds additional subject matter to the discussion this morning, with this Tim Gurrister story, reporting, among other things, that Southwick was remanded into custody and ordered to immediately begin serving nine consecutive 1 to 15 year prison terms.

Update 6/13/08 10:23 a.m. MT: Southwick and Godfrey... Bestest Buddies:

Alternate Reality Department: Fresh Information on the Ice Tower Project

Eight mp3 audios, straight from the Std-Ex website

We have some new material to add to the reader discussion posted in and under yesterday's article, "The Standard-Examiner Endorses Yet Another Knuckleheaded Idea". Although this article provoked a thorough reader discussion, we now have new information to add to the discussion mix. Rather than append this as an update, we've decided to start off with this brand-spankin' new article.

Yesterday afternoon we received an email from Std-Ex editor Don Porter, furnishing some fresh new information. Thanks to Don's heads-up, we provide our readers links to eight mp3 audio files, straight from the Std-Ex website, providing inside information on the material which the Std-Ex editors apparently considered prior to publishing Tuesday's ice tower endorsement editorial. Listen with delight, as Don Porter and several other Std-Ex editors grill the Little Lord Godfrey about his rationale for wasting taxpayer money on this latest knuckleheaded project. We're sure you'll all find these audios to be most interesting:

1. Godfrey on Ogden economic history and vision
2. Godfrey on Ice Tower $200K and private dollars
3. Godfrey on total city money for Ice Tower
4. Godfrey on Ice Tower operational funds
5. Godfrey on 25th Street merchants and the Ice Tower
6. Godfrey on the unique design of the Ice Tower
7. Godfrey on marketing for the Ice Tower
8. Godfrey on the risk vs. benefit of the Ice Tower

Our favorite clip of course is audio #3, wherein Mr. Porter asks Boss Godfrey how much city money has already been invested in the ice tower project to date. Godfrey hems and haws, does an extended soft shoe and finally comes out with a figure around $5,000. The amount is "not significant," says Godfrey. Of course we've already learned from Councilwoman Jeske on Tuesday night that the true amount of city expenditures is at least $124 thousand. So Godfrey's off-the-cuff estimate is only off by $119 thousand. We guess that's "close enough for government work," as the old saying goes. Of course we know our "precious" mayor would never lie about something like this. We're quite sure that he merely "mis-spoke."

Lots of interesting stuff on these audios; and we thank Don Porter for the heads-up. And remember, gentle readers, Tuesday's Std-Ex editorial was evidently written in reliance upon the accuracy of information provided by Boss Godfrey in the interview which is the subject of these audios.

Have at it, gentle readers.

Standard-Examiner: Vietnam Replica Wall Arrives In Ogden

Another heads-up on Ogden's ongoing "Old Gloryous" Flag Day celebration event

The Standard-Examiner reports this morning on the arrival in Ogden of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial "replica wall" which we announced here at Weber County Forum yesterday. We incorporate the lead paragraphs of today's Charles Trentelman story below:

OGDEN -- A rolling mass of black leather-clad patriots escorted a replica of the Vietnam Veterans memorial into Ogden on Tuesday.
More than 300 members of the Patriot Guard Riders and the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club, as well as dozens of independent riders and the just curious, rode in front of a truck carrying the display down Weber Canyon. Almost all the riders had American flags and Vietnam veteran and military patches and pins all over the fronts, backs and sides of their black leather jackets and pants.
The horde of motorcycles filled the rest stop at Echo Junction so full the police had to throw it out half an hour before its scheduled time.
Led by half a dozen police and highway patrol cyclists, the double line of motorcycles wove a thundering path through the construction zones of Interstate 80, rumbled past South Weber and lit up Wall Avenue from 31st Street to the Newgate Mall with flags, headlights and the rumbling thunder of barely muffled engines.

The Std-Ex has been doing a danged fine job with its live (free) website recently, so we're linking today's full online edition article here. At the top of the article our readers will find an added bonus -- a short video clip of the motorcycle procession which escorted this remarkable monument to Vietnam War veterans to the Newgate Mall, where it will serve as the centerpiece for our Ogden Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1481's annual "Old Gloryous" Flag Day celebration event.

This event runs through Sunday. There will bands, dignitaries, speeches and everything you'd expect for a proper Ogden City patriotic celebration. We hope more than a few of our gentle readers will make it a point to check it out .

Council Approves $121.5 Million Fiscal Year 2009 Budget

$100 thousand pledged for ice tower; lobbyist funding denied

By Curmudgeon

Two newspaper reports out this morning on the City Council budget meeting last night, at which the Council unanimously approved a budget for the coming fiscal year.

The first report, in the Standard-Examiner, dwells largely on the Council's including in the budget $75K to fund the "Colors of Success" anti-gang program for six months. The story provides some substantial detail about the program. The Std-Ex story also reports approval of $20K to study the financial problems of the Mt. Ogden Golf Course. And that the Council did not include money to pay for the Mayor's lobbyist for the next year. A spokesman for the Administration said it is exploring "other options" to pay for the contract the lobbyist has already signed with the Administration for the coming year. And the Council approved a 2% pay raise for city employees. The Std-Ex story said nothing about funding the ice tower.

The second story, in the Salt Lake Tribune, reports that the Council approved the compromise proposal for funding the ice tower, agreeing to a $100,000 subsidy. And the Trib noted that the $75K for the Colors of Success program was not in the proposed budget the Mayor sent to the Council.

Also from the Trib story:

One of the most substantial changes in the budget is the city's new approach to setting employee salaries. The council - acting on the recommendation of a committee of employees, department heads and council members - put an end to salary ladders and steps. From now on, employee salaries will be based on performance, and each job will be paid according to benchmarks set by comparing Ogden to 10 other cities. For the coming year, those employees not already topped in pay will get 2 percent raises. The city is also picking up the 9 percent increase in health insurance costs.

Only one Ogden resident spoke at the meeting:

Only one resident spoke in the public hearing for the budget. Mitch Moyes argued that the city should put more money where its mouth is: into youth recreation programs emphasizing kayaking, mountain bike riding, and bouldering. "If our goal is to become the high adventure mecca of the world, then let's get our young people involved," said Moyes.

Comments?

Update 6/11/08 8:08 a.m. MT: Councilwoman Jeske just posted a comment in the thread accompanying this article, indicating that the Salt Lake Tribune has misreported the council's action in re the ice tower. Whereas the Tribune reports that the council agreed to a $100 thousand contribution, Councilwoman Jeske advises that the council merely put the matter over for a budget hearing on June 24th, where the public will be invited to comment on the prospect of enacting a budget amendment to include $100,000 of carry-over funds from the FY2008 budget to be applied within the FY2009 budget to the ice tower.

The Standard-Examiner Endorses Yet Another Knuckleheaded Idea

Can the Std-Ex pick investment losers, or what?

Just like clockwork, the Standard-Examiner comes out, endorsing another knuckleheaded Boss Godfrey project, with this morning's editorial, urging the expenditure of the hard-earned money of Ogden City taxpayers for the Ice Tower project. In a nutshell, we'll briefly sumarize the Std-Ex editors' rationale, and throw in a few of our own editorial comments as we move along:

The project isn't "bizarre;" it's merely "unique;" and at least loosely fits Ogden's recreational mecca marketing plan. Remember, unique is good. The key to success is building attractions goofy enough that we won't attract copycats. Godfrey represents that certain (un-named) private donors wait in the wings to pony up a cool $1 million. They're laying low, however, until they see taxpayer dollars thrown into the pot. $200 thousand in other taxpayer dollars (RAMP Funds) also hang in the balance. These taxpayer funds will be lost, the Std-Ex editors hint, unless Ogden City becomes involved as a cash-on-the-barrel-head stakeholder. Godfrey promises (scout's honor) that whatever contribution the city makes, it will be a one-time donation. The taxpayers will never be on the hook in the future. (Where, we ask, have we heard that promise before?) Jeff Lowe has even promised to set aside funds to dismantle and store the danged thing even if (or when) it flops.

And here's the kicker:

To hear Godfrey tell it, Lowe’s business plan is not dependent on making money from experienced climbers. Lowe will market his facility primarily as a datenight activity, schedule ice-climbing festivals, competitions and clinics, and attract a steady stream of people who will only do this periodically.

Hey waitaminute! There's an actual business plan floating around somewhere in the Godfrey ozone? If so, we lumpencitizens have yet to lay eyes on it. And it's the same for the city counsel, we understand. Despite repeated and serial requests on the council's part, Godfrey hasn't furnished a copy of it to them, either.

Just off the top of our head, we believe there are at least a few preliminary matters to be considered before the council even contemplates committing one dime to this project. Here are a few necessary prerequisites, among others:

1) These mysterious private donors need to step up identify themselves, both as to their identities and the amounts they're willing to cough up toward this project. 8-1/2 years into Godfrey governance, it doesn't seem reasonable to take Godfrey's word for anything.

2) If there is truly a formally proper business plan, it should be revealed for public inspection. So far all we've seen are a brief grant application and sales brochure, which business plan-wise, doesn't really cut it.

3) And what about the idea of a feasibility study? Doesn't anybody do independent analyses anymore?

The above preliminary matters certainly aren't exhaustive of the subject. Perhaps out gentle readers can supply a few more ideas.

And one other thing. Ask yourselves folks, who among you would be inclined to take investment advice from the likes of the editors at the Standard-Examiner? According to our recollection, the last knucklehead Godfrey project for which the Std-Ex editors fell madly head-over-heels was the "Peterson Proposal" (so called), which Don Porter and crew at one time labeled "impressive." As far as we can recall... that's a proposal that never actually materialized, (notwithstanding the Std-Ex endorsement,) and the rest is history, of course.

Don't let the cat get your tongues.

Vietnam Replica Wall Arrival Kicks Off Flag Day Patriotic Celebration

"Old Gloryous” Flag Day celebration runs in Ogden through Sunday

Just to get the ball rolling this morning, we'd like to direct our readers' attention to today's Charlie Trentelman article, announcing a U.S. veteran-oriented series of events which will run at the Newgate Mall between now and Sunday. Mr. Trentelman's lead paragraphs provide the gist:

OGDEN — A replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., will come to Utah today, escorted by several hundred motorcyclists as it moves down Interstate 84 and into Ogden.
Called “The Wall That Heals,” the traveling memorial is half as big as the original in Washington, D.C., which makes it nearly the length of a football field.
Engraved on it are the names of the 58,253 Americans killed in the Vietnam War.
Several versions of the Vietnam Memorial owned by various organizations are touring the country.
This one is sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, created by Congress to build and maintain the original memorial.
The replica is being brought to Ogden by Post 1481 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
The last two years at Newgate Mall, the post has coordinated an “Old Gloryous” celebration for Flag Day, and the wall visit is part of that.

The "Wall Replica" will be arriving in Ogden this afternoon, under motorcyle escort, along a route descibed in today's Std-Ex story.

One of our gentle readers sent us a flier, providing detailed information on the activities which are scheduled in coordination with the above-mentioned Old Gloryous” Flag Day celebration. Interested readers can view the flier here.

A Weber County Forum Tip O' The Hat to Dennis Howland and the members of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1481, for arranging for the display of this unique memorial, honoring the 58,253 Americans killed in the Vietnam War, and for planning and coordinating this five-day patriotic event.

Alternate Reality Department: Faulty Logic 101

The string of twisted "logic" used by Mayor Godfrey to justify his bad behavior continues

By Monotreme

In today's installment of "As Ogden Turns", the Mayor makes two fundamental errors, one of them a whopper of a logical fallacy, the other a political misstep of the first water.

1. The "I've done it before, and no one ever cared" argument. This one doesn't work when you're five, and it doesn't work with the taxpayers.

Let's compare:

I've shoplifted from this store 18 times before and never got caught. I've been doing it for three years. If they were serious about catching me, they'd have installed security cameras or something. It shows that I have a deal with the store owner, and he's going to let me take whatever I want whenever I want because of my precious character.

vs.

The administration lobbied for or against 18 other bills during the 2008 legislative session that were never discussed with the entire [just my friends; emphasis mine] city council and didn't generate controversy, Godfrey said.
"We have been operating this way for the past three years, and there has never been a problem...that should tell all of us that, despite their current claim, it's not the process they are bothered about, it's the passage of the bill that bothers them."

2. I've chaired boards before, and worked with lots of committees, and Mayor, let me give you a piece of unsolicited advice: when the council comes out publicly with a 5-2 count going against you, the way to Win Friends and Influence People is not to start calling them names and attacking their character. The way to do this is to make nice and try to allay their concerns.

You even got Mr. Johnson to indicate to the paper, in a very public way, that he didn't like the way you pulled a fast one on the council. Not a good move on your part.

Standard-Examiner: "Ogden Hospital a Done Deal"

Weber County Forum is compelled to set the historical record straight... once again

For the sake of consistency, we'll highlight this Standard-Examiner article, appearing in yesterday's "Top of Utah" section, under the headline "Ogden hospital a done deal." In truth, yesterday's print edition story is merely a fleshed out version of the earlier Std-Ex Online Edition story which we spotlighted here on Thursday, padded out with some generally useful background information. We did identify two paragraphs in the most recent story, however, with which we must take issue:

In January 2006, Ernest Health abruptly canceled its plans to build a hospital in Ogden after the RDA board, made up of city council members, questioned Darby Brockette, the company’s president and chief executive officer, about the firm’s finances and investors.
Members of the RDA board later apologized, and Mayor Matthew Godfrey’s administration encouraged the company to return to negotiations.

We find the inclusion of these paragraphs troubling, because they continue to perpetuate the myth that simple qualifying questions posed by the then newly-elected 2005-06 Council/RDA Board caused Ernest Health to back away from the the negotiating table in the winter of 2006. The Standard-Examiner has previouly characterised the former RDA Board as having been overly agressive and/or rude. We've addressed this issue at Weber County Forum several times in the past, most recently in this June 7, 2007 article. We incorporate below an excerpt from that 2007 WCF article:

Those of us who actually attended that January 10, 2006 RDA session of course had a completely different take from that of the Std-Ex, about the events which transpired that night. What members of the RDA Board did that evening, as it has done many a night since then, was to ask (quite politely we thought) whether the Ernest Health folks would be willing to 1) disclose the identities of their principles, and 2) provide some basic financial information. The atmosphere was very cordial, according to our recollection; and Mr. Brockette agreed that his company would do so, mentioning that he "expected the Board to do its due diligence," and adding that his company itself was yet to complete its own due diligence.
The real problem, of course was the usual problem: Boss Godfrey. The RDA board had asked for certain information necessary to an important decision; and Boss Godfrey had refused to provide it behind the scenes. Thus the Board had to ask its questions in open session. At the time, our gentle readers will recall, Godfrey's lame excuse was that the new RDA Board had failed to put their information request in writing.
What developed subsequently was a month-long anti-council harangue from the Standard-Examiner, and an extended and petulant Municipal Government Academy Award performance from Drama Queen Godfrey, blaming Ernest Health's failure to abandon its ongoing due diligence, and to immediately sign on the dotted line, on RDA Board over-aggressiveness. Blaming the victim has of course always been Godfrey's strong suit.

For our readers' further enlightenment, we also provide a link to a Dian Woodhouse letter, appearing in the February 8, 2006 Std-Ex edition. The letter refers to an audio recording of the infamous February 10, 2006 RDA Board meeting -- an audio recording which has since been removed from the Ogden City website. Until recently, our readers could simply listen to the audio, and decide for themselves whether its reasonable to speculate whether an earlier RDA Board actually drove Ernest Health out of town. Unfortunately, the Ogden City Administration, for reasons unknown, has eliminated that useful resource from public purview.

For those readers who'd like to fully bone up on the subject, you can review the full array of Weber County Forum articles on the on the topic of Earnest Health right here. We believe it to be a danged good historical archive.

The phrasing in yesterday's Std-Ex article suggests that the 2006 RDA Board's behavior had been improper. Thus we're compelled this morning to set the record straight once again.

We don't know why it took Ernest Health 2-1/2 years to finally commit to building its new hospital in Ogden; and as far as we're concerned, neither does the Standard-Examiner.

And what say our gentle readers about all this?

KSL Chimes In On The Ogden Lobbyist Brouhaha

An invitation to set the record straight, regarding the "thoroughly botched" Ogden City mayor (Otherwise aka Emperor of Ogden, aka Mayor "Boss" Goofrey)

One of our more alert and gentle readers informs us that KSL News has a brief article on its website, reporting on the same Ogden City lobbyist bouhaha that we highlighted earlier this week.

The factually lean KSL article adds absolutely nothing to the facts to our earlier discussion, although the the article-following comments are pure Weber County Forum "red meat".

We urge all well-informed Weber County Forum readers to visit the KSL site, if for no other reason than to to inform the nitwits within KSL's broad and generally ill-informed Salt Lake City audience about the troubles we've had in Ogden, dealing with the juvenile little Tyrant Twerp.

Rumor has it that Boss Godfrey has aspirations for higher political office; and somehow we don't think Utahns outside Ogden actually realize what a sleazy and creepy little mundane ''POS" Godfrey really is.

Post your comments about Godfrey here or on the KSL website; We don't really care.

Whatever you do however... be reasonably polite if you post to the KSL site. Remember that the Salt Lake City Mo-Mo Crowd bristles at bad language.

From here, we turn the discussion over to our ever-savvy readers. Last one out of the room: Please turn out the lights.

US Financial Markets Ponder Yesterday's Economic Quadruple Whammy

Panicked securities investors take the weekend off, to contemplate the true meaning of yesterday's grim economic news

It was a thrilling ride yesterday in the US financial markets, as grim news rolled in on oil prices, the job market, the declining dollar, and a possible war looming against Iran. The chart on the left (click to enlarge) demonstrates the devastating effect yesterday's quadruple whammy of bad news wreaked upon the US stock markets, as heretofor inexplicably bullish security investors fell into panic, triggering a sizable stock market sell off, in a startling demonstration of truly palpable fear. This morning's Standard-Examiner story provides the facts in a tidy nutshell:

WASHINGTON The U.S. economy entered dangerous new terrain Friday as crude oil prices leapt up by a record $10-plus a barrel, the unemployment rate notched its highest monthly jump in 22 years and growing fears of recession sent the stock market plummeting.
The bleak day began with news from the Labor Department that the unemployment rate ticked up in May by a half-percentage point to 5.5 percent. The last time it jumped so much in one month was in 1986. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also said that employers shed 49,000 jobs, the fifth consecutive month of job losses.
Contracts for deliveries next month of crude oil, called futures, then began climbing because of an escalation of saber-rattling between Israel and Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, whose location in the Persian Gulf means that any conflict would likely affect global oil supplies.
By the time trading settled late Friday, oil futures had posted a record one-day move-up of $10.75 a barrel to $138.54. That was nearly twice the record uptick set just one day earlier of $5.49.
Europe’s central bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, started the two day surge in oil prices Thursday when he suggested that he might hike interest rates. That strengthened the euro, Europe’s currency, against the dollar. Oil is priced in dollars on world markets; a weaker dollar vis-a-vis other leading currencies incites sellers to require higher prices. [...].
Adding to the glum news for motorists, investment bank Morgan Stanley predicted $150-a-barrel oil by the Fourth of July, and should a major hurricane hit production in the Gulf of Mexico, the sky could be the limit on oil prices. Americans are virtually assured now of paying far more than $4 a gallon for gasoline. The nationwide average, according to the AAA motor club, was already $3.98 on Friday afternoon, and that didn’t reflect a $15-a-barrel rise in oil prices Thursday and Friday, which could tack on an additional 15 cents to a gallon of gasoline.
As oil headed up, stocks dropped sharply. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 394.64 points to 12,209.21, while the S&P 500 skidded 43.37 points to 1,360.68. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was off 75.38 points to 2,474.56. [...]
Adding to Friday’s grim news was the U.S. dollar’s slumping again. Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke caused a stir by stressing the importance of a strong dollar, a task historically reserved for the treasury secretary. His words helped the greenback regain some ground temporarily, but it fell Friday against the euro, which traded at $1.577 to the dollar.
By talking up the dollar and watching it fall, Bernanke showed how little control policymakers have over the currency’s value. [Emphasis added].

Yes, early in the week, investment pundits where whistling a decidedly happy tune, confident that FED Chair Ben Bernanke had finally stepped up to defend the dollar, by bringing inflationary rate cuts to a final halt. By the stock market close on Friday however, it was obvious that those market commentators who had been so gleeful on Wednesday had been merely whistling in the dark, with Friday's evidence of the dollar's continuing decline against the euro.

And then there's this re the jobs numbers:

“Recession is written all over the jobs numbers. The job losses are significant and broad across many industries and areas of the country,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for forecaster Moody’s Economy.com.
The surge in the unemployment rate probably overstates the job-market weakening in May, he said, because it could reflect college students looking for work early because they know it will be tougher to find jobs this summer.
“Nonetheless, the job market is eroding and so, too, is the broader economy,” Zandi said. [Emphasis added.]

President Bush got Zandi's observations only half right, of course:

President Bush spoke briefly about the economy Friday, using a swearing in ceremony for his new housing secretary to say that the unemployment numbers were skewed by a larger-than usual number of young people seeking employment.

That's right. Dubya believes the general economy is fine, although Bush did grudgingly go so far as to admit that "the reported loss of 49,000 US jobs in May is 'clearly a sign' that US economic growth has slowed".

Happy-talk still pours out of the White House; and US policy-makers continue to whistle in the dark.

Buckle up, folks. As yesterday's cross-the-board numbers indicate, we're not just heading into recession... the 2008 Bush recession has arrived with a vengeance.

And what about it, gentle readers? Will Monday's securities markets open to the upside, or will the stock market sell off continue where it left off at Friday's 4:00 p.m. closing bell?

Ernest Health Finalizes Riverfront Site Purchase

Three-year flirtation comes to fruition; rehab hospital operator finally coughs up $1.5 million

By Curmudgeon

The Standard-Examiner online (free) edition has a breaking news story about Ogden.

The story reports that "Ernest Health Inc. has finalized a $1.5 million property purchase within the first phase of the Ogden River Project for the construction of a rehabilitation hospital."

Two further interesting points. First, Mr. Tom Christopulos, Ogden's business development manager, told the SE that he "is optimistic construction may begin on the Ernest Health hospital by the end of the year." However, the Std-Ex has learned the hard way that every claim by a Godfrey Administration appointee needs to be checked out, and so a bit later in the story we find this: "Chris Bergh, vice president of marketing and business development for Ernest Health, said he hasn’t received a recent update on the Ogden facility and is unsure when construction may begin." Mr. Christopulos might want to give Mr. Bergh a call before talking to the press again about this.

Second... and this one is a candidate for chuckle of the day... the story reports that Mr. Christopulos thinks "the land purchase demonstrates the company’s commitment to the project" because people don't invest millions “to sit on (vacant) ground.”

They don't? Could it be Mr. Christopulos, Ogden City's business development manager [!] has not yet taken a walking tour around the scenic Leshem City area of the River Project?

Council Leans Toward Cutting Off Lobbyist Funding

"Let the council be damned," Boss Godfrey retorts

We're informed by this morning's Standard-Examiner that a majority of the city council is apparently leaning toward the course of action which we recommended on May 24, i.e., cutting turncoat lobbyist Rob Jolley's $50 thousand salary allocation from the 2009 Ogden City budget. Scott Schwebke's lead paragraphs provide the essential facts:

OGDEN — A majority of city council members said during a Thursday night work session they won’t allocate $50,000 in the municipality’s fiscal 2009 budget for lobbyist Rob Jolley because the administration hasn’t kept them informed about legislative efforts at the state Capitol.
A formal vote wasn’t taken, but city council members Amy Wicks, Jesse M. Garcia, Dorrene Jeske, Caitlin K. Gochnour and Brandon Stephenson said they won’t include funding for Jolley in the budget that may be approved Tuesday.
Remaining council members Doug Stephens and Blain Johnson opposed eliminating funding for Jolley.
All council members agreed language should be included in the budget requesting that the administration present a proposal to keep them better informed regarding legislative issues.
The final straw prompting the elimination of funding for lobbying stems from the apparent failure of Jolley and Mark Johnson, the city’s management services director, to get permission from the council before securing a bill amendment giving Mayor Matthew Godfrey complete executive control over the Ogden Redevelopment Agency.

Boss Godfrey, evidently anticipating this council development well in advance, admits through administration sock puppet Mark Johnson (Ogden City Management Services Director) that the administration has already entered into a $45 thousand contract with Mr. Jolley, to secure Jolley's continuing "services" during the 2009 legislative session. Johnson further informs the Standard-Examiner that Boss Godfrey will simply misappropriate Jolley's 2009 blood money from his "operating budget" -- hinting that the council can therefor be damned.

Godfrey of course "could not be reached for comment."

We'll note that it was only last Monday that the Std-Ex published a strong editorial condemning the "sneakiness" of Boss Godfrey's 2008 legislative session maneuver, warily predicting that the inevitable council payback could ultimately result in "sub par governance."

It appears that Ogden City government is now set upon that latter course, as Godfrey adopts further tactics revealing Godfrey's persistent and troubling bunker mentality. Over the course of the next few years Boss Godfrey will necessarily come before our new council seeking council cooperation and indulgence. Yet now, early in the 2008-09 council's new term, it's evident that he's already poisoned that well.

Kudos to the majority of the city council for their tentative hard-nosed stance, by the way. Godfrey threw down the gauntlet on this; and there's no other logical way the council can react. Even councilman Stevensen, usually a staunch Godfrey ally, is evidently appalled enough by Godfrey's juvenile conduct, that he's willing to join with the council grownups.

And make no mistake, Councilwoman Jeske is exactly right when she asserts that its Godfrey is to blame for what appears to be another rocky council-administration relationship. “What it boils down to is that the mayor doesn’t respect the council,” Jeske correctly observes.

And what say our gentle readers about this?

Los Angeles Times: Did Hillary Say 'Bring 'Em On'?

Did Clinton's failed campaign resemble Dubya's strategy on the Iraq war?

Excellent editorial in this morning's Los Angeles Times. Columnist Rosa Brooks starts out with a comparison of Hillary's failed 2008 presidential campaign to the 1992 presidential race, in which incumbent George H. W. Bush got knocked off by a political unknown, Bill Clinton:

"It's the economy, stupid," said James Carville, summing up Bill Clinton's 1992 win over George H.W. Bush. Bush started out with incumbent status and an impressive resume, but he never managed to wrap his mind around the fact of the recession. In the end, he lost to Clinton -- the candidate from nowhere.
Sixteen years later, it's Clinton's wife who's found herself in the elder Bush's position. Hillary Rodham Clinton began the Democratic primary with a famous name, thousands of Democrats who owed their careers to her husband, an enviable war chest and scores of superdelegates in her pocket before the race even began.
All the same, she lost. To a guy few had heard of four years ago. A black guy with the unpropitious name of Barack Hussein Obama, who had no money, no superdelegates and no political machine. But this week, he won, fair and square.
How did Clinton go from inevitable to irrelevant in six months? If Carville were still at the top of his game, he'd be telling Clinton: It's Iraq, stupid. In more ways than one.

Ms. Brooks proceeds from there, not only attributing Senator Clinton's 2008 campaign loss to her basic failure to grasp a fundamental issue in the 2008 campaign, i.e., Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq War, but also to "resemblances between [her] campaign style and [current president George W.] Bush's Iraq strategy," which Columnist Brooks characterise as "eerie and striking."

A fascinating op-ed piece all-in-all, and definitely worth a read, we think, now that the Democratic Party presidential nomination process is complete, and American journalistic commentators and pundits launch the inevitable presidential nomination post mortem.

Reader comments are invited, of course.

Wednesday Morning News Roundup

A mixed bag of Ogden City economic development and sports

By Curmudgeon

Three items of some news interest in this morning's Standard Examiner.

First, a piece by Mr. Schwebke on Tuesday night's Council Work Session regarding the proposed ice tower. It seems that matters did not go as smoothly as Mayor Godfrey and had hoped. The Std-Ex reports that four members of the Council [Stephenson, Johnson, Stephens and Garcia] are willing to pony up $100,000 as a one-time grant to help fund the tower. But apparently there is no majority for a $200,000 grant. An unhappy John Patterson, Mayor Godfrey's chief administrative officer, told the Std-Ex that he's "unsure whether $100,000 would be enough to leverage additional contributions from donors waiting in the wings. " Perhaps "allegedly waiting in the wings" or "perhaps waiting in the wings" might have been a more accurate way to put it, since later in the story, we find this: "Patterson has said $200,000 is needed to demonstrate the city’s financial commitment to the ice tower so that private foundations will also be inclined to contribute." Un-named donors only inclined to contribute? And then only if the city ponys up $200,000?

Council members Wicks and Gochnour said they could support a one-time $50,000 grant, but not more, and Councilwoman Jeske said she did not favor additional public funding.

The Std-Ex reports that there is a majority on the Council for tying a condition to any grant that none of it actually be spent "until there are sufficient funds from other sources to complete the ice tower." The Council, in short, has not rolled over, sat up and wagged its tail on command as the Mayor had hoped.

Second, the Std-Ex reports that the 21st Street Pond has received a promotion, as well as a new name. It's no longer a pond. It's now a lake. Goode Lake. While the city continues to own the new lake, Goode will operate it as a water-skiing venue, and will buy and additional four acres to expand the lake to a size sufficient to hold water ski tournaments. Goode hopes that the expanded lake will permit Ogden to host the World Championships some day.

The story also discusses a planned amphitheater complex for the new lake area. It's been touted before, but has not appeared in the news much of late. Here is the update:

Following the expansion of Goode Ski Lake, Ryan McEuen, president of Incandescent Entertainment, based in Salt Lake City, hopes to move ahead with construction of an adjacent $18 million amphitheater that would hold as many as 13,500 spectators.
The amphitheater would have retractable walls and about 3,500 fixed seats, allowing performances year-round.
McEuen said he is working with investors for the project, but declined to identify them. It hasn't been determined when construction on the amphitheater may begin, he said.
McEuen envisions booking premier rock, country, folk, blues and pop acts along with Broadway touring companies and attracting spectators from throughout the Intermountain West
The city's only significant investment in the amphitheater project would be the installation of infrastructure such as water and sewer lines, John Patterson, Ogden's chief administrative officer, has said.

Finally, we find an article on the Std-Ex sports page, reporting on the Raptors season opener which we discussed on Monday.

Special Emerald City Wednesday Night Event: Joe McQueen Jams At His Own 89th Birthday Celebration

It isn't every day that you can spend a birthday evening with an 89-year old Emerald City "Living Jazzman Treasure"

By Gentle Reader Eleanor

A chance to see Joe McQueen and friends play and sing @ UnionStation this Wednesday night? Can't beat that! Mr. McQueen is definitely one of Ogden's Local Living Treasures.

Who is Joe McQueen? About Joe McQueen

Here are a few more essential details about tomorrow night's 89th birthday party event.

Hope to see all of you there. Steve and I will be attending too.

If this event announcement is not for you, please pass it on to someone else who might like to attend.

The Los Angeles D.A. Lets Leshem Off the Hook

All charges dropped against individual defendants; the corporate defendant cops a nolo plea with court-ordered restitution and Gadi's personal guarantee

The Salt Lake Tribune reports this morning that Riverfront Project developer Gadi Leshem has worked out a resolution of the felony insurance fraud charges that have been pending in the Los Angeles County Superior Court since November of 2006. From this morning's Kristen Moulton story:

OGDEN - All criminal charges were dropped today against a California businessman who is helping Ogden transform its downtown river area.
But his company pleaded no contest to a felony count of insurance fraud, and the investor, Gadi Leshem, is on the hook for a $6.3 million civil settlement in the case.
Michael O'Gara, deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County, said the two-fold settlement was reached as a preliminary hearing for Leshem, Cover-All Flooring Inc. and two other executives was set to begin in Los Angeles Superior Court.
As part of the settlement, Los Angeles County dropped four charges of insurance The case
In the California cases, the state's Insurance Department initially sought $10.8 million in worker-compensation premiums and contended Gadi Leshem's company under-reported its payroll by $31 million. Prosecutors said the state revised the premium amount owed downward after auditing the company, but a defense attorney said the state had improperly classified many Cover-All employees.
fraud and one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud against Cover-All President Leshem, Vice President Zeev Golan and Executive Secretary Irit Golan.
Cover-All Flooring pleaded no contest to one count of insurance fraud and agreed to pay $6.3 million in back worker-compensation premiums to California's State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF). The settlement resolved the state's civil case against Cover-All as well.

This settlement is highly favorable to the individual defendants in this case, inasmuch as each of them reportedly had all individual criminal charges dismissed, leaving Leshem's corporation as the only named defendant pleading no contest to a felony fraud count.

The only apparent fly in the ointment for Gadi, it seems, would be the plea agreement requirement holding Leshem personally liable for $6.3 million in court ordered restitution if his company does not pay down this sum over the next five years.

For the time being we'll interpret this story as extremely good news for Ogden. Now that Mr. Leshem has finally gotten these criminal matters off his back, we'll be keeping our fingers crossed that he'll move full speed ahead toward implementing Ogden's River Project. Having said that, we're also hoping that the restitution provision won't put a significant dent in Gadi's capacity to move forward with his very ambitious downtown project. Gadi has received recent local criticism for dragging his feet. Hopefully he's now in a position to remedy that.

Before closing, we'd like to congratulate Gadi, each of the individual defendants in the case, and their attorney, Mark Werksman, for engineering this exceptional result. The California Department of Insurance is an extremely tough foe; and today's story, we believe, is a testament to these folks' equally extreme perseverance and tenacity -- the same traits we hope to see in evidence on the River Project imminently.

And what say our readers about all this?

Ogden Raptors Update: Home Opener on June 19th

If you're not a Raptors fan... you ain't a REAL Ogdenite
Season home opener: June 19th

By Dave Baggot
Raptors Co-owner

Hello Raptor Fans:

Well the season is fast approaching and it seems a bit overwhelming to me about getting everything finished on time. Construction is scheduled to be completed on the 15th of June but they are hoping to get us some areas to set up before that date. There is a new photo gallery of the construction if you care to check out the website.

The players are scheduled to arrive Sunday June 8th with the first workout being Monday June 9th. Host Families should be prepared to take players home immediately upon arrival.

Speaking of Host Families, apparently we are short on meeting the amount of necessary families. We may need up to (5) additional, so if you are interested in becoming a host family, please call Sherry Kessel at (801) 698-1233. Sherry will tell you what the needs are and what perks go with the honor of being a Host Family. Of course you can call me at 393-2400 for more information.

Game Day tickets go on sale to the public next Monday the 2nd of June at 9:00 am. Tickets will be available at the Lindquist Field Box Office at 23rd and Lincoln Ave, all Smith Tix locations, and of course by call the Raptor Ticket Office at 393-2450. All Phone orders will have a $1.00 per ticket handling fee. You can also go to Smith Tix and order tickets on line simply by visiting the ticket page on our website and pick the game you want to purchase. This is a neat little feature and hopefully will work wonders for your convenience.

Mark your calendar. The season opens June 17th in Orem and the Home Opener is
Thursday June 19th against the same Orem Owlz. The home opener should be quite special as we will re-open the New Lindquist Field and following the game will be fireworks sponsored by Amer Sports.

Housekeeping Note: 700,000 Websites Fail Over the Weekend

Key Houston datacenter EXPLODES

We'd like to issue a sincere apology to those gentle readers who had problems accessing Weber County Forum over the weekend. We've had several gentle readers inquire about this.

According to media reports, a giant data center in Houston experienced a grand transformer explosion, which wiped out 700,000 web sites. It wiped out walls at the mega datacenter too:

• Update: "The Planet" continues recovery from power outage at hosting facility

Consider this a worldwide "hardware problem," which illustrates that web data is extremely vulnerable to catastrophic hardware failures.

Just goes to show how truly fragile our 21st century internet architecture is, we guess.

One other thing: Please don't tell the "terrists" about this.

There's a reason this story hasn't emerged in the national media, we believe.

And what say our tech-savvy readers about all this?

Subprime Finds New Victim as Muni Defaults Triple

An admonition to the Council/RDA Board: Watch out for "visionary" "can't fail" plots and schemes

Eye-opening op-ed piece this morning from the financial juggernaut Bloomberg.com, regarding the deteriorating condition of the current US municipal bond market, which shows further evidence of being solidly "in the tank". Joe Mysak's lead paragraphs provide the gist of the story:

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- The amount of municipal bonds that have defaulted this year is already more than triple what it was for all of 2007.
And who could doubt there's more bad news on the way?
So far this year, $736 million in municipal bonds have defaulted. That doesn't necessarily mean they didn't pay investors; they may have just drawn down reserves. That's what happens just before they stop making payments to bondholders.
During all of 2007, only $226 million in municipal bonds defaulted, according to the May edition of the "Distressed Debt Securities'' newsletter, published in Miami Lakes, Florida.
That $736 million is nowhere near the record for municipal bond defaults, to be sure. The record year, if you're counting, was 1991, when almost $5 billion went bust. That's still small potatoes compared with what happens over in the corporate-bond market, where $36.6 billion blew up in 2006, and almost $24 billion in 2007.
But wait a minute: Municipal bonds never default, do they? Or at least this is how they are perceived by individual investors, right?
We're probably going to see a lot more munis default this year and in the years to come, because of the subprime crisis and maybe, just maybe, because of the high price of a barrel of oil [emphasis added].

As Weber County Forum readers are painfully aware, our Ogden RDA board has already made its 2006 and 2007 "Junction Project" bond payments by "drawing down" against BDO revenue. And in mid-April we learned of another RDA draw down, presumably designed to satisfy the RDA's obligation toward its 2008 bond payment(s). So far the RDA board seems to have so far succeeded in scraping up the dough to keep itself current in its bond obligations, although Junction revenue hasn't been much help in this regard.

And remember... we got into this Junction morass because Boss Godfrey assured us that it "couldn't fail," and that the taxpayers would "never be on the hook." And previous councils bought it all, hook, line and sinker.

Whether the Junction Project is in permanent financial trouble we don't know. What we do know is that this project has suffered significant cost overruns and income shortfalls, and that so far it has plainly failed to pay its own way, leaving the taxpayers of Ogden to pick up the tab. We see no evidence, by the way, that there are prospects of this changing in the near future. We'll also add that we do agree with Mr. Mysek's proposition: Reserve drawdowns often signal genuine insolvency.

In the context of our currently sagging and unpredictable economy, it's not the time, we believe, for prudent city government bodies to indulge in frivolous and risky luxuries of any kind. Nor is it time to blindly accept the representations of glad-handed "visionaries" who peddle "can't fail" projects.

And it's in this connection we do hope our city council/RDA board members are all keeping a close watch on the Junction Problem, and remaining mindful of the fiduciary obligations owed their Ogden City constituents. At the very least, we believe that our Council/RDA elected representatives should exercise the same standard of care as they would exercise with regard to their own personal affairs. We also strongly emphasise that the same standards should be applied by our elected council members with respect to both their RDA and council roles.

And it's with all this in mind we ask this question:

"How many council/RDA board members would be dumb enough to invest (or contingently commit) a dime of their own money toward Boss Godfrey's Ice Tower Project?"

Seriously. Seems like a no-brainer to us.

There's still time to contact the city council to express your sentiments about the Ice Tower Project. We suggest you do it NOW.

And don't let the cat get your tongues. It's been quiet as a tomb here today.

Ice Tower Update: The Council Considers a Compromise Proposal

Our city council hints that it might not be quite as "sane and prudent"as earlier supposed

Late in April we noted with approval the cool reception that the "Jeff Lowe Ice Tower Project" had received during the April 22, 2008 council work session. Flush with confidence in the sound judgment and fiscal prudence of our new city council, we made this optimistic editorial comment: "Indeed, it's our strong impression that the idea of dropping $200 thousand in taxpayer money on Boss Godfrey's Ice-tower Obsession has gotten zero traction with our sane and prudent Emerald City Council -- Councilman Stephenson excepted -- of course."

In light of this morning's Standard-Examiner front page story however, we realize that our optimism in this matter may have been a trifle misplaced and premature. Ace Reporter Shwebke's opening paragraphs reveal the latest wrinkle in the icetower saga:

OGDEN — The city council’s initial chilly reception of a $200,000 funding request from the administration for a downtown ice climbing tower may be thawing.
The council is considering a provision in a proposed ordinance that would allow the money to be appropriated while restricting when the money could be spent.
According to a draft copy obtained by the Standard-Examiner, the $200,000 could not be used until there are sufficient funds from other sources to complete construction of the ice tower, estimated to cost $1.6 million and planned for the corner of 25th Street and Kiesel Avenue.

There you have it, general readers. According to this morning's Scott Schwebke story, there appear to be at least a few city council members who are willing to pony-up taxpayer money for this risky and questionable venture, provided they can create some kind of "firewall" between a single city-appropriated $200 thousand donation, and continuing serial future expenditures.

In a circumstance where we believe it ought to be facially obvious that the ice tower project is far beyond the scope of reasonable and legitimate municipal expenditure, only Councilwoman Jeske (and Councilwoman Wicks, perhaps) seem to entirely "get" the point that our municipal government shouldn't be subsidizing private ventures:

But Councilwoman Dorrene Jeske said the funding provision hasn’t changed her mind about the project.
“I won’t support it,” she said. “I don’t think taxpayer money should go toward it.”

Notably, each of our two new council members, Johnson and Gochnour, seem to be keen on going forward with a compromise plan, provided other (presumably private) donors can come up with the balance of the projected $1.6 million in construction costs first. From the tone of today's Ace Reporter Schwebke story, councilman Garcia and Stephens appear to be leaning toward variations of a compromise proposal too. Councilman Stephenson is a lost cause of course, on the subject of financial municipal spending discipline and/or prudence. Stephenson, the last remaining holdout from the old 2003-05 "Gang of Six" council (always a reliable Godfrey rubber stamp), never saw a knuckle-headed Godfrey scheme he didn't like.

For those who aren't so hot at arithmetic... that's five possible votes for the compromise proposal, folks.

We'll also make special note of a nuance upon which Councilman Garcia seems to have put special focus. In addition to assurances that other private donations will precede the city's $200 thousand contingent contribution. Garcia, (the longest-sitting council veteran during a mayoral administration where Godfrey projects have demonstrated significant financial mission creep,) is apparently seeking additional assurances from Gary Williams, (Boss Godfrey's staff lawyer,) that not only will Ogden City's contribution be the last expenditure -- but also the one and only one.

Although Mr. Schwebke's story suggests that the council will put this matter to a vote "later this month," our information suggests that the council will consider and vote on the matter this coming Tuesday, at its regularly-scheduled June 3 council session.

It's in that connection that we strongly urge all Weber County Forum readers who are concerned about the prospective expenditure of taxpayer funds on this project, to immediately contact the city council with your sentiment. As a convenience to our gentle readers, we link the necessary council contact information below:

• Ogden City Council Contact Information

Time is running short. Council members are sitting on the edges of their seats, waiting to hear what their constituents think. We sincerely hope none of you will let them down.

The floor is now open for comments.

Ogden Neighbors Scared as Riverfront Project Languishes

An eight-year object lesson in the perils of relying upon the "business judgment" of Boss Godfrey

By Curmudgeon

There is a fine story in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune by K. Moulton reporting rising crime in the Lesham City area of Ogden River Project Development Area, and the resulting increase fear of people who live adjacent to Gadi Lesham's deteriorating properties there.

Here are the opening graphs of Ms. Moulton's story:

OGDEN - Neighbors of the promised Ogden River Project are growing increasingly worried about safety as thieves and transients wander among dozens of boarded-up homes awaiting demolition. Crooks come at night to strip aluminum siding from the houses or to steal stoves, water heaters, copper pipes, doorknobs. One abandoned home caught fire in May. Neighbors were told it was a blaze set by transients.

"It scares us all because none of them are boarded up tight," said Jeff Pritchard, who lives on 18th Street, across from a row of vacant homes, with weeds and tall grass blocking the paths. "What if someone were to take someone's kid in there? If somebody were to be killed . . . they wouldn't know if for six months."

It has been nearly a year since California investors Gadi and Miri Leshem, with the city's help, began snatching up more than 50 houses set to be demolished to make way for the next phase of the Ogden River Project. The city envisions high-density housing, shops and restaurants along the river, which cuts through downtown, north of the LDS temple.

And what does Mr. Lesham have to say about his properties becoming an abandoned slum? He's not talking:

Gadi Leshem, president of Cover-All Inc., a Chatsworth, Calif., company that installs carpets and other floor materials nationwide, did not return several phone messages. He and his wife own Ogden Riverfront Development.

Moulton reports that Ogden's community development director, Mr. K. Morey, is "working with" Lesham to determine which parts of the Lesham City slum should be demolished first. Mr. Morey "hopes" Mr. Lesham will get started on doing that right away. But, Moulton asked, has Lesham been given a deadline by the city to start the work? Ah... no. "Morey said Leshem has not been given a deadline for demolition to begin...."

The story notes that Ogden began its River Project eight years ago. Eight years. And to date, the results are (1) one business up and running in the River Project area [Bingham Cyclery], and (2) a slum.

Perhaps Council members Stephenson, Gochnour and Johnson ought to keep that in mind as they prepare, as it seems they are, to accept the Administration's "business judgment" [politely so called] that the ice tower, if only the taxpayers will kick in another $200,000 to go along with the $200,000 plus they've already put in, will be profitable, self-sustaining and a can't miss proposition.

Just like Lesham City.

[Note: while the SL Trib article today is a good one, and welcome, that paper is a little late to this particular party. It was the Std-Ex that broke this story with its excellent print and video editorials some weeks ago. I like Ms. Moulton's work as a rule, but have to admit it's nice to see the SL Trib having to play catchup with my Home Town Paper.]