Bits and Pieces of 2009 Municipal Election Information on an Otherwise Slow News Sunday Morning

A pitch for campaign donations for one our favored council candidates; and a spotlight on the heretofore seeming Ward 3 council candidate "invisible man"

Red meat news has again slowed to a crawl this weekend, so we thought it might be appropriate this morning to devote some space to a couple of bits and pieces of new municipal election 2009 information:

1) For those who are unaware, Council "A" Seat candidate Susan Van Hooser is in the midst of a grassroots campaign contribution drive, whereby she's attempting to raise a modest $800 in donations, through the PayPal donation button on her website. From Ms. Van Hooser's Facebook page we receive this 10/16/09 project update:

Thank you for all of your support. We've received $150 in the last 48 hours in just online donations. We're well on our way to our goal of $800. This is just half of the $1,500 my opponent has received from The Northern Wasatch Association of Realtors, a special interest group wanting to get supporters in the council to do work for Ogden's Real Estate and not Ogden's Citizens. Our grassroots campaign is going strong and would thrive greatly with your support. There's no contribution too small, if you could spare $10 that would be greatly appreciated. Please visit my website for more info.

If you haven't yet coughed up at least a few shekels to help out with Susie's campaign, why not amble over to her campaign website, click the donation button and make a contribution right now?

2) We've received several emails from WCF readers, expressing appreciation for our Ogden City 2009 General Election Voting Guide, which we posted on Friday. In that connection, some of you said you got some extra chuckles from this segment, "focusing" on Ward 3 Candidate Pat Dean:

Patrick “Invisible Man” Dean

I’ve never met this guy. I’ve never seen him, and I don’t know anybody who can describe anything about him. The people who finance me apparently found him someplace, and got him to run by telling him the job pays several hundred dollars a month. They assure me he’ll do what I tell him to do. This is exactly the kind of visionary, forward-looking candidate we need more of in Ogden.

Fun is fun, gentle readers; but we want to give the man a completely fair shake. So being the curious type, we accordingly contacted Patrick Dean by telephone, and requested that he send us some info -- something to let our readers know what he and his campaign are all about. Mr. Dean cordially agreed to do so; and here's the information he promptly sent:

• Patrick Dean - A Few Words About Myself.....,

In speaking with Mr. Dean, we were also delighted to learn that he has a fairly information-rich (although still "under construction") campaign website:

• Vote Pat Dean

As we know, there are numerous readers among us who are not completely satisfied with Councilman Doug Stephens' somewhat unpredictable council performance; and even one or two readers (or more) have come out and suggested they like Mr. Dean as their preferred candidate. We're thus shining a little brighter spotlight on the other Ward 3 alternative.

Our inclusion of this information should be in no way interpreted as a Weber County Forum endorsement of Mr. Dean's candidacy (not at this point, at least); but we thought it might be useful for our readers to know he's not really quite "the invisible man" he's heretofore appeared to be.

That's it for now, gentle readers.

Have at it; and let the ever curious world-wide blogosphere know what our ever-savvy WCF readers think. We know you're out there; we can hear you breathing.

Alternatively, feel free to consider this an open topic thread.

Spotlight on This Morning's Special Standard-Examiner 2009 Election Feature

Nine new Standard-Examiner items begging for your attention... do your duty, folks

The Standard-Examiner is evidently trying to get its act together in advance of the November 3 election, with a special WeberPlus Section feature which appeared in this morning's edition, under the title, "Determining Ogden's leaders." Much of the material is a rehash of earlier-reported matter, but in the interest of helping keep our readers informed of all the 2009 municipal election stories on the web, we'll highlight the four writeups which appeared in this morning's SE hard-copy edition:

• Ogden City Council At-Large Seat A
• Ogden City Council At-Large Seat B
• Ogden City Council Ward 1
• Ogden City Council Ward 3

We encourage our readers to follow these links over to the SE site of course, to lodge your ever-savvy comments.

And here's something of additional interest. The Standard appears to be midway through the process of assembling expanded candidate statements which go beyond the depth of the candidate questionnaire responses which the SE published way back on September 10. We're just speculating on this, but perhaps these pages are the fruit of the still SE editors' ongoing council candidate interview process.

So far the SE has published these expanded statement pages for Patrick Dean, Doug Stephens, Bart Blair, Mark Haines and Susan Van Hooser. We'll be sure to let you know when they've published the rest. We'll be adding these article to our WCF candidate roster pages too, of course

We take great pride in providing all the relevant 2009 election information here on Weber County Forum. Hopefully however we're not driving you all into information overload mode.

And don't forget, these last five pages have comments sections too.

Do your duty, O Gentle Ones.

Lifties and Smarties

Ogden's two-party political system

By Dan Schroeder

It’s time to admit it: Ogden has a two-party political system.

One party includes Mayor Godfrey, his department heads, city council members Johnson and Stephenson, and majorities of the Chamber of Commerce, local realtors, and the Standard-Examiner management.

The other party includes council members Wicks, Gochnour, Garcia, and Jeske, as well as majorities of the firefighter’s union, WSU faculty, and contributors to Weber County Forum.

These political parties need names, so I propose that we bring back a couple of names that I heard during the 2006 Ogden Gondola War (when Ogden’s political divide became especially apparent): Lifties and Smarties.

“Lifty”, of course, comes from “Lift Ogden”. But I don’t mean to imply that every Lifty has endorsed the specific Lift Ogden proposal to build two gondolas and sell off our foothills for commercial development. Most of them did. The rest, I’m afraid, will just have to suffer from guilt by association.

“Smarty”, similarly, comes from “Smart Growth Ogden”, the organization that was formed in reaction to Lift Ogden on a platform of preserving open space, fiscal responsibility, and open government. But today’s Smarty Party is a much broader coalition.

Although the Gondola War subsided in 2007, both parties grew and consolidated during the municipal election campaign that fall. The parties were equally visible in the just-finished city council campaign. Candidates Van Hooser and Blair, plus incumbent Garcia, were the unofficial nominees of the Smarty Party; candidates Hains, Phipps, and Garner were the Lifty nominees.

Fascinatingly, the Lifty/Smarty split seems to be completely uncorrelated with the Democrat/Republican split in state and national politics. Matthew Godfrey and Susan Van Hooser are both registered Republicans, and both are supported by prominent local Democrats (e.g., Allens and Halls).

Like the national parties, the Lifties and the Smarties don’t disagree on everything. The vast majority of city council votes are unanimous. Lifties and Smarties work side by side every day to improve our city. A few politicians (e.g., Doug Stephens and Patrick Dean), plus a large number of voters, have no strong leaning toward either party.

And like the national parties, both the Lifties and the Smarties are really coalitions of multiple interests. Over time, these coalitions will undoubtedly shift. Since no laws recognize or support a two-party system in local elections, it’s quite possible that Ogden’s current parties will prove to be ephemeral.

For now, however, both parties are held together by one man: Matthew Godfrey. Over the last ten years our mayor has pushed large numbers of Ogdenites squarely into one party or the other, by rewarding loyalty and punishing dissent at every opportunity. He strongly believes that everyone in Ogden is either with him or against him, and his actions have increasingly made that belief a reality.

Is it good or bad to have a two-party system? This system has served our nation pretty well for the last century and a half, and it’s hard to imagine a strong democracy without it. At the same time, it exacerbates polarization in our government, our communities, and sometimes our homes.

Similarly, in Ogden, the Lifty-Smarty split is both good and bad. It seems to be increasing the level of interest and participation in local politics, giving voters clearer choices. Yet just as in national politics, the increased polarization often gets in the way of progress.

Whether we love it or hate it, Ogden’s two-party system is a reality that we might as well acknowledge. It won’t go away until at least 2011.

Boss Godfrey's Latest Political Trick: Secret Non-public Candidate "Debates" -- UPDATED

Three City Council Candidates thwart Boss Godfrey's latest attempt to make a mockery of the democratic election process

UPDATE: Boss Godfrey has a change of meds... errr... heart

Ogden City municipal election clock ticks to within 38 days of the November 3, 2009 zero hour, Ace reporter Schwbeke reports this morning, (a mere two days after the release of Godfrey's bogus golf course survey) , on Boss Godfrey's latest attempt to make a mockery of the democratic election process. We learn from Mr. Schwebke this morning that agents for Boss Godfrey's Propaganda Television Station, Channel 17, staged a command performance taping yesterday, on the ninth floor of Ogden City Municipal Building, of a thinly-attended dog and pony show, which the Standard-Examiner politely calls a "debate":

• Majority of council candidates attend debate

Although some creative editor in a dark back room at the Std-Ex (cleverly adopting Mr. Schwebke's phrase "a majority of city council candidates") attempted to create the headline illusion that some form of "debate" occurred during yesterday's private taping, the truth of the matter, as reported by Mr. Schwebke, is that the only thing which may have resembled debate occurred in the the Ward 3 race, wherein incumbent Doug Stephens and challenger Patrick Dean both did obediently show up on command, to field a series of questions, carefully composed by Boss Godfrey's own employees at the TV Station. As to the other three races we wonder... did Godfrey's employees from the Godfrey Propaganda Channel have the audacity to go ahead and tape three "empty chair debates?"

We applaud the three council candidates, Blair, Garcia and Van Hooser, who politely declined the TV station's attempt to to possibly rig the election process. Apparently these candidates were wise to the hard lesson learned during by Ms. Van Hooser during the 2007 Mayoral election: If you appear for a taping in front of Boss Godfrey's Channel 17 television cameras, you can expect to find the taped footage mercilously sliced, diced and ginsu-knifed, with heavily edited segments broadcast constantly on the Mayor's Propaganda Station, and in even more far-flung places such as YouTube.

We believe these three candidates demonstrated considerable wisdom in holding out for legitimate debates, conducted by disinterested neutral parties, in venues where the general public can be in attendance. Hopefully all eight candidates for the four open city council seats will be hearing from more trustworthy debate moderators, such as the Weber County League of Women Voters, very soon.

We'll add that we were pleased that Mr. Schwebke at least saw fit to include paraphrased quotes from two of the candidate non attendees, explaining their rationales for declining to attend an event which had the makings of a Godfrey-style political ambush. We were even more delighted to read the emailed comments from Council "B" Seat candidate Bart Blair, which articulately explained some of Mr. Blair's reasons for giving this Channel 17 production the thumbs-down. Unfortunately, Mr. Schwebke's morning story provides only excerpts from Mr. Blair's emailed comment. For the benefit of those readers who'd like to read Mr. Blair's full response to Mr. Schwebke, check out the entry which Mr. Blair made to his campaign blog last evening:

• Channel 17 Debate - By Bart Blair

Maybe it's just us... but we'll ask the question anyway. Does it seem to our gentle readers that Mr. Schwebke's story left out Mr. Blair's most important and salient points?

That's it for now, O Gentle Ones.

Don't let the cat get your tongues.

Update 9/25/09 5;15 p.m.: We just received a Boss Godfrey Administration press release through the usual roundabout sources, (the Godfrey administration continues to leave WCF off its press release email list) revealing that the increasingly deranged Boss Godfrey, who's apparently been recently suffering from a particularly exceptional bout of grandiose manic madness, has finally decided to at least temporarily refrain from televising the three "empty chair 'debates,'" wherein candidates Blair, Garcia and Van Hooser refused to "participate" in Godfrey's sham Propaganda Channel #17 dog and pony show:

• Boss Godfrey Press Release: OGDEN CITY MAY NOT SHOW ALL DEBATES

We can only speculate about Godfrey's sudden reversal on this. Perhaps Gary Williams told Godfrey frankly that to air these one-sided segments would invite an ass-kicking in the courts. Perhaps Godfrey's handlers finally got him back on his much-needed medications. Who knows?

So what say our gentle readers about this?

Update 9/26/09 8:30 a.m.: This morning's Standard-Examiner carries a padded out version of the back-pedaling Godfrey Administration press release which we published as an update yesterday evening:

• Candidate no-shows may nean few debates on Ch. 17

While it's our opinion that it doesn't offer much beyond what we've already provided above, we'll let our gentle readers be the judges of that.

A Few Back-burner Items in Advance of Tomorrow's Municipal Election

The results of our online website ratings poll; and some belated info from Ward 3 candidate Stephens

OK folks. Now that we're on the threshold of tomorrow's critical municipal election, wherein the Emerald City Lumpencitizens are once again compelled to stand up for their conservative fiscal values and important institutions of our community, against an onslaught of greed-head real estate agents, developers, Godfrey Administration BIG SPENDERS and other filthy politico-corporatist trash, there are a few back-burner items that we need to bring to the forefront.

First, we're delighted to release the final result of that "Best Ogden Campaign Website Poll" which we put up in our WCF right sidebar a couple of weeks ago, Here we go:

Here are the final tallies, with 52 votes logged, in voter preference order:

Bart Blair 16 votes (overall vote percentage: 30%)
Jesse Garcia also 16 votes (overall vote percentage: 30%)
Susan Van Hooser 9 votes (overall vote percentage: 17%)
Patrick Dean 7 votes (overall vote percentage: 13%)
Doug Stephens 2 votes (overall vote percentage: 4%)
David Phipps (who's now disqualified) 2 votes (overall vote percentage: 4%)
Neil Garner 1 vote (overall vote percentage: 2%)
Mark "Stinky" Hains 1 vote (overall vote percentage: 2%)

It'll be interesting to correlate tomorrow's actual voter tallies with our readers' ratings of each candidate's website, we think.

And here's something equally interesting. Both Doug Stephens and Neil Garner each received at least one first place vote for their website, even though neither of then actually has a campaign site on the web. In that connection, we contacted Doug Stephens. He confirmed he has NO website, but he did send us this info, which we've incorporated into Doug's WCF Candidate Roster page:

• Information about Doug Stephens Candidate for Ogden City Ward #3

Pretty good informational stuff, we think, from our seasoned Ward 3 incumbent candidate, whom we're strongly endorsing for tomorrow's election.

Ogden City 2009 General Election Voting Guide

Special Guest Commentary from Mayor Godfrey (Parody)

You’ve probably heard about how abusive I am toward the women on the city council. Some people think I’ve gotten even more crabby than ever since all my projects are going to pot. But in reality, my administration has always taken a consistent approach toward women. Take my Business Development manager, Scott Brown, who had to resign because of sexual harassment charges and computer porn, or my current Chief Administrative Officer, John Patterson, who had to quit his last job because of having an affair with one of his subordinates.

You see, when these city council women sometimes won’t meet with me when I command them to, it reminds me of the way women have treated me all my life – they ignore me. Most women don’t know their place and how they should serve a man. When the members of my administration have affairs, abuse women or look at computer porn, they are just tying to help themselves to see women in their proper role.

Take my problem with council chairman Amy Wicks. She’s a woman, but she acts like a man, by having her own opinions on things. One day I started to give her a piece of my mind, and one of my people took this picture. You can see in my eyes that I don’t like women to ignore me.

To drive home the point, I called my people at the newspaper and told them to hit the women on the council, which they did. The newspaper not only told the women to let me beat them up as much as I want, they even called on Amy Wicks to resign. Click here to read their brilliant editorial. Who’s the boss now, Amy?

But I didn’t want to take all day talking about the proper role of women. I wanted to talk about who you should vote for in the upcoming election on November 3, to implement my vision.

At Large Seat A

Mark “Stinky” Haines

You probably remember my new committee that I talked about in the primary: the “Supreme Committee of Real Estate Workers – United.” Hains is in charge of this committee now since my other candidate lost out in the primary.

Now somebody told me if you take the capital letters of my committee, it spells out something not very nice. Well, I’m not changing the name because I’ve never admitted to making a mistake in my life, and I’m not going to start now.

Haines is a real estate agent. He gets his nickname “Stinky” from the expression that he gets on his face whenever he sees or smells open space. Stinky Haines is getting a little on in years and so he doesn’t like to walk too far when he’s selling homes – condos are much better for him. So he’s running for city council to help me put condos all over the East Bench.

Look, Haines is a real estate agent, with real estate money bankrolling him. Haines understands that the East Bench needs to be bulldozed. Why else would he be running and raking in all that real estate and contractor campaign cash? But he’s not going to come out and say it because the naysayers will complain. You can figure that out for yourself, can’t you, Sherlock?

Susan Van Hooser

This is the woman who ran against me in my last election for mayor. My lawyers intimidated the county elections director (another woman) into throwing out enough ballots to barely make me the winner. It’s seems easier for me nowadays to intimidate some women into doing what I want. If only I could take that ability and go back in time to High School.

Anyway, VanHooser has tons of useless public service, and she’s been on the city council. She listens to people, studies issues, and thinks before voting. And she is courageous. In other words, she’s another woman who has her own mind and is no good for anything. Do you really want me to have to deal with another independent minded woman?

At Large Seat B

David “Alfred E” Phipps

I still think the campaign portrait I had done for Phipps is a near perfect likeness.

Phipps’ campaign got off to a slow start. First, he put the wrong seat he was running for on his signs. Then he sent out a flyer saying people were supporting him who actually weren’t. Then he apologized. Then he did it all over again.

Then to top it off, this screwball let everyone know that he just moved to Ogden from Sugarhouse during the last year, and doesn’t even own a home in Ogden – he rents. (The dummy posted it on his blog! Then when people started noticing, he took it down. But the darned naysayers still have it available to read here.) And he tells people he has a business in Ogden, but he’s really just a real estate agent in Layton. And to add the frosting to the cake, he admitted in the Standard-Examiner via this very morning's Scott Schwebke story that he committed voter fraud in Salt Lake County on November 4, 2008! With this kind of sloppy work and calm, casual falsification, you can see why I love this guy!

On the bright side, when people ask why he knows nothing about Ogden, he can claim it’s because he just moved here. That way, people may overlook the fact that he actually doesn’t have the lights on upstairs either.

But he doesn’t have to be the brightest bulb in the box to take my cronies’ campaign cash and buy a council seat for himself. Phipps just has to keep going around saying he’s independent while he keeps taking the money my cronies give him. In the end, my supporters know Phipps will do what he’s told. Enough said.

Bart Blair

Bart Blair’s family business has been in Ogden for over 50 years – Blair’s Service. Those who are familiar with it know it is a clean place that does an honest business in good times and bad. People trust him and come back again and again.

In other words, he’s a dinosaur who is out of touch with my new approach to business. Blair refuses to get with my “Godfrey School Business Model,” which involves me selling off public land to my cronies on the cheap while they write me campaign checks.

In the 10 years I’ve been in office, this guy has taken none of my graft and has not given me a single kickback. Do you really want him to apply his work ethic and real-world business sense to Ogden City?

Municipal Ward 1

Neil “Doughboy” Garner

Garner looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy. At least I guess he does. I’ve never met him.

I said I needed somebody to get rid of Garcia, and they got this guy. My people have given him so much money he ought to be able to get elected to anything. With all that money I’ve fronted him, I guess he really is the “dough” boy. So I’m right as usual. I’m a genius even when I’m not trying.

Jesse Garcia

Garcia gets in my way. I tried to kill Union Station and he stopped me. I tried to close the Marshall White Center, and he blocked it. He lives in a district full of lower and middle income people. So why do they need any public facilities – they’re poor, right? I thought those people were supposed to entertain themselves by dancing or something. I need money for my failing projects downtown and since people in Garcia’s district rarely vote, I decided I can axe all the stuff in their neighborhoods and get the money I need. But Garcia keeps getting in my way. He’s my #1 target in this election.


Municipal Ward 3

Patrick “Invisible Man” Dean

I’ve never met this guy. I’ve never seen him, and I don’t know anybody who can describe anything about him. The people who finance me apparently found him someplace, and got him to run by telling him the job pays several hundred dollars a month. They assure me he’ll do what I tell him to do. This is exactly the kind of visionary, forward-looking candidate we need more of in Ogden.

Doug Stephens

Stephens is the incumbent. He votes with me sometimes, but I still have to talk him into things. And for some reason, he seems to like to hear other opinions as well. I’m tired of this guy and need somebody who is easier to work with.

In Summary

It’s easy to tell which ones are my candidates, because they are the ones being funded by the same people who bankroll my campaigns. My candidates were dug up by, and funded by, my back scratching real estate people and crony contractors who make their money from big government projects, from carving up raw land into condos, and from fomenting a lot of house turnover so they can collect their commissions. In other words, my candidates are those who will do what my bankrollers tell them to do – just as I do – for the good of Ogden.

So if you’re tired of council meetings, public hearings, public input, discussion, and a sense that there is more than one opinion in Ogden, this is your chance to do something about it. Vote for my candidates, and all discussion will end. If you’ve ever watched what happens when I get one of my people on the city council, you know they always, always do what I tell them to do.

On a final note, I wanted to show you the new place in my office I have for uppity women and people who disagree with me. Yeah, it’s right here:


In fact, for anybody who doesn’t agree with me, this is where they can go. Just put your hands together, and jump. So you see, I do have a place in my office for alternative opinions after all.