No surprises here concerning Charlie's seeming ho-hum reaction however
Charles Trentelman chimes in via his "Wasatch Rambler" column on Friday's Ogden Sierra Club victory story this morning... with what we take to be a giant, gaping yawn. Charlie says: "The documents show a lot of back and forth that is, frankly, boring." Yep, that's what he says about the set of highly revealing documents released as the lawsuit was settled... before he segues off into a "ramble" about a subject more mentally stimulating for him (bicycle safety, that is):
No surprises here concerning Charlie's seeming ho-hum reaction to the OSC's big court victory however, we guess. Throughout the four-year course of the Godfrey administration's heavy-handed and obsessive Gondola/Mt. Ogden Park Landgrab full court press, Trentelman was never even remotely onboard what we'd call the opposition bandwagon.
Update 6/5/11 3:44 p.m.: Trentelman's column has now been posted to the SE Live! site:
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
4 comments:
You're selling Charlie, and the column, short. He describes the settlement straight off as "a large victory" for Dan and the Sierra Club of Ogden. And a bit further on he summarizes how the documents show the Administration trying to play three-card Monte with UTA grants to hide spending on gondola studies, and he summarizes the Ogden Weber Chamber of Commerce taking money from Mr. Peterson to assist the push for the gondola. Not trivial matters.
And his reaction to much of what was finally revealed was the same as mine: why in the world was the Godfrey administration fighting to hard to keep these mundane emails secret?
Charlie's off base I think in saying the collapse of the national economy killed the Mayor's gondola obsession. As I recall it, mid way in his re-election campaign, the Mayor took selling Mt. Ogden Park to a real estate developer to raise the cash for the gondola "off the table." I was working at the time for one of the Mayor's opponents in that race [pre primary], and we had polling making it plain the "sell the park to build a gondola" issue was absolutely toxic for Hizonnah's campaign. He had, I am given to understand, similar polling. Pulling the park-sale-to-build-the-gondola off the table was a necessary and wise campaign move for him. Recall he won re-election by only a few hundred votes. Close one.
The collapse of the national economy buried any hopes he may have had to revive the plan post-election, but it was the park sale plan's effect on his re-election chances in the face of mounting public opposition that forced him to abandon the idea very publicly mid-campaign.
LOL, Curm. "Damned by faint praise" was my take. Different strokes for different folks however I guess, O my curmudgeonly compadre?
Go easy on Trentelman, Rudi. He's been covering Utah politics for decades, and he no doubt believes crooked politicians like Matt Godfrey are "normal."
Ya Rudi, maybe you are a little hard on poor old Trentelman! He might be a little late to the "what's really goin on with the Godfreyites" party, but at least he shows some signs of recognition to the perfidy therein.
Besides, he is a damn good writer and almost always delivers up some interesting and fun stuff. Some folks around here find him to be a bit arrogant and full of himself, but even though that might be the case I still like to read his stuff. I also think we need to give him, and all the other folks at the Standard, the benefit of any doubt considering their pay checks are signed by some suit in Sandusky who is mainly concerned with how many dollars go one way from Ogden to Ohio.
Post a Comment