Councilman Glasmann's 7/17/06 Comments

During my campaign, I remarked that I wanted to see more public participation in City gov’t. I’m gratified to see this happening, regardless of the issue. I encourage you to continue to come to these chambers, even when you have no specific agenda such as you have today. We work for you; we want to hear from you. Your input can be a tremendous asset. This is your city, we’re your servants and stewards, and we’ll execute our duties to the best of our abilities. And if we should falter, we’ll pick ourselves up, learn from our experience, resolve the issue and move forward, hopefully avoiding such pitfalls in the future.

In regards to tonight’s comments, I welcome your constructive criticisms and assure you that I’m personally doing all I can to put things right. Last week my intent here was to only perform due diligence, as many of our questions had gone unanswered, and this was the only forum in which we were given the opportunity to do so. Now, I have just received a CD containing last week’s minutes and I’ve heard your comments and concerns. Between your comments and a review of my dialogue with Darbey Brockette I’ll step up and identify those areas wherein I need to refine my skills. If I made Mr. Brockette uncomfortable, and was in any way offensive in the posing of my questions to him, I offer him and the people of Ogden a public apology. That being said, I consider my questions appropriate and valid, but I do acknowledge that a different forum would have made for a better setting. I also want to emphasize that I think Ernest would be a great start for the River Project. Ernest has spent over a year here but still has not realized that “warm and fuzzy” feeling over this particular location. Mr. Brockette also mentioned that he was neither a big fan of being an anchor tenant nor overly fond of being as far removed from the medical facilities’ mainstream as the River Project is. However, there are other land parcels in Ogden that I’m confident would facilitate Ernest. But our objective, of course, is to bring Ernest back to the negotiating table in regards to the River Project, by validating that all here is good between the two governmental bodies, that we’ve made our amends for any inappropriateness, and to assist them in every way possible. That is not to say that we should give our consensus away; it is extending a hand to Ernest to come back to the table to discuss AND negotiate, in a more private and comfortable atmosphere.

The election results told me that any arbitrary vote, without the Council or Board’s due diligence, was not what the people wanted. The Ernest situation was brought about by a miscommunication between the Administration and Board and both bodies are now on the road to fix this problem, without which there’s no way our City can function. This FIX, which is so sorely needed, is maybe the silver lining behind a dark cloud.

We all want our city to progress, but we must move carefully, diligently, and do things right. Ogden’s either in debt or obligation to some 75 to 80 million dollars, and to become solvent again, EVERYTHING has to work. EVERYTHING! We also face a 120 million dollar infrastructure and public safety tab that’s going to come due sooner than anyone wants it to. Therefore, EVERY dollar is important, including the 4 million dollar credit line needed to seed Ernest. In fact, our end goes up to a little over 7 million dollars. Because of that credit line and the gap between the Administration and the Board, our due diligence in the ONLY forum provided, was imperative. We, as a Board, would have been derelict, to not have done so. This is especially true when I consider that, from personal phone calls and emails I received, combined with some very pointed blog postings, it appears that a couple of private individuals had access to Ernest representatives when the Board had none. That’s both surprising and disconcerting to me, as it’s the Board that casts the vote and neither the Board nor our Leadership was accorded the opportunity to meet with these good people. This tells me that there are more flaws to the process than simply meets the eye. We, the Board and the Administration, have much work to do to resolve these difficulties. To move forward, it’s absolutely imperative for both of us to get on the same page and to do so quickly.

I truly regret that Ernest Health got caught in the middle of this. But I’ve learned something from it and I’ll re-hone my skills in order to avoid anything like this happening again. Hopefully, Jesse Garcia and myself will be able to make contact with Ernest Health, make amends and then bring them back to the table for more discussion. That’s our intent.

Again, I do appreciate your comments and look forward to serving our city over the next few years.

Thank you.