Key to Ogden moving forward is embracing positive changes

BY MAYOR MATTHEW GODFREY
Standard-Examiner
March 26, 2006
Guest commentary

Many months ago Ogden was approached by a developer who expressed interest in making a major investment in our community. The size of this investment looks to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and will involve significant numbers of new jobs. These opportunities are rare for a community. I can’t think of anything since the railroad coming to town that shares the magnitude of this project.

This project has worked the same as every other project in which the city has been involved. The interested developer comes into the city confidentially and floats their idea and the city then goes through a process of verifying the viability of the project and developer while the developer is determining if this is the right place and time for his investment. This due diligence period runs as long as it takes to answer the questions at hand. Only when that due diligence is done is the developer prepared to make a public announcement about the project and begin the public process.

This is not just the process here, but it’s also the process in every other city of which I’m aware. It’s unfortunate that some have tried to characterize this as “secretive,” as though there is something nefarious occurring. It’s what’s required to bring businesses to communities and is the common practice across the country.

If we want to have developers come into our community and invest their money, we have to respect their demands to not make it public until they are ready. It’s not circumventing the public process; it’s merely preparatory to it. No decisions are being made behind closed doors that are supposed to be made in public. The entire process is still held and respected.

The one thing that was unusual in this project was that Chris Peterson (the person desiring to invest in Ogden) asked to have members of the community come in and review his project once he got to a certain level of comfort.

His desire was to receive input and feedback from them before going public with it. I’ve never had a developer seek that level of input before.

The “secret” meetings are in reality a developer’s attempt to gather more input from the community. These meetings have gone extremely well and I believe Mr. Peterson is just about ready to take his plan public for more input and feedback, preparatory to going through the approval process.

This resort/gondola project is exciting and portends great things for Ogden. It’s certainly not without difficulty or sacrifices, however. We cannot keep everything the same and progress. Some individuals and groups will have to give up something they love for the community to succeed as a whole.

I know there are a lot of questions and they will be answered soon. Unfortunately, a lot of the information being spread around by the all-toofamiliar opposition is simply inaccurate and, I believe, is designed to mislead people. Please be patient and the facts will come.

One thing we can be certain of is that we will have the same old crowd of naysayers coming out to once again inform us that the sky will fall if we move forward with this project.

They are certain to be joined by a few special-interest groups this go-around. We will witness the same hand-wringing ceremonies and hear countless doomsday scenarios.

Ultimately we have to decide if we want to move Ogden forward. If the answer is yes, then we have to embrace change and the difficulties that come with that.

I, for one, am grateful for a person like Chris who is interested and willing to invest tremendous amounts of money in our community. I’m convinced his investment will change this community in a tremendously positive way for the next generation. I’m excited for him to roll it out to the community shortly so everyone can share in his vision.

Godfrey is in his second term as mayor of Ogden.