Council Meeting Notes: 8/8/06

By Dian Woodhouse

All were present except for Councilman Safsten, who had asked to be excused.

The first order of business was to honor a troupe of dancers from Hof, Germany, Ogden's sister city, who have been here for a few days and who performed with the Davis Dance Company in the Ogden City Amphitheater the evening of August 7th. Iris Leichauer of Hof accepted the honor in behalf of the Hof company, and presented Mayor Godfrey with gifts--two books and a card. She thanked everyone for their friendship and willingness to provide rooms, and ended by saying, "We hope we can come more and more and more and more and more." Which met with general approval. The entire company was present in the Council Chambers, shook hands with Council members, and stood for pictures.

The next order of business involved some ordinance changes regarding parking in the municipal lot. The presentation stated that present conditions there would change. The lot is currently free to all, and it was stated that this has led to difficulty in finding space during certain hours of the day. The lot has been watched, evidently, and attorneys and their clients have been seen parking there because the court parking is paid parking. People who are spending a few days in jail have been seen leaving their cars there, a sort of long/short term parking arrangement for jail inmates, while they serve their time. Therefore, the municipal parking lot is about to become Regulated.

City and county employees will be issued parking stickers in different colors which will allow them to park there, and also in the 40 stalls across the street in the Bank of Utah lot with which Ogden has a previous agreement. A diagram was shown, and it looked like about a third of the second row would be allocated for visitor parking. About a fourth of the first row would be visitor parking for the Justice Court. This visitor parking would only be for two hours, and violators would be ticketed. The new parking arrangement for the municipal lot would be enforced between the hours of 8 AM and 6 PM.

Public Comment was next, and Basil Beech was the first speaker. He spoke of the recent police and fire events, stating, "I don't care how many press conferences you have or what you do....this has tarnished the reputation of Ogden." Calling recent events "a travesty," he recounted a story about when he lived in a small town and the police began giving speeding tickets to out of towners passing through. As time went on, less and less people traveled through that town, going around it and avoiding it altogether, and Mr. Beech saw the same thing happening to Ogden if this ticket quota was allowed to stand.

Bob Belka then spoke on the subject of the gondola. He had seen a Smart Growth presentation on the project and recommended it. He also informed the Council that, although no formal presentation had been made, Weber State University had been smart enough to have its land appraised, and he urged the Council to do the same with the Ogden City land that this project needs.

Caril Jennings then spoke, urging the Council to see the SmartGrowth presentation before they signed any agreements for the project. She then asked, regarding the prospective development agreement, "Why should there be a different process for this project than what is already in place? Referring to the proposed investigation of recent police events, she stated that the investigation should be conducted by someone outside of Weber County, and concluded with a plea to the Council to save our mountains.

Rob Garner spoke next. A former member of the planning commission and a developer, he addressed the Chris Peterson proposal. "I would love to have the opportunity to set steps," (for a development project,) he said. "I would love to have the opportunity to have the other party place its most valuable assets on the table. This just doesn't happen." Mr. Garner went on to say that the city needs to obtain an actual feasibility study of the keystone project, by which he meant the development in Malan's Basin, and asked, "Why is Ogden City expected to jump through hoops?"

Sharon Beech spoke next, agreeing with Mr. Garner and stating, "I hope you will not sign one piece of paper, because that will not improve your understanding. She then quoted some revenue figures from Matthew Mossbarger's opinion piece from the August 8th edition of the Standard Examiner and asked, "Don't you think it would be better if you didn't have out of control spending in this administration?" She ended by quoting from statute 10-3-1108, the one stating that an employee's political activities shall not be the basis for employment decisions, and said that the police have been put in the position of "Will Ticket For Food."

At this point, the timer had gone off on two speakers, who had continued to speak, and Councilman Stephens asked for a reminder of time limits on comments. Chairman Garcia agreed, and stated that "I will have the officer sit them down," if people went past the established limit. However, no one else wished to comment.

Mayor Godfrey then spoke, addressing the recent police events. Stating again that "There is no quota system," calling it instead a merit system, he informed the room that the ticket part of the merit system was only 6% of the entire evaluation, and that "To get the highest score, they need five per week." He went on to state that the police department does not benefit from this money, that it goes into the general fund. Stating that the merit system was a creation of the Chief, not the city administration, he said that there was no reason for the chief to impose a quota system for the purpose of increasing departmental funds. He went on to say that ticket stops was one of the best ways of finding those with outstanding warrants out for them, and also for drunken drivers, and therefore, this made the roads safer, and that it was important for people to get this perspective.

Councilman Glasmann then spoke, agreeing with the Mayor that the ticket giving was only 6% of the entire evaluation for the police, and complimenting him for instituting an independent investigation of the recent events. He also complimented the firefighters for instituting a physical fitness program, although fitness was not included in their evaluations.

Councilwoman Jeske then spoke, and recounted a call she had received from a constituent involved in a hit and run. The constituent had given the plate number of the offending vehicle to the officer, and was then told, upon trying to obtain a copy of the accident report, that it would cost $25, and that it would take three months to investigate this. Surely, she said, something should be done here.

Mayor Godfrey responded that, if given the information, it would be looked into.

The Council then adjourned to Closed Executive Session.

While they were cloistered away, some officers in the hallway commented on the Mayor's speech to reporters. We shall possibly read their rebuttal tomorrow.

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