Ogden mayoral candidate wants campaign sign switcher prosecuted

By Kristen Moulton
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:

OGDEN - Ogden mayoral candidate Neil Hansen is pressing for charges to be filed against Bob Geiger, a key supporter of Mayor Matthew Godfrey.

Geiger is chairman of the pro-gondola group Lift Ogden and chief operating officer of Descente USA. The night of Aug. 20, he switched a Hansen sign with a Godfrey sign outside a vacant house on a prominent Harrison Boulevard corner.

Geiger had the permission of a real-estate agent at the company selling the property, but Hansen had the OK from an even higher source: the owner of the home, who happens to be Hansen's daughter's father-in-law.

Both agree the Godfrey sign was up only about 10 minutes, and that Geiger did not destroy Hansen's sign (he put it behind the house), which was returned to its post. The two exchanged words, and now Hansen, who represents Ogden in the state House, wants Ogden City to charge Geiger with vandalism.

"They had no permission to even be on that property," said Hansen. "A law is a law, and it needs to be enforced." He said the city prosecutor told him that the case will be handed over to a prosecutor in another city for screening.

The owner of the home, Dan Barker, said he hasn't decided whether to press charges for trespassing.

Geiger, meanwhile, called the incident "benign and silly."

He said he has been calling owners of vacant properties where Hansen has signs and who, in the past, were supporters of Lift Ogden, the group promoting gondolas for Ogden and the mountain above.

Godfrey has advocated the gondolas, while Hansen favors streetcars for mass transit and would support a mountain gondola only if tax money were not involved.

Hansen acknowledges that he has hung signs on a few vacant parcels, as that is a common practice during election seasons.

And, he said that phone calls to the owners by Godfrey supporters are part of a campaign to intimidate business owners who support anyone other than Godfrey

Curt Geiger, Descente USA's president and Bob Geiger's father, rejects that charge.

"There is no intimidation or bullying," Curt Geiger said.

In his complaint to the police, Hansen referred to a phone call Curt Geiger had made to the Millstream Motel on Washington Boulevard.

Millstream Manager Steve Schaefer acknowledged a man identifying himself as Curt Geiger called him and "was chewing me out because the [Neil Hansen] sign was there. [He was] saying, 'What's the matter? Don't you appreciate what the mayor is doing for the city? Don't you appreciate what's going on and how it's going to bring in more revenue?' "

Schaefer said he did not feel intimidated, however.

Schaefer said he told Curt Geiger he knew nothing about the Hansen campaign sign, which was on an adjacent property not owned by the Millstream, and hung up.

Curt Geiger said he thought he was dialing a real-estate agent who was trying to sell the motel, and that the call was one of three he made concerning properties where Lift Ogden signs once stood.

"I would say 'Are you no longer a believer in the projects the mayor of this city has been a believer in?' " said Curt Geiger. "There was never a threat. There was never any intimidation of anybody."

"I'm asking a question; that's the whole point of elections. 'Why do you support this person and not the other?' "

kmoulton@sltrib.com