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No Comments [ Add Comment ]The newspaper and the gondola
Some read
ers love the Standard-Examiner. Some people hate the Standard-Examiner. Sometimes on the same day.
Heaven knows, we don't beg to be loved. It's our job to ask questions, and that makes some people uncomfortable because they just want our unconditional support. Period.
That's not what we do -- not what any good newspaper does. We believe strongly that our regional newspaper is a public trust. Do we try to make money? Yes. But in addition to the profit motive, we advocate for the success of the dozens of communities where we have readers. As we've said before, we live here, too, and we want the Top of Utah to be the best of Utah.
To achieve that goal, we poke and we prod. We publish news and information. We offer our opinions. We allow others to offer theirs, and we print them on these two opinion pages.
We mention this because, lately, there have been misstatements in the community about our support of Ogden's gondola proposal. We realize some people have the wrong idea about what we've written in this space, and what's been reported in the news pages on the subject. This comes, we think, from a misunderstanding of the difference between the paper's news and opinion pages.
Words on these two "opinion" pages, which are labeled as such, are, by their very design, both biased and an argument one way or the other on a given topic. They are subjective, not objective. The rest of this newspaper, save for some columns and analysis labeled as such, deals in dispassionate reportage of events.
As for Ogden's proposal: It is to run an urban gondola between the Intermodal Transportation Hub on Wall Avenue and somewhere near Weber State University. The other part includes a private west-facing, four-season, roadless resort on the side of Mount Ogden in a place called Malan's Basin. Developer Chris Peterson wants the resort to be connected to Ogden via a second gondola system. To finance the resort's construction, Peterson has said he wants to buy the Mount Ogden Golf Course from the city, reconfigure it and build expensive vacation homes along the fairways. Furthermore, he wants to purchase 150 acres of vacant mountainside land owned by Weber State University, where he would also build luxury homes.
For more than a year, Peterson has promised details of his development plan. But to date they have not been forthcoming. This has made it impossible for the Standard-Examiner's editorial board to either wholeheartedly endorse the plan, or reject it. In the absence of a definitive position on our part, we have been repeatedly criticized by supporters and detractors, both of whom have wrongly claimed we are on the other side.
In order to set the record straight, the following is a restatement of this editorial page's position on Ogden's gondola proposal. We urge those interested in the subject to save it for future reference -- so as to avoid uninformed accusations.
l We support reasonable efforts to boost Ogden's economic development. Our main offices and printing facility are located in Ogden. Ogden's success means success for the Standard-Examiner.
l We support the construction of the urban gondola even though both supporters and detractors acknowledge it is not mass transit. We favor private funding for the gondola's construction and maintenance, and believe it would be wiser to use public money on development of streetcar mass transit.
l A recent petition opposing the sale of the golf course was signed by 3,100 Ogden residents. What are the rest of Ogden residents' feelings about the sale of the course? Do they approve? If they do, and the city sells to Peterson, it must be guaranteed that the city receives a fair price for the land.
l We affirm Peterson's right to develop the 1,400 acres he owns on the side of the mountain in any way he sees fit as long as he acts to protect the natural beauty of our area and respects the environment.
l We expect Weber State to make decisions about the sale of its land in ways that do not sacrifice the long-term mission of the university.
l We urge Peterson to make the specifics of his development proposal public as soon as practical. Until those details are thoroughly aired, we cannot in good conscience throw complete support to, or completely reject, what could be one of the largest developments in Ogden's history.
Our goal is to provide a forum for public debate -- not to pick a fight, as some have suggested.
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