Ogden's slow, consistent move upward can continue if we're civil

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I've been feeling unimpressed for the past couple of years -- specifically with regard to the debate surrounding a proposal to:

* Build an urban gondola between Ogden's Wall Avenue and Weber State University.

* Sell the Mount Ogden Golf Course to developer Chris Peterson so he can build luxury homes lining the fairways.

* Sell 120 acres of WSU-owned land to Peterson for more homes.

* Watch Peterson build a gondola from Weber State up the mountain side to Malan's Basin, where the developer proposes to build a four-season resort.

Let me emphasize: I was not unimpressed with the $500 million-plus proposal -- love it or hate it, it's impressive -- but with the public debate that has accompanied it. Very little of it was high-minded. Instead, it tended to be nasty and low.

I have no trouble appreciating hostility. If I find myself in the right mood, I actually relish using a rhetorical blowtorch. But the trick is choosing the right time and place to load up the flame-thrower. I know well it had better be rare. If all you do is holler, your words lose their effectiveness in no time -- and then that powerful weapon is rendered ineffective.

That's what happened in the whole gondola-Malan's Basin resort debate. People were split over selling off the Mount Ogden Golf Course. Trigger-happy people on both sides of the issue were way too quick to start grabbing for their guns. For example:

* Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey wasn't just wrong to support the proposal, some critics said, he was a liar and dishonest and corrupt.

* Individual supporters of the gondola-resort plan urged that tenured Weber State professors who didn't support routing the gondola through the university and selling undeveloped university land to Peterson should have their tenure revoked -- free speech and academic freedom be damned.

And there are more anecdotal tales of viciousness -- lots of them, in fact. The point is, both sides went from zero to 60 in a flash. And the invective didn't end there. It got much worse. I had anti- and pro-gondola/golf course sale/resort development people calling my office, constantly, and making the most outrageous allegations that you can imagine -- often of a personal and criminal nature. The various personalities involved in this debate -- again, on both sides -- were subjected to some of the most corrosive venom conceivable. A time or two it got so bad I worried about Ogden's ability to get through it.

Now that Godfrey has said he no longer will support the sale of the golf course to Peterson, and that as a consequence the city will not be able to fund construction of the urban gondola component -- beyond expected infrastructure upgrades, etc. -- I harbor some hope that Ogden can get past its fratricidal tendencies. Maybe I'm too optimistic. My sincere wish for Ogden is that I am not.

It looks to me like the city's long-decaying downtown is once again on the upslope. I've been to The Junction a few of the past weekends, and the place is crowded. Soon enough, there will be office buildings occupied by tenants, housing units with owners and more development in the RiverFront project several blocks to the north. The gondola will happen, or it won't; now it's up to the private sector to carry the ball.

In the 1980s, an editor who has long since left the Standard-Examiner was fond of describing Ogden as "the meanest town in the West" -- referring to the city's feral brand of politics and penchant for personal attack. In his view, too many civic and political leaders preferred to tear each other apart rather than cooperate and watch someone they didn't like get credit for a victory.

As the gondola-resort battle has played out over the past couple of years, I've seen some evidence of that. Men and women in a position to lead, to find common ground and to move forward have taken their cue from the partisan political realm and decided it's not enough to win -- the opposition, whether real or imagined, has to be killed in the process.

Operating on the theory that if someone is not with you they are against you is no recipe for success in making a city prosper. Godfrey describes his decision to reject the golf course sale as a "compromise" with persistent critics. I hope he's serious, and that the people who approve of his new position on the golf course will now engage him in a productive discussion on where to go from here regarding Ogden redevelopment and transit.

But the only way that's going to happen successfully is if the people who have been shouting the loudest consent to turn down the volume.

Porter is the Standard-Examiner's editorial page editor. E-mail him at dporter@standard.net, or phone him weekdays at 625-4205.

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