Bootjack sale reveals Ogden's trust issues

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On March 8, the Standard-Examiner printed an op-ed column by David D. Griffiths in which he complained that three Ogden City Council members -- Jeske, Wicks and Garcia -- had raised questions about the Godfrey administration's sale of some city land to Bootjack LLC for no reason except election politics. Griffiths claimed he would provide the facts of the matter to set the record straight.

Sadly, Mr. Griffiths' approach to the facts was highly selective.

Somehow, he managed to leave out the fact that the council had asked the Godfrey administration who was buying the property, and the administration refused to say. At its March 6 meeting, the entire council voted to alter Redevelopment Agency land sale procedures so that the Bootjack problem (the Godfrey administration's refusal to supply the council with information about a pending sale that it requested) would not happen again.

In fact, it was Councilman Stephenson, perhaps the most reliable administrative supporter on the council, who moved that the new procedures be adopted, to help solve, he said, "trust issues" between the administration and the council.

And Councilman Safsten, a reasonably consistent support of the mayor on the council, said, in explaining his vote for the changes, that he was concerned about the administration's refusal to supply information requested.

Griffiths' claim that objections to how the sale to Bootjack LLC had been handled could be traced to only the three members he singled out is not sustainable on the evidence.

It will be interesting to see how Griffiths and other administration apologists try to spin the unanimous vote of the council to change RDA land sale procedures. Clearly all the council members -- not just Wicks, Jeske and Garcia -- thought there was a problem in the way the Bootjack sale was handled by the Godfrey administration.

Evidently, some close associates of the mayor in the Ogden business community have a strong sense of entitlement to privileged treatment not necessarily available to others. At the March 6 City Council meeting, one of the mayor's supporters went so far as to tell the council that merely asking for information about a pending land sale was unconstitutional and unAmerican. How dare the council, he demanded to know, presume to ask the administration who it wanted to sell public land to? The mayor wanted it done, and for Griffiths and others like him, that, apparently, is enough.

I congratulate the council for its unanimous vote to revise RDA procedures to make sure this particular problem does not arise again. The council members -- all of them -- served the city well by their votes.

Becker is a retired history professor who moved to Ogden five years ago and works now part-time as an adjunct professor of history at Weber State University.

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