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PDF versionOGDEN -- City Council candidate David Phipps says he will send postcards to about 1,000 voters apologizing for mistakenly listing a local education official on a campaign mailer as a supporter.
Phipps, who is running for the council's At-Large Seat B, estimated it will cost him about $1,000 to print and mail post cards in the next two weeks acknowledging he hasn't received an endorsement from Karen Thurber, development director of the Ogden-Weber Applied Technology Center.
"I have made the centerpiece of my campaign an open and accountable Ogden city government, one that works for the good of Ogden residents," he said in an e-mail to the Standard-Examiner. "I truly believe in being accountable to...the residents of Ogden, so to correct this misinformation and to show that it was an honest mistake -- I had no intention of misleading anyone -- I would like to apologize publicly."
Phipps said he met Thurber at an Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce event and had a pleasant conversation with her.
In addition, Phipps said he later submitted Thurber's name to a University of Utah student, who was serving as his campaign manager, as a potential supporter who could be listed on a post card mailed Tuesday to voters.
Phipps said due to miscommunication neither he nor his campaign manager confirmed Thurber's endorsement before the post card was sent.
Thurber later contacted him to complain that her name had been used without her permission. "She was very adamant she was endorsing someone else," Phipps said.
Thurber, an Ogden Sierra Club member, said her dispute with Phipps centers on his failing to get permission to use her name and does not involve a difference in political ideologies.
"It's not because I'm tremendously influential (with voters), it's just because I wasn't asked," Thurber said, adding she believes Phipps is sincere in wanting to correct the mistake.
Related link: This article is a topic of discussion at Weber County Forum.
Open and Transparent
As long as Mr. Phipps is feeling all open and transparent, why doesn't he tell us who is supporting his campaign?It would be super-great if he followed existing Ogden City campaign ordinances.For example, who or what is WAPWOM? Why is a Honolulu address given for this entity? Why don't they appear on the tax rolls? Mr. Phipps only tells us, obliquely, that BOBCO and WAPWOM are "retail property owners". Names, please, Mr. Phipps. Without names (or even Google-able acronyms), they're truly anonymous (i.e. no-name) donations.I know BOBCO is the owner of the strip mall on the NW corner of 36th and Harrison. Please identify the name of the property owner who financed your campaign to the tune of $500 and who is identified by WAPWOM (or WAPHOM or WAPAOM, I can't read your wife's handwriting).When I give money to your opponent, it is identified by my real, true, given name. I expect the same from your campaign finance "disclosures". Otherwise, I might as well style myself "Hemo the Magnificent" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemo_the_Magnificent) and start giving money anonymously to campaigns, in violation of Ogden City ordinances.If you refuse to identify WAPWOM, then you are obligated to return the money. That's the law. I didn't make it, but I can certainly read it.
The SE Gets Played....
Well, I'll give Mr. Phipps credit for this: either he or one of his
advisers knows something about damage control. Of course, it's always
nice to be helped along in that by the credulity of the local paper.
The story here should have been "Council Candidate Claims Endorsement
He Did Not Have." It should have reported the false claim as the story,
and of course, included Mr. Phipps saying it was all a mistake.
But that's not how the SE reported it. In the SE version --- the first
hint it gave its readers that Mr. Phipps had made a false claim ---the story
is not Phipps' false claim of a Thurber endorsement only a day
before the voting [too late to permit of correction
in the SE]. The story, for the SE is Phipps' apology, his claim
that it was all just an unfortunate mistake by a student campaign aide, and his self-serving bleating about the
costly lengths to which he will go [now that he's already benefited from the
false claim in the primary voting] because he's so committed to open
government. How noble. Hard put to see how news editors could
have permitted a story about a candidate's false claim to become
instead a story about his efforts to correct
the record as evidence of his integrity --- after the voting of course. Mr. Schwebke and the SE's news editors got spun. But good.Perhaps SE readers should go on E-Bay and look for good deals on some green eyeshades, sleeve garters and half-smoked stogies to buy for the SE's news editors. Maybe if they dressed the part of old-time news editors, they'd develop the necessary doubtful reluctance to take the self-serving statements of elected officials, or those seeking to become same, at face value that they so painfully obiviously do not now have. It would at the very least make it more difficult for the Candidate Phipps to spin them as easily as he did. They damn near performed a pirouette for him this time.