OGDEN — Ogden City Council member and current chairperson Marcia White said the City Council and administration have been doing more to bridge the gap than ever before.

White said she’s had plenty of experience working with Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski, though it could be tense at times.

“I’ve worked with both Mayor Caldwell and Mayor Nadolski,” she said. “When Ben was on the council, we butted heads pretty much the eight years that he was on the council, and that was OK.”

However, she said they came to a new consensus when Nadolski was elected mayor in 2023.

“When he became mayor, we said, ‘OK, we’ve got to figure out how to make sure that whatever we’re doing is moving Ogden forward,'” she said. “We’ve had a great relationship ever since. Sometimes, you just have to take the ego out of the room, and I think that’s what this mayor has done.”

White said this has actually made it easier to exercise checks and balances on various ideas before they go to a vote.

“The checks and balances have actually been better … than the previous administration because when you’re working together better and when you’re having that communications, (proposals) come to you sooner, it comes to you as maybe not fully-baked, which is what we were getting from the last administration,” she said. “It was like, ‘Here it is; this is what you’re going to do.’ This is coming to us sooner, saying ‘OK, we think this is good, but let’s massage it.’ The checks and balances piece of it is a lot easier when it comes to you sooner and you can go back to the mayor and say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re hearing from our constituents. It’s not going to work. Let’s do some engagement.'”

She used an example involving the Business Depot Ogden development and how its revenues are handled.

“The mayor wanted to raise salaries,” she said. “One of the things that they wanted to do was take BDO lease revenue and use it for salaries. We pushed back and said, ‘That’s not what this revenue’s for. The revenue that we have at BDO should be used for things like assets and purchasing and ongoing future assets. Let’s try to figure out another funding source.’ And we were able to come up with a different funding source. We pushed back on the checks and balances piece and said, ‘Hey, let’s try something different.’ That’s why the role of what we’re doing now has been working so well with the mayor.”

White said her vision for the city is that economic development is going to be vital for the future of Ogden.

“We need to keep the pedal on the metal on economic development,” she said. “That’s what’s going to actually help us reduce our property taxes because as we get more commercial in, as we get more people coming in for work, there’s obviously a natural sales tax/property tax/commercial base.”

She said additional people will also add to the area’s quality of life.

“The more that we have people coming into businesses, the more they’ll stay and they’ll want to create that vibrant city,” she said. “They’ll want to be part of the downtown and create a natural quality of life.”

White said additional businesses coming to town will also mean less commuting for residents.

“The more that we can get businesses coming in and doing the things that we need to do, the less people are going to have to get in their cars,” she said. “The less time they have to get in their cars, they get to spend time with their families, they don’t have to pay as much for gas and they are working in the place that they live and it helps with their quality of life.”