Rick began emailing me about 3 weeks ago and we finally were able to sit down and get to know each other. He spent about 30 minutes in my living room discussing the issues of South Ogden and how we can improve them. In the end, we both agreed South Ogden is an amazing place to live. Now it is time to just refine what we have.
I am always amazed as to why people choose to run for public office. So of course my first question was why he was running for mayor. He admitted his initial reason was silly; however maybe a simple concern, it makes sense why he wants to get involved. He is concerned with our local police department and their decision to give you a form to attend traffic school instead of a citation. His reasoning is this is an illegal procedure and we need to be issued the citation first, and then negotiate taking traffic school with the judge or the prosecutor (I am sure this is a poorly paraphrased form of Rick's explanation). As mayor, he would look for ways to improve such issues that may be incorrect or illegal. With his experience as a prosecutor he would push for more federal grants and programs to help reduce costs and improve quality of life in South Ogden without a tax increase. Don't forget the city council raised your property taxes this year. (See Here)
One of my greatest concerns with our current local government is lack of communication and accountability. During the past year I have emailed and made attempts to communicate with my local city officials on a number of things. Mayor Garwood's, Councilmember Smith and Orr are the only ones who even make attempts to communicate back. Bradley responded only once to my emails, when I called him out on his miss-information in the city newsletter. (See Here) But all other emails have gone unanswered. My own Legislator responds to phone calls and emails faster than Minster and Mattson and he receives hundreds of emails a day. It appears some of our council is used to people not attending meetings and expects issues to fade away quickly; therefore it is best to just keep silent. So to have Rick Westmorland go out of his way to communicate with me was impressive. He spent the previous weekend walking the streets with Nate Frost (Son of our former mayor Brent Frost) and his presence is become more and more visible.
Overall it was an amazing meeting with Mr. Westmorland and I wish him luck. As for who I am supporting, I am still undecided but the more info we can gather on this issue the better. Look for more posts soon on the upcoming election.
Rick Westmorland can be contacted at the following:
Email: rickformayor2009@gmail.com
2 comments:
I caught this guy "Rick" putting a sign in my front yard after dark. I even got in his face about putting up a political sign without my permission when I had no idea about his political views. Unknown to me my daughter had given him permission to put a sign in my yard. I told him to call me and we could sit down and talk about his political agenda. It was a couple of days later he called and came over to my home and we sat out on my deck over looking the nature park and had a very good conversation about his views of South Ogden City. He called me back a couple of days later to chat again. Other candidates have signs posted in the neighborhood but none have been by to talk to me. One even had his young son hand me a flyer and I asked the son to have his dad come and talk to me about what he wanted to do for South Ogden, the boy told his dad and the dad just walked away without any type of conversation. I feel Rick answered my questions when he came back, but more importantly he was willing to spend time and listen with an individual voter. If he is willing to do this for one person he would be willing to do it for a city.
Neil,
I felt the same way. Thanks for posting your comments.
BenJoe
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