City Council Meeting February 1st 2011 - Rezoning, Strategies and No Plan.

Last night's city council meeting had a number of items of interest.  However before we begin, we must note nearly half the council was absent from the meeting.  Council-members Orr, Smith and Mayor Minster were all out for personal reasons.  That left us Council-members Bradley, Benard and Porter. Which is all you need for a quorum.

Map Courtesy of Google Maps

The only real item on the agenda was the rezoning of 3760 Riverdale and 3790 Riverdale to a C-3 from a C-2.  Well to be specific we are moving them to the newly created C-3zc(A).  The C-3zc(A) is code for a C-3 Zone with certain restrictions, for example: they can't have a bar or a sex shop in that location.  The reason for all the fuss is because 3790's landlord wants to rent to a pawn shop.  A pawn shop needs a C-3 zoned area and so the landlord pushed to make this happen.  This could be good for South Ogden in the direction of redevelopment, attracting different types of business now to the area.  But for now we are stuck with a pawn shop.

The second half of the meeting was spent discussing strategic goals, mission statements, values and SWOT for the city of South Ogden.  The discussion is incredibly interesting.  Also it is very interesting to see the council members different point of views.  It is obvious Council-member Benard has a very fresh and realistic view of the city and it is issues.  Where Council-member Bradley seems a little more reserved and set in his views based on his years of experience.  Both are good views to have, if we can meet in the middle.  The problem I have with these discussions is for the past two council meetings we have been discussing the future of South Ogden and how we are going to get there.  They have brought in a consultant to facilitate the discussion, but in both meetings the Mayor and some of the council-members have been absent.   How is this affective?  I really feel the Mayor should be more involved with these discussions.  Yet he isn't.  Will this have an adverse affect when he actually sees what the council has been planning?

One other thought.  The discussion of economic development keeps coming up in these meetings.  A number of council-members have stressed concern that our fair city has no plan (I mean NO PLAN) to bring new businesses to South Ogden.  Council-member Bradley said at the last meeting, "In the past we have felt people should want to come to South Ogden just because we are great place to be."  If that has been our strategy, no wonder we have a sales tax revenue shortage.  The problem is, how will we get this done?

I see two strategies:

1. Hire someone to recruit businesses to come to South Ogden, either to build or to rent.  The biggest issue here will be cost.  This person will not be cheap.

2. Use the Mayor!  This is part of the reason we elected him.  He needs to get out there and start talking to franchise owners, business owners and politicos to get things moving.

My recommended solution is the Mayor and his City Manager.  Together they need to come up with a serious plan.  Target 20 potential properties for economic development and 50 potential companies and go after them.  Sell it to them!  We need an economic incentive package that makes South Ogden stand out.   Developers will bend over backwards to help us make these connections because this is way better than just putting a sign on the road saying, "Wanted - Big Restaurant Franchise."

Take aways from the meeting:

• New Pawn Shop.
• The Mayor has been left out of most of the strategic planning heading into their yearly retreat (He did have surgery, but we could have rescheduled).
• South Ogden has NO economic development plan.

Comments always welcome.