We Have Lift Off!!

. . . or perhaps I should say we have Lift Ogden!

Some of you have been expressing excitement about my Salomon Center! And with the recent SE editorial about my gondola study (where they called and got all the facts from me), and after today’s editorial that I basically wrote for them, I felt that perhaps things are starting to go my way! So I thought I’d let you in on a little more information!

First, let me give you a quick list of ten reasons why the Sal Center will be a unique, one of a kind, not duplicated anywhere, family fun center for the whole family.

1. It will be unique.
2. It will be one of a kind.
3. It will be unlike anything else.
4. It will be for family fun.
5. It will be a center for fun.
6. It will be for the whole family.
7 through 10. There were a lot of other reasons the salesmen and contractors told me that I can’t remember, but they were really good reasons, believe me.

Now, you might be wondering why this will be so unique. Well let me ask you, how many places can you go, where you can bowl and get fast food, right at the same place? Add miniature golf and bumper cars, and you’d have to go all the way to Salt Lake to get that - to the 49th Street Galleria before it went broke, or after they renamed it the Utah Fun Dome before it went belly up. But there will be even more to do at the Sal Center, once we plug in the flow rider and fill it up with water. (And we'll also have an arcade like the Fun Dome did before it went out of business.) Anyway, how many places are like that?

But the real draw . . . is the SKYDIVING BLOWER!!

Think about it, people spend $40 for a day’s fun at Lagoon, or maybe $60 at a ski resort including the skis. They spend $80 for a day at Disneyland. But ask yourself this. What if a person wants to drop seventy five bills but doesn’t have all day? Well in Ogden, people can get $75 worth of fun – and it will only cost them SIX MINUTES!! People are always saying they don’t have enough time. So now, we are the only place in the West where you can spend a whole lot of money to have fun, and use up only a few minutes of your time! It’s pure marketing genius. And I was able to do it all for $50 million in taxpayer money, with change.

And if we get only ten percent of the business that Disneyland gets, it will be a pure goldmine! Think of it! Only ten percent and it will still be a goldmine!! (Of course, if we get less than 10% of Disneyland’s traffic it could be a huge problem.)

Anyway . . . Victory!! Lift Ogden!!!

You know, before I became mayor, it seemed like I used to get taken for a ride every time a new huckster came along. But now, as I look back, I can’t believe how much I’ve grown in this job, and how much smarter I’ve become. The people at the paper have always been able to see that. Thank goodness some of the naysayers are starting to see it too.