Saw a drunk? Welcome to a city

One of the facts of life is that cities have people you don't necessarily want to meet.

Some are drunk, some are homeless, some are rude or smell funny or say bad things.

Some are (c) all of the above.  Some are just plain funny and even qualify as tourist attractions.

Seattle street scene

Ogden residents, some of them anyway, seem to be hypersensitive to these folks. It's as if they can't let the city's past go. They have to say "See, still a problem!" every time they see anything at all.

During the debate on the vote about Weber County Library's bond I had one person complain that she had been in the parking lot of the main library and was accosted by a homeless person. She was not injured, not even yelled at, just asked for money.

"Why should I vote for funds for a library if this sort of thing is going to happen?" was the essence of her comment.

A number of years ago it became fashionable to run down Ogden's 25th Street area. The mayor's chief administrative assistant wrote a column in the Standard-Examiner excoriating the area because homeless people took baths in the fountain at Union Station and there was public urination, homeless people and so forth.

Not saying it never happens, but I personally have never seen anyone take a bath in Union Station's fountain. I imagine some little kid gets into it at times, and I can imagine some radical water fights, but the idea that public bathing is a common thing down there is ludicrous.

As I recall, after that person's column ran I walked down the entire street, Washington to Wall. I saw no drunks, no beer bottles, no toilet activities. Nothing but shopkeepers trying to make a living.

Today I saw a facebook post from someone noting that they were on 25th Street last night. This poster mentioned that the street "used" to be wild and wooly, and then mentioned a couple of drunken activities she saw, some police activity, and so on.

She wasn't attacked or hurt, however, but the implication was that she thought the street was cleaned up, what's the story?

The story is "Welcome to the city. The situations all sound as if they were dealt with."

That's my point. Ogden is a city. ALL cities have folks that don't behave as if they are in church. ALL cities have public activities by folks doing stuff we don't approve of. This is the way things will be, as long as we don't live in a police state.

Doesn't mean the city is bad. Doesn't mean you should stay away.

Quite the opposite. If a city has life, and fun, and activities, it is going to have some spill-over.

That's what the cops are for. And since troublemakers don't like witnesses, by being downtown, by taking part in your city's activities, you actually help the cops keep that stuff away.