In a letter to Smart Growth Ogden - a group whose motto is "Ask Questions" - Ogden City on Thursday warned the group to "cease and desist" from publishing a map of the proposed project that the city contends is "false, misleading and deceptive."
The mayor also said - in a letter to Dan Schroeder, a member of the Ogden Trails Network Committee, and Mary Hall, a former city councilwoman and Smart Growth Ogden member - that he will not answer lists of questions the two asked separately this spring.
"The detail you are asking for will come over time and will be made public," the mayor wrote.
Schroeder, in a response to Godfrey, said he was mainly asking for documentation about statements Ogden City has posted on its Web site since April.
Those include projections that the project proposed by developer Chris Peterson of Sandy will create 1,200 new jobs, attract 1,000 new students to Weber State University and pump $5 million in property-tax revenue into city, county and school coffers each year.
"I find it disturbing that people are being asked to endorse the Peterson proposal when so much information is being intentionally withheld," Schroeder wrote.
Schroeder, the leader of the Sierra Club's Ogden chapter, is also involved in Smart Growth Ogden.
Hall conceded that some of the questions may not yet be answerable. But, she said, "He [the mayor] has a responsibility to the public to answer questions he can answer."
In an interview, Godfrey accused Schroeder and Hall of distorting information the city has already provided.
"It does no good to supply these two with accurate information because they . . . take our information and twist it."
Hall said Smart Growth Ogden stands by the information it has published and believes it to be as accurate as possible without more answers from the mayor.
"If he would respond in writing, we commit to printing it verbatim on our Web site."
Godfrey said the city will consider "taking appropriate action" if they don't stop crediting to the city a map published on Smart Growth Ogden's Web site and in a trails brochure.
Hall said the map is substantially the same as one provided by the city's geographic information systems department. "We took off some detail to focus on the trails," she said.
