I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that your 2020 is off to a good start. As your newly elected Mayor, I am excited to serve our community and keep North Ogden
a great place to live. I believe part of the equation to keeping our city progressive, while maintaining important aspects of our culture, is the involvement of our citizens. I personally invite you to attend city council meetings, which are generally held the second and fourth Tuesday of every month at 6:00 pm in the city offices. Additionally, there are numerous committees and other opportunities where citizens can be involved in providing feedback and serving the community. I encourage you to visit the city’s website to view a list of such committees and other volunteer opportunities.

Currently, we are in the process of creating an Arts Guild that will be involved in
overseeing the cultural events in the city. There have been very few applications
submitted thus far. This may be a result of the lack of citizen awareness. Please
know that we are committed to continuing to improve our communications to help
you know what’s happening in North Ogden. Soon, citizens will be able to access
a new section of our Facebook page and website entitled “Speak with the Mayor.”
The purpose of this section is to allow you to express your opinion on various
issues while getting a simple explanation of such things as planning commission
and city council agendas, along with the results of those meetings. Stay tuned as
we embark on developing this portion of our Facebook and website pages.

You may ask yourself: why should I be involved in serving? There are many
reasons, and one of those reasons is that service often has a boomerang effect, or
in other words, what you give usually returns in a magnified way. I would like to
relate to you a story I recently read. A young man was driving down the road in an
old and battered pickup truck and stopped to help a motorist with a flat tire. It was
obvious the motorist was quite wealthy. Once the tire was changed, the motorist
asked the young man his name and offered to pay him. The young man responded
that his name was Brian Anderson and he didn’t want to be paid but encouraged
the motorist to take the opportunity to help someone else the next time there was
an opportunity. The motorist proceeded down the road and stopped for lunch at
a nearby café. The server at the café was pregnant and her attire was somewhat
worn and dirty. The motorist remembered the encouragement given by Brian
Anderson to help others in need. As a result, the wealthy motorist left the server
a $400 tip. When the server got home, she walked into her bedroom, kissed her
husband who was half a sleep, and said, “Good night Brian Anderson, I love you!”
I’m optimistic that as we work together in the spirit of cooperation and serving
our community, that 2020 will be a great year. I look forward to working with our
committed City Council and staff. Thank you for the opportunity to serve!
Neal Berube,
Mayor