Ogden City Mayor

Mayor’s Message: Reflecting on 2025, Moving Forward Together

My State of the City is a chance to reflect on where Ogden stands after a demanding year and to share a clear-eyed look at where we’re headed. As this message reaches you, I want to reinforce that reflection and thank our community for the resilience, patience, and hard work that defined 2025.

Last year tested us. Federal government shutdowns, national political change, and economic uncertainty created real disruption—especially for members of our federal workforce and the businesses and families connected to it. Those challenges rippled through our local economy and created understandable concern about what came next.

But amid that uncertainty, Ogden chose progress.

Together, we stayed focused on what we could control: serving people well, protecting public safety, stewarding taxpayer dollars responsibly, and building systems that deliver results. Because of that shared commitment, 2025 became a year of meaningful, measurable wins.

We added more than 400 new jobs with family-supporting wages, strengthening our local economy and expanding opportunity for Ogden residents. Through job retention, business expansion, and targeted recruitment, we raised the median household income for Ogden residents by $9,414, and built and approved 400 homes to help support first-time homebuyers.

We also made targeted investments in parks and recreation, strengthening the places and programs that bring our community together and support health, family life, and quality of life across Ogden.

This year, Ogden made meaningful investments in the places and programs that bring people together. More than $7.5 million supported parks and recreation facilities, with major upgrades at eight parks, improving playgrounds, trails, courts, pools, safety, and accessibility citywide. At the same time, recreation participation trends outpace national averages, with youth participation more than doubling in several areas, including boxing and flag football. These gains reflect a community that values access, opportunity, and connection creating places where neighbors gather, youth grow, and Ogden’s quality of life continues to strengthen.

In public safety, we reached the highest strength of force and level of operational readiness in the history of our city—while building a police department culture that sets high standards and attracts and supports the best of the best. As a result, crime dropped by 14% and 896 individuals with active criminal warrants were removed from our streets, and we did so in a way that reflected the values of our community. By prioritizing service, professionalism, and compassion, we achieved our highest community satisfaction with policing in more than a decade, reduced use-of-force incidents by 22%, lowered victim advocacy cases by 10%, and saved $660,000 in recruiting costs. The outcome was safer streets, fewer victims, stronger trust, and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

We renewed our emphasis on a people-first approach to homelessness. Ogden launched the nation’s first medical homeless advocate program, meeting people where they are and addressing health needs before they become emergencies. That work helped reduce emergency room transports by 20%, even as we doubled the number of people experiencing homelessness whom we engaged and ultimately helped 150 individuals move into stable housing, twice as many as the year before. These housing efforts were led by dedicated staff within the Ogden Police Department, who walk alongside individuals through the process—maintaining compassion while also holding people to personal responsibility and staying by their side every step of the way. Importantly, these efforts were funded through grants—not Ogden City taxpayer dollars.

Our Fire Department demonstrated what elite service and grit truly look like. Built on a culture of hard work and professionalism, some of the best firefighters in the industry protected our community through one of the most challenging fire years in a long time. As large, high-profile apartment construction fires occurred across the nation—including here in Utah and in our own city—Ogden firefighters showed up heroically, acted decisively, and protected lives and property in the face of intentional criminal behavior and potentially catastrophic harm.

Just as importantly, they didn’t stop at response. Working with contractors and partners across the city, they helped identify, secure, and lock down vulnerable construction sites, ensuring those risks were addressed and did not repeat. Through strong investigative work, they also held individuals accountable. At the same time, the department reduced response times, stands just one firefighter short of full staffing at the time of this writing, and continues advancing data-driven prevention strategies and upstream community health interventions designed to meet people at their most vulnerable—before emergencies occur.

We also invested deeply in Ogden’s future by advancing infrastructure citywide. Countless projects were completed in neighborhoods throughout Ogden, while work continued on the largest and most complex infrastructure project in our city’s history—the Canyon Waterline Project—a critical investment in long-term reliability and resilience.

In 2025, Ogden advanced more than a dozen infrastructure projects that strengthen daily life and protect our future. Crews replaced or rehabilitated nearly 22,000 linear feet of water, sewer, and storm drain lines, improving reliability, fire flow, and flood protection citywide. Over 42,000 square feet of sidewalk were replaced, closing gaps and improving safe routes to schools. Street, corridor, and intersection upgrades are improving mobility and safety, while trail, biking, and pedestrian connections continue to expand. These investments support reliable services, safer travel, and the long-term resilience needed to support housing, growth, and economic vitality.

Throughout all of this, we remained disciplined stewards of taxpayer dollars. We drove cost savings and operational efficiencies across the organization with a firm commitment: we are not going to raise taxes on Ogden families. Every efficiency gained is about ensuring services don’t just continue—but continually improve—while keeping costs down for the people we serve.

This is people-first governance: listening through engagement and transparency, responding with action, and delivering results. In 2025, we expanded communication and community engagement to better understand needs and explain decisions. We also laid the groundwork for more business-like operations in city government—through strategic planning, internal and external partnerships, and the development of clear key performance indicators and public dashboards that will help measure progress, guide adjustments, and strengthen accountability.

There is still much work to be done. But the progress made in 2025 shows what’s possible when a community pulls together with purpose, grit, and a shared commitment to doing what’s right.

Inside this newsletter, you’ll find a deeper look at the accomplishments, data, and people behind this progress. As we move through 2026, my promise remains the same: to lead with accountability, serve with humility, and keep Ogden moving forward—together.

— Mayor Ben Nadolski