He kept a checklist of his campaign promises in his desk, and periodically he would study the list to see if he was living up to his promises. But his promises involved significant changes to the status quo, and that meant they all came with controversy — construction of a Wal-Mart downtown, the downtown river and mall projects, the privatization of Union Station (an old railroad depot that now houses several museums), zoning changes, the issue of some 1,200 citations a year for enforcement of zoning laws (read: trash in yards).

His changes and proposals came with considerable criticism, and early on the local newspaper lampooned him with cartoons and editorials, some of them poking fun of his small stature.

"The way to get re-elected is to do nothing," says Godfrey. "All the easy decisions had been made. We were only left with hard ones. All have been controversial."

He has been criticized for his management style, which is characterized as hard-charging, blunt, aggressive and autocratic. He is not, by nature, a politician. He is a businessman in a politician's chair. As a result, sometimes his style — rather than his programs — has been the target of criticism.

"Anytime you implement change, there will be people who buck it," he says. "A lot of the hatred has been geared toward me. Those groups have discovered each other. But I didn't come into this too naive. I knew change would be hard.

"There's a price for progress, and I'm OK with it. I didn't take this job to be popular. I took it to get things done."

Godfrey believes all of the above account for the narrowness of his recent election victory, which was close on election night and wasn't verified until absentee and provisional votes were canvassed and the results announced on Tuesday.

But crime is down to levels from the early 1970s — or 23 percent in the past seven years — since he increased funding for police and started other anti-crime programs (as if to put an exclamation on a Neighborhood Watch program, the 135-pound mayor tackled a burglar in his yard one night last month). And no one can argue that he has not worked to renew downtown Ogden.

Says Reid, "When (Godfrey) was elected, he was really inexperienced in government, but his value was he didn't know what he didn't know, so everything was possible to him. They were boarding up the mall, and he said, let's buy it and rebuild it. (Godfrey) didn't worry about political ramifications, and he didn't have any preconceived notions or cynicism about what could or couldn't be done. In the beginning, the local paper went after him, and a good portion of the community and half the City Council resisted the change. Most are thrilled now with results. Now he's as expert as anyone in the country in how to build a city."