Flaherty has another multi-million dollar rental monster thing in the tubes. In Indiana. Neighboring its "Cosmopolitan on the Canal." On this hummer, has any reader any guess whether there is much if any owner money at risk in it? Whether FC pays for the parking ramp, or gets an idiots' public-money-parking-ramp-subsidy there too?

Specializing in big ugly things, this being the latest rendering of something ugly, for Indiana:

image and reporting, this link

Press Release

2:36 p.m. EST, January 24, 2012
Indianapolis—
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard was joined by Joe Kelley, President and CEO of Marsh Supermarkets, and Jerry Collins, President of Flaherty and Collins Properties, to announce a major new development project on the near north side called “Block 400” Tuesday. The $85 million project features two mixed-use buildings that will include ground floor retail, 487 apartments, a 40,000-square-foot urban prototype Marsh Supermarket and parking garages featuring more than 1,500 spaces.

“This development will connect the OneAmerica and IUPUI campuses and bring a much-needed, full-service grocery store to people living on the Near North and West sides,” said Mayor Ballard. “This project also will spur additional opportunities in the surrounding area that already is seeing a great deal of growth and expansion activity.”

An upscale 40,000-square-foot Marsh Supermarket will anchor a mixed-use development located on the southeast corner of Michigan Street and Senate Avenue named “The Axis @ Block 400.” The new Marsh, slated to open in the summer of 2013, will feature top-quality meats and seafood; fresh produce; an extensive deli with gourmet cheeses; a bakery with fresh-baked breads, cakes, and pastries; and a wide selection of beer and wine, including labels from local brew masters and vintners. The new Marsh also will offer an extensive salad bar and other prepared meals that may be purchased for carry-out or enjoyed in the store’s mezzanine-level dining area.

There's more, at that link. Including -

In addition to the Marsh, “The Axis @ Block 400” will house 325 residential units and a 435-space parking garage.

The second building, “The Point @ Block 400,” will occupy the triangular parcel bordered by Michigan Street and Senate and Indiana avenues. It will offer 10,000 square feet of street-level retail, 162 residential units and 180 structured parking spaces to serve its residents and retail patrons.

The residences in the Block 400 development will include one and two bedroom apartments, featuring granite countertops, roman soaking tubs, and stainless steel appliances. Residents also will have access to amenities such as a fitness center, heated saltwater pool and sundeck. Anticipated rents are $1,075 to $2,200 per month.

“The Block 400 development will be transformative for the Canal District,” said Jerry Collins, President of Flaherty & Collins Properties. “The new Marsh supermarket is the best possible complement to our luxury apartments and for the Cosmopolitan on the Canal, which gained full occupancy in less than seven months after opening. We are pleased to bring new growth in the retail and residential market at a time when downtown is stronger than ever. This venture would not be possible without the foresight and ingenuity of the City of Indianapolis, Marsh and OneAmerica.”

To replace OneAmerica employee parking being used for this development and provide limited additional public parking in the area, the City will build a 930-space parking garage along the eastern half of the block bordered by New York, Illinois, and Vermont streets and Capitol Avenue. The parking structure will be connected to the OneAmerica tower by an elevated skywalk. The city will invest approximately $11 million in this facility through the downtown TIF.

Bingo. An answer, somebody gets a free parking ramp, but with several porkers feeding at the public trough it is unclear from that report who it is. There is that OneAmerica thing, which sounds as if it's existing business, and not Flaherty-Collins getting the freebie this time. But the freebie's being thrown in to sweeten the trough - to make feeding better. Now, there is this, the story subheadline:

The $85 million project features two mixed-use buildings that will include ground floor retail, 487 apartments, a 40,000-square-foot urban prototype Marsh Supermarket and parking garages featuring more than 1,500 spaces.

Did you catch that "ground floor retail." Snkcker, snicker. Some get it up front. Some don't, and have to beg and dither.

alternative rendering
image and report, this link

This item presents a rendering from a different perspective, and is also based on a press release, probably the same one as above.

Indy Star has its own reporting,

The $85 million mixed-use project was outlined this afternoon by developer Flaherty and Collins Properties, which owns the adjacent Cosmopolitan apartments at Michigan Street and Capitol Avenue.

The City of Indianapolis will kick in $11 million to build a 930-unit parking garage on an adjacent block that will be used by insurance company OneAmerica, which is losing hundreds of parking spots for its employees to the apartment project.

Groundbreaking for the project, called Block 400, will start this spring, with the Marsh store and the first 325 apartment units opening in summer 2013 on the block bordered by Michigan, Senate, Capitol and Vermont streets. The remaining 162 units, on a triangular lot bordered by Indiana Avenue and Senate and Michigan, will open in 2015.

Flaherty and Collins, a locally based national apartment developer with 11,000 units under management, said the success of its 218-unit Comopolitan project led to the company’s desire to expand its apartment holdings Downtown.

“We’re just very bullish on Downtown Indianapolis,” said President Jerry Collins.

Flaherty and Collins will buy the large block, used for surface parking, from OneAmerica. The developer already owns the smaller triangular-shaped plot.

Marsh plans a 40,000-square-foot urban prototype grocery on the site that will include extra space for produce, meats and a bakery. Marsh’s current downtown store is at Vermont and Alabama streets and is one of the most successful stores in the 97-store chain, said President Joe Kelley.

The project will include another 15,000 square feet of space for additional retail uses that include restaurants.

They get restaurants, up front in the proposal. We got obstruction and whining and an attempted cost handoff for a stinking 3000 sq. ft. of retail. Go figure. Deal making expertise, of Flaherty's counterparty will vary, as will overall attractiveness of a project.

IBJ also does its own writing, its report being somewhat cumulative, but with a $2 million difference, parking subsidy wise.

The plan by Flaherty & Collins Properties calls for 487 apartments, the grocery store, a parking garage and additional retail space on properties bounded by Michigan Street, Capitol Avenue, Vermont Street and Indiana Avenue.

Much of the land needed for the development—dubbed "Block 400"—is owned by locally based OneAmerica Financial Partners Inc., which uses it for employee parking. To make way for the development, the city would foot the roughly $13 million cost of building a 930-space parking garage for OneAmerica at the northwest corner of Illinois and New York streets.

The total cost of the development, including the city's contribution from tax-increment financing district revenues, will be about $85 million. The deal will not include a property-tax abatement.

Well, eleven million, thirteen, what's the difference when it's not private sector money, but taxpayers' loot?

That seems to be a theme. I may, of course, be mistaken. Of the projected $85 million total cost, none of the reporting delved into how much actual Flaherty-Collins capital would be ponied up, up front, and invested.

We in Ramsey know that's a question, yet, this current Indianapolis reporting ignores it.

That wraps up all the reporting on the latest Flaherty-Collins adventuring I am aware of.

Interesting - Collins is now identified as the firm's president. Either they alternate or do an annual coin flip, or there's voodoo to it. But Flaherty's been the identified point-man, head man, Ramsey-wise.

_____________UPDATE______________
Another thing unclear in the reporting - whether the counterparty in this latest instance had Ryan Cronk on the inside, as its purported fiduciary, while dealing at arms length with Flaherty and Collins on terms and conditions.

__________FURTHER UPDATE__________
The guess is that, as in Ramsey, a thinly capitalized LLC will be interposed. Absent reporting to the contrary that is a likelihood. Analyzing, FC buys land, a "parking lot" of an existing venture, the existing venture gets a city built ramp, and FC builds on the "parking lot" including its own ramp. Without the city being a player in the three way adventure, FC would have had to accommodate the existing venture's parking needs. So, it benefits indirectly from the subsidy vs. directly having its tenant parking ramp built for it from public money, as in Ramsey. "Six of one and a half dozen of the other" is the old saying that fits.

An exclusive online report based on Romney financial disclosure proves informative. He campaigns in Florida while having profited highly from a Goldman Sachs investment scheme that invested heavily in mortgage backed securities, which led to thousands of home foreclosures in Florida. I do not think Santorum or the other two have that "arrow" in their quivers.

A ThinkProgress examination of Mitt Romney’s presidential personal financial disclosures from May 2011 reveal that the former Massachusetts governor and his wife own or owned millions of dollars worth of a Goldman Sachs investment fund invested heavily in mortgage-backed obligations. And the current owners of those mortgage debts began foreclosure proceedings against thousands of Floridians.

Along with his investments in Bain Capital funds linked to offshore tax havens, the Romneys have large investments in the Goldman Sachs Strategic Income Fund (institutional class). The firm’s March 2011 annual report for the fund notes that about 8 percent of the fund is invested in banks and 24.5 percent is invested in mortgage-backed obligations. Romney’s form says he has invested between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 in the fund and his wife Ann has invested an additional $1 million-plus. Since the 2008 economic meltdown and the enactment of the Troubled Asset Relief Fund, this fund has done quite well, growing 7.88 percent between April 2010 and March 2011.

The mortgage-backed securities in the fund include adjustable rate mortgages from Bear Stearns, Countrywide, IndyMac, and Washington Mutual. A 2009 Center for Public Integrity report identified all four of those companies as among the top-25 subprime lenders in the lead-up to the market’s collapse. Countrywide ranked first in that report and Washington Mutual ranked second. [...]

A review of Romney’s August 2007 financial disclosure for his 2008 campaign reveals no mention of the Goldman Sachs Strategic Income Fund, suggesting the investment was made at some point between the two campaigns.

There's more, including mention of a blind-trust, and live links not carried over into the quote. Please check out the original, online here.

Think Progress. Think Romney. Things you might not have known.

Ah, the good old days. the '60's. But even then, top rates were not high enough. This link:

Pat Garofalo on Jan 18, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Mitt Romney yesterday admitted for the first time that his tax rate is about 15 percent, lower than the rate paid by millions of middle class families. [...]

Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven…As one of the wealthiest candidates to run for president in recent times, Romney has used a variety of techniques to help minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry. Another investment, which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans.

[...] As we’ve noted, Romney has a lucrative retirement deal with Bain that is paying him millions each year.

In contrast to Romney’s steadfast refusal to release his tax returns, George Romney (Mitt’s father) released 12 years worth of tax returns when he ran for president in 1968. Those returns showed that the elder Romney paid a 37 percent effective tax rate.

Warren Buffet understands Romney, his situation and status:

Buffett On Why Romney Should Pay Higher Taxes: He’s Just ‘Shoving Around Money,’ Not ‘Straining His Back’
By Pat Garofalo on Jan 23, 2012 at 12:45 pm

Romney has refused to sign on to the Obama administration’s “Buffett rule,” which aims to ensure that millionaires can’t dodge taxes to the extent that they’re paying less than teachers. Today, billionaire investor Warren Buffett himself was asked about Romney’s tax rate, replying

He makes his money the same way I make my money. He makes money by moving around big bucks, not by straining his back and going to work cleaning the toilets or whatever it may be. He makes it shoving around money. I make it shoving around money. If you look at the 400 highest incomes in the United States, they average $220 million. Something like 90 of them are effectively unemployed. They have no earned income, and that number has gone up over the years. [...]

There's a video, Buffett, from Bloomberg, on the ThinkProgress link. While the recent below zero cold snap in the metro area ended days ago, and there's been scant snow so far:

photo and story, this link

Many of those [Mitt Romney capital gains] investments are associated with Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney co-founded, which has an extensive history of using such tax havens to boost profits at a multi-billion dollar cost to American taxpayers. Those tax havens aren’t just causing outrage among Americans, however. The Cayman Islands are a British territory, and British MP John Cryer, a former member of the British Treasury Select Committee, told the British blog Left Foot Forward that it is “a disgrace” that corporations and investors like Romney and Bain can use them to avoid paying taxes:

“As a former member of the Treasury select committee, I think it is a disgrace that the Cayman Islands, a tax haven, can enable wealthy corporations and individuals such as Mitt Romney and others in the wealthiest 1% to avoid tax and still be cloaked in secrecy. Meanwhile all across the western world, hard-working people are seeing their living standards and take-home pay stagnate or reduced.
“It reminds me of President Kennedy’s comment in his inaugural speech, ‘pay any price, bear any burden’. Except it’s hard-working, modestly paid majority who are bearing that burden.”

Cryer proposed a motion last week calling on the House of Commons to immediately close the Cayman Islands as a tax haven. The motion states that the House is “alarmed” by reports that Romney and others are using the Caymans to “avoid paying the same tax rate as other US citizens” and “concerned about the continued use of tax havens by the top 1% in the US and UK to avoid paying the correct tax in their own country.” The motion then “calls on the UK government to introduce urgent legislation to help close tax havens and increase transparency so that the very richest pay their fair share of tax in their respective countries.”
The United States loses $100 billion a year in tax revenue to offshore tax havens [...]

I'll bet Romney is the type who will sit at a poker table deliberately with stakes on the table large enough to bluff others out of keeping good hands by setting the price to call and stay at a comfortable and adventitious level, for him, (but I would not dare risk a ten grand loss on any such offhand wager - I could not afford the risk).

While sparring with Rick Perry over healthcare at the [early December] debate in Des Moines, Romney challenged Perry to a wager. The stakes? A cool 10 grand.

That’s not exactly your typical bar bet.

Perry had accused Romney of altering a paperback version of his book to delete a line that had Romney wanting to make his Massachusetts healthcare plan a model for the rest of the nation, suggesting that Romney is a champion of an individual mandate to force people to purchase health insurance.

Romney said that wasn’t true.

“I'll tell you what. 10,000 bucks? Ten-thousand-dollar bet?” Romney said.

“I’m not in the betting business,” Perry replied.

Romney, who likes to talk about his work creating jobs as a venture capitalist in the private sector, is estimated to be worth between $190 million and $250 million.

Should he go on to win the Republican nomination, the clip from Saturday's debate may be replayed again and again in Democratic attack ads.

The way to handle the Taliban? I would bet not.

More on the man's taxes, an online item dated yesterday, and Geez, 550 pages - not using the short form -- for certain:

After weeks of refusals and equivocation, Mitt Romney finally released his tax returns last night to a handful of media outlets, showing that he made $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year. He only actually released one year of returns, 2010, and his estimated return for 2011, even though many have called on him to follow the precedent set by his father and release many more years of returns.

Nonetheless, there is much to learn from the astonishing 550 pages of returns Romney released:

1. Romney paid a lower tax rate than many middle-class Americans [...]

2. Romney makes more in a day than the average American makes in a year, and becomes a 1 percenter every week [...]

3. Romney paid almost nothing in payroll taxes: Romney contributed just .1 percent of his income to Social Security and Medicare in 2010 via the payroll tax because the tax is only assessed on earned wages, but all of Romney’s income came from investments. Most working Americans pay 7.65 percent.

4. Romney has accounts in countries notorious for tax dodging [...]

5. Romney and Gingrich’s tax plans would slash Romney’s taxes [...]

6. Romney needs four lawyers, including the former IRS commissioner to defend his tax plan [...]

Another small revelation from Romney’s returns is that while Romney said his speaking fees amounted to “not very much” in terms of income, he actually made $111,000 in speaking fees in 2011 and $529,000 in 2010, as Politico’s Ken Vogel points out.

UPDATE - An earlier version of this post speculated that Romney likely paid nothing in payroll taxes because he did not earn any wages, while his full returns show that he in fact paid the tax on a tiny fraction of his income from speaking fees.

And, I know, already, there will be the bleating Republicans - that Crabgrass is just a ton of envy refrain. Well, let's see - am I really the only one thinking the wealthy should pay more:

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama once again urged Congress to pass the Buffett rule, noting that 25 percent of American millionaires pay less in taxes that millions of families in the middle-class. Republicans were quick to dismiss his request as “the politics of envy and division.” However, multi-billionaire Bill Gates called his policy something else entirely: “That’s just justice.”

In an interview with the BBC, Gates noted “taxes are going to have to go up” and thus he’d prefer that they “go up more on the rich than everyone else.” There needs to be “a sense of shared sacrifice,” he said, adding, “right now, I don’t feel like people like myself are paying as much as we should”

Is Romney's "sense of shared sacrifice" that he had to pay the lawyer and accountant fees for the 550 pages. His sacrifice, and the 99% is not offering to share it, so he's okay? I guess. But, when he wants my vote ...

Don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

From this link, this website:

Blank Federal Search Warrant Forms

Orin Kerr • January 24, 2012 2:09 pm

Fill in your own, for fun and education! Entertainment for the whole family. Ages 4 and up.
Categories: Uncategorized

24 Comments

Anonimus [sic] says:

[Deleted by OK] (Quote)
January 24, 2012, 2:42 pm
Crunchy Frog says:

Do they come pre-signed? That always helps. (Quote)
January 24, 2012, 2:43 pm
Martinned says:

By American standards, that seems surprisingly simple. I was expecting at least a 5-page form in triplicate, asking the LEO to identify the suspect’s mother’s sister’s maiden name, etc. (Quote)
January 24, 2012, 2:55 pm
PrometheeFeu says:

I find most amusing the fact that both pages are editable. Are you expected to forecast the time at which you executed the warrant and predict what exact items you have filled out on the second page or get the judge to fill out the warrant after you’ve executed it and filled out the second page? (Quote)
January 24, 2012, 3:01 pm
Anderson says:

Critics say: “Unwarrantably amusing!” (Quote)
January 24, 2012, 3:10 pm

[...]

So simple, even an FBI agent could fill one out. Go the the source link to see further comments. Here are front and back of the form, from online, here (click an image to enlarge and read):

A curious thing, I read a post on a blog that could be called, "Ramsey Republicans Exposed." The post there could be titled, "Railing against Northstar rail."

It is not something I check regularly, but Brodkorb's blog, under present editorial continuation of the aim of somehow exposing or discrediting things done by DFL people, says this, at this link:

click the image to enlarge and read

Anyone wanting to follow the links in the post, or read comment thread thoughts, is encouraged to go to the site.

What I find ironic, the greatest excess, given the numbers and analysis that this Andy Post posts, is that the most current Northstar expansion, despite numbers suggesting a wait-and-see mentality, is being financed - in Ramsey - by the Republican dominated city council and the Republican dominated county board, after state funds were earmarked, through Met Council, by the Republican dominated legislative houses.

If criticizing the step-children is in vogue at MDE, what about the deafening silence about the latest one?

Republicans exposed does not play well at that site, but it's what Andy Post is doing, these days, this economy, these times of some of the same Republicans saying "small-down" government. I find this intriguing.

It's "small down" the government but my pork is different. Very intriguing. And Matt Look is saying Anoka County pays too high a share of Northstar ongoing expense. Intriguing. Some may say "inconsistent" or "self-contradictory" but I only say "intriguing."

SOPA, PIPA, ACTA. “Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake," Dodd told Fox News. "Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

The Whitehouse, at whitehouse.gov, has a public petition forum, here, with these two screenshots, the header, and a pair of petitions that in days got over 25,000 signatures.

To make it easy on readers who ask, "What's this about Dodd and a bribery investigation," see this link.

The language in the header, is Dodd's. And you don't need to be as explicit as the guy handing Spiro Agnew a brown paper bag full of cash -- tens, twenties and fifties, not in serial order, handled bills - to be involved in bribery. However, it is when people such as Dodd and his current paymaster - Franken's Hollywood minions - are, as a practical matter, above the law, that the law gets hypertechnical and splits hairs over, "it depends how you define 'bribe'."

There's more, GoDaddy, and jellyfish vs. spined critters; per the new Righthaven.com

That's another separate post. While you wait for it in eager anticipation, watch the embedded video here, and then and only then, go to the megaupload.com website itself. That deserves its own post too.  For now, links, NY Times, here and here, (the term is "chilling effect"), this Google, here and here. Why do you figure the NY Times reported it's part of things, without much coverage of Anonymous antics?

The great galling shame of Mitt Romney's tax returns; and the obscene result that would arise from tax policy Gingrich advocates, a policy that would have uber-wealthy Romney paying nothing in taxes.

National Journal, here, this excerpt:

CAMPAIGN 2012 --- Mitt Romney's Tax Returns: Here's What Really Matters
His tax return doesn't prove that he's done something wrong, only that the tax code is wrong.

By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
January 24, 2012 | 11:43 a.m.

Here's what we know about Mitt Romney's money in 2010 and 2011, based on 500 pages of tax returns he released late Monday night: He made $43 million in income over those two years. Almost all that money came from investments such as capital gains on investments and compensation from Bain Capital. None of it came from wages.

Here's what we know about Mitt Romney's taxes: Romney has donated more money to charity -- $7 million, including $4.1 million to the Mormon church -- than he owed to the IRS over the last two years. In 2010, Romney's effective tax rate was 13.9 percent. In 2011, his estimated effective tax rate will be 15.4 percent. Romney's average effective tax rate is considerably lower than most people in the top 10 percent -- or even the top 0.1 percent -- because his income comes almost entirely from capital gains, dividends, and interest, which are taxed at a lower rate than earned income from wages. Romney's effective tax rate is also higher than that of many middle-class families, who -- unlike the former Massachusetts governor -- owe payroll taxes.

[...] "Gov. Romney has paid 100 percent of what he owes," a Romney spokesperson said on a conference call this morning. I believe him. Mitt Romney is a remarkably successful businessman, and his wealth reflects a legally gained fortune which is being taxed according to the law.

[...] It's not that Romney's tax return proves he's done something wrong. It's that his tax returns prove that the tax code is wrong. Households worth $200 million earning $20 million in investment income a year shouldn't be paying a lower tax rate than some middle-class families, especially at a time when we're thinking about cutting spending that disproportionately benefits the lower and lower-middle class.

Romney's tax return could serve as an inflection point in the tax discussion. You might say it already has. Consider Monday night's debate in Florida, when Mitt Romney told Newt Gingrich that the former speaker's tax plan goes too far, since it would lower Romney's own tax rate to zero. This was a remarkable moment. The GOP front-runner, who's won the endorsement of almost every serious conservative mainstay, stood athwart tax cut-mania conservatism and said, "Stop." Or at least, he said: "Too far."

In an election that will be about inequality and taxes, Mitt Romney's tax returns are a glowing artifact of inequality in the tax code. And by proposing to make capital gains entirely tax-free, Gingrich favors a tax plan that would make our law even more unequal. That's why, even without the polls, you can fairly say that Mitt Romney's tax returns matter.

Gingrich is dangerous to the 99%. He is not friendly at all to the middle and lower classes. He is worse that way, than Romney. Tax the Rich fairly. Make them pay fairly for the privileges and joy that life in the nation accords them. They, quite simply, are too heavy for the rest of us to carry. They are too privileged for the rest of us to suffer. They are too greedy, Gingrich feeding that greed by pandering to it. Greed is not good.

IF --- If sneaky-snake ALEC and its money-bagmen had their way with us, Minnesota never would have had its Ciresi-managed tobacco lawsuit, its multi-million dollar recovery for damage to health and compensating for the kiting of healthcare costs - cancer costs caused by Carolina tobacco profiteer-pushers.

sneaky-snake effort, page 1

sneaky-snake effort, page 2

Ciresi, Humphrey - Humphrey, Cerisi. Hrumpf !
Hate 'em. My money up in smoke.

Any questions?

ALEC and who, are real close, close as thieves? Who else? Where the little tramp is getting his campaign cash?

ALEC, this Google. This screen capture, from here:

click to enlarge and read

So, who would be caught anywhere near such a scuzzy operation? Who else?

And, from the ALEC website itself, the brochure is free, (see below image), the memberships are not - after all it is hob-nobbing with refinery-stink-smells-like-money-to-them elite, as they see themselves, their self-indulgent Koch habits. And, oh, look. There's that phony little tramp again, he's "everywhere ALEC" ---

click to enlarge and read

Can you connect dots?

Where did the little tramp get "Drill Here, Drill Now"?

Muslim Brotherhood wins an election in Egypt. Newt Gingrich wins one in South Carolina. Juan Cole does a compare and contrast of press attitude.

This link. Where was religious zealotry the factor?

SOPA and PIPA - MPR on the Minnesota delegation's positions. On this, I agree with the House members, not the Seantors.

This link. It speaks for itself. Go there. Franken has his Hollywood roots, and leans accordingly. Klobuchar has no similar excuse. Unless Dad's newspaper background color's her copyright judgment. We wait. We see. This will be back, dressed differently, but it has not gone away. December or early next year, expect it with a parallel stadium push locally, the time - after elections - then being ripe for Wilfare. Until then, much hiding in the weeds and waiting to strike.

The reigning champion, NEWT, The Amphibian of South Carolina.

this link, for the list

Of that author's three points, I think he saved the best for last:

3. Mitt Romney is vulnerable. I don’t just mean because he finished second in South Carolina either. He was mortally wounded by a question that should have left the battle scar equivalent to a paper cut. How he failed to prepare himself for a question about his tax returns absolutely baffles me. I’m certain the Romney camp will look back on that moment and wonder if it cost him the race or – at the very least – added several weeks to his primary campaign.

I'd like to see the stratospheric Romney papers, being nosy that way, but how could real, regular people relate to that kind of numbers? It would only pile it on to see detail of the man's obscene level of wealth while we, the rest of us, face the economy folks like Romney have created for us to endure.

Beyond that, I think the author of that opening item saw the real reason Gingrich won so strongly, but discounted it. If Romney cannot get Brock Lesnar's endorsement, it will be all over but the death rattles.

____________UPDATE____________
PiPress carries a McClatchy and an AP feed, on the Gingrich win. Here and here.

Finally, some honesty about what Crabgrass mongers had in mind all along.

Strib reports on political bickering and backstabbing, or perhaps not that bad but just Matt Look being himself, pushy, after Ramsey's getting a Northstar station. Read Paul Levy's item, here, titled, "Anoka County no longer on board for Northstar formula."

The report is detailed. Briefly, Look contends Anoka County pays more than a fair share among counties paying annual amounts for the costly thing.

What is interesting, two stories told about what the entire 1/3 of a billion thing was intended to do to the north metro:

The relationship between Look and some Sherburne County officials has been strained for months. Look, a former Ramsey City Council member, campaigned heavily for a station in Ramsey that opponents said was unnecessary.

Sherburne County Commissioner Felix Schmiesing was among those who questioned the value of a $13.2 million station in Ramsey, saying the station would likely rely on passengers who previously boarded the train in Anoka or Elk River. Schmiesing said the focus should have been on getting the train to St. Cloud.

Ramsey was awarded a station in November. Look says the cost of the station will be $10 million, and not the $13.2 million originally approved.

"If the formula changes, we probably eliminate some stations in Sherburne County," Schmiesing said. "The model for this formula was tested. It was fair the way we did it.

"This feels like retaliation. We were honest, taking a position against the Ramsey station and sticking with it, and now we're being punished for it."

Schmiesing noted that the point of the commuter train was to get motorists off the road, specifically Hwy. 10, which runs parallel to the tracks in Sherburne and Anoka counties. With Northstar relieving congestion in the cities of Anoka and Coon Rapids, Anoka County benefits, Schmiesing said.

Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein said Anoka County should use Northstar to the county's benefit.

"Anoka County needs to do more economic development so they can turn their county into a destination where people want to go," Stenglein said. "That's the whole idea of this train. Instead of crying about it, build around it."

Did you get that? "That's the whole idea of this train. Instead of crying about it, build around it."

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

All that junk at Clown Center. The extra traffic lights on Armstrong now, and on Ramsey Blvd., unjustified in any way by existing traffic, with taxing being what it is, to pay for such unneeded things - all because "the whole idea of this train" is to kowtow to Crabgrass interests, those who would burden existing taxpayers with the costs of expansion so that Developers and land speculators [who profited from selling Town Center land, with others along Hwy 5 had visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads during the Ramsey 2030 Comp Plan proceedings, wanting to grow Crabgrass on their lands north of Trott Brook] could be more enabled to make unconscionable amounts of profit from building housing which, the bubble breaking, proved unsupportable as a free market concept; i.e., without a 1/3 billion transit subsidy so Crabgrass could "build around it."

Unsupportable, as Nedegaard proved when he went broke trying to do his deals. Unsupportable as the present gang-of-three, mayor, Wise and McGlone along with Landform are pushing.

Now, with Crabgrass briefly in retrenchment mode under present economic reality, the savants cannot get any present private sector takers, other than subsidy takers such as "free-parking" Flaherty, and Jim Deal who has been able to build and sell stuff. Town Center itself was a highly tax-subsidized Met Council and local pipe dream from the start. A pipe dream called "smart growth."

We been had. Some saw that from the start, which is why the bogus "Would you like nice shoppes and restaurants" ballot question, dressed up dishonestly that way, still had a 40% vote against subsidized prospering of Crabgrass.

Levy concludes his report with some numbers - to supplement earlier numbers given in the report; with it worth noting that all of the thing being paid by taxpayers at one level of government or another, with money in the pot blended so that any local yokel can say, "Look what we are getting when we only tax you $xxx of the full much larger $yyy of cost. What a deal." It is all government spending. The only private sector player in the Northstar saga is BNSF, and they are paying nothing, instead being given free public money since they, not the taxing entities, own the right of way which for substantial money, they sell in part, for Northstar to run its trains. Levy ends with:

During the first 11 months of last year, the Big Lake station had 97,699 Northstar passengers, followed by Elk River with 92,483, Anoka with 62,297, Coon Rapids with 62,176 and Fridley with 26,565.

According to Northstar figures, Anoka County is responsible for nearly $27.5 million of the $51 million contributed by local counties. The county "buy-in contributions" are: Anoka $27,489,000; Stearns $9,588,000; Hennepin $7,191,000, and Sherburne $6,732,000.

For a Phase II, which would take Northstar to St. Cloud, the local contribution is estimated at $25.5 million -- or half of Phase I. Stearns County would be the largest contributor to Phase II, paying $14,382,000.

Earlier numbers he reported, in context,

Look, who chairs the Anoka County Regional Rail Authority, has been a county commissioner for slightly more than a year. He wasn't part of the group that devised a funding formula for a commuter line that was originally supposed to go as far west as Rice, with a key station in St. Cloud.

But when a $157 million federal grant in 2007 made it possible for the $317 million line to finally begin running trains in November of 2009, everything stopped in Big Lake. Politics and a struggling economy delayed the line for several years and relegated dreams of a station in St. Cloud to Phase II status.

That seed federal grant did not come from the Easter Bunny, it came from federal taxation (and borrowing).

Arguably Northstar is not a bad thing in itself, as a part of a metro-wide transit system to lower atmospheric carbon loading and lessen climate change worry as north metro Crabgrass spreads, but it never was the next best peice to put in place after Hiawatha. The Central Corridor always was that, and the population density is NOT now in north metro, it is south of us, and buses could have been replaced for efficiency, by more light rail before any Northstar. Now, Ramsey has the better Northstar-enabled opportunity to "build itself out" to be just like Coon Rapids and Blaine. Wow.

_______________UPDATE_______________
So everyone understands, even the 40w light bulbs, I encourage job opportunity growth policies, since the commute load is due to peoples' work and housing not being in the same place. More good jobs in Ramsey would be good. But housing growth, without jobs, is someone else's idea of ideal, and I believe that growth should be tolerated in as small a package as feasible, highly regulated to not be as bad as developers given free rein would have it, and never encouraged as with the present council pushing to lower permit fees and topsoil regulations to encourage Crabgrass instead on nice lawns. Developers should never have been given the latitude to pick and choose how to overpopulate Ramsey by the city's government, in the 2030 Comp Plann process sending a plan to Met Council authorizing more growth than the Met Council's quota demanded. That was irresponsibility at its greatest, and a low point for Ramsey. I fault the planning staff greatly, and that sorry excuse for a consultant from Bonestroo even more. He was awful. And my understanding is he had his three legged stool out quite a bit, milking the cash cow.

Consultants, by and large, are Crabgrass. Should I retitle the blog? I will, on a trial basis. See the banner.

Mitt Romney - learning of a man by looking at his friends. Friends who probably plan what's best for you, as what's best for them, since you're not on that list. Learning of a man by who his money bosses.

Mitt Romney (R)
Top Contributors

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2012 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Because of contribution limits, organizations that bundle together many individual contributions are often among the top donors to presidential candidates. These contributions can come from the organization's members or employees (and their families). The organization may support one candidate, or hedge its bets by supporting multiple candidates. Groups with national networks of donors - like EMILY's List and Club for Growth - make for particularly big bundlers.

Goldman Sachs --- $367,200
Credit Suisse Group --- $203,750
Morgan Stanley --- $199,800
HIG Capital --- $186,500
Barclays --- $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis --- $132,100
Bank of America --- $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers --- $118,250
EMC Corp --- $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co -- $112,250
The Villages -- $97,500
Vivint Inc --- $80,750
Marriott International --- $79,837
Sullivan & Cromwell --- $79,250
Bain Capital --- $74,500
UBS AG --- $73,750
Wells Fargo --- $61,500
Blackstone Group --- $59,800
Citigroup Inc --- $57,050
Bain & Co --- $52,500

This link. Be afraid.

But, can any reader feel much better, about this? This? The one comforting thing in that last list is that everything is scaled down by a power of ten.

Without being bogged down in too many details, do you get the general drift of this? How many pages would your holdings take, and did you pay over 15% in taxes?

While arguably a less reliable barometer, particularly for a waffle of a man, you can learn from things he's said, when among his friends.

____________UPDATE____________
America the Bountiful. As South Carolina prepares to vote, you can kick back and listen to Rush, because he tells you like it is. And, if you call in, and get through screening, you can ask about:

Source: endoftheAmericanDream.com

-------------------------

Rush is shocked. SHOCKED!

Rush is paid. PAID!

-------------------------

Forget divisive and stupid marriage amendments.
Support one that really matters.

Allina buys a property in Anoka Industrial Park.

This link. Below, a screen capture from Google Maps.

click the image to enlarge and read

UPDATE: From Copperwood Real Estate, the broker, this link on the newly acquired Allina property, and here, re another Anoka Industrial Park site.

Struggling for a headline, between "tiny minded poseur" and "recycled bastard-retread poseur."

The Economist, here, or just read the screenshot if you don't care to watch the embedded video or read the second half of the item:

Poseur is the keyword. Worse posing, in his own way, than sanctimonious Santorum, with his double standard "Christian" way.

Each is now, who he was "back then." Each.

Romney at least is truth in advertising, what you see is what you'd get. A Nelson Rockefeller clone.

______________UPDATE______________
Worth a passing note, but not more, it is reassuring to know that our nation is still as it was during Nixon's rise, with even an attack dog like Rush knowing which hand not to bite.

_____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Three million last year in taxable income - Newt Gingrich must be burning down the house, on book royalties.

Colbert, on Morning Joe, answered questions about his candidacy - his position on open marriages.

Andy at Residual Forces analyzes Gingrich in ways I cannot largely criticize.

RAMSEY - Are SAC and WAC on TRAC?

Sakry, ABC Newspapers, this link. Another consultancy study, this one less expensive than it might have been. Less than other expenses. Be grateful for small favors?

With the intention of not pushing anyone's agenda, a few things to look at, agree or disagree.

Start with "Envision Minnesota." Homepage, accomplishments, what we envision, McKnight re:focus, Hot dish newsletter, Governor's Playbook. If you agree, fine, if you take your hot dish with a grain of salt and are not a Le Creuset crowd type, more a box from the freezer into the microwave lifestyle person, that's fine with me too. Next, to quickly understand Met Council the way I understand Met Council, this link for sure, and to a lesser degree, this and this (were it your website, would you update -- this is the most current committee/board make up listing I could find for their LCAC -- I admittedly am not a perfect searcher nor unduly creative in following links but I did Google and try a second appropriate search engine). Go along to get along, and if you Lake Elmo on Met Council, you experience the fist in the glove - learning something that big and so so graciously well fed and coddled can move fast and mean as a jaguar.

____________UPDATE____________
I have always believed Met Council, in setting quotas for towns in things as remote into the future as 2030 planning, used to slaughter a chicken, read the entrails, and add 15%. Some imported New Orleans Voodoo queen, and a prized, hidden staff crystal ball were all thought to be part of the "scientific" forecasting.

If you want to see how foggy modeling - crystal-balling is, when done with honest intent never mind adding 20% because 15% might be insufficient to allow developer exploitation discretion in a community without over setting quotas so that less preservation of a status quo is possible by forced comp planning excess -- if you want that, try this Google, (and each scholarly paper has its citation trail so that you can expand beyond work by the single author via the treeing that citation tracking entails). I got that Google by having come across this single paper. There's a lot of modeling stuff out there, online and free access, but when you read some and see the presumptions and simplifications and quality of a back-fit to past history as model validation testing, you have to say it's mostly educated guesswork.

Yet we are constrained by Met Council extortion to commit parts of the community to various growth demands, based on such a pailful of garbage guessing.

Plus they add 15-20% because the developers love that. It gives them a bigger pool for rapaciousness.

I'm sure they do exactly that, at Met Council.

Notice that they have twenty million words on their website, but never publish their forecast models. Like a jewelry store where they never say how highly alloyed the gold is, or like some jeweler who'll talk to you for hours selling or hoping for a sale, without getting into what's a real diamond and what's a rhinestone.

Go figure.

We are the 1%

Strib reporting on Met Council state of the region, and other Met Council stuff, this -- from deep in the article, regarding transit usage, 2011:

Overall transit ridership rose by 2.7 million in 2011 to 80.9 million. Urban bus routes provided 72 percent of all rides, suburban and express service 14 percent, the Hiawatha light-rail line 13 percent and the Northstar commuter line 1 percent.

For detail, Met Council's homepage, here, has the 2011 reporting and the leadership-policy statement as the presently featured key links. To aid the politician-spinmeisters, to make their search for how "they will say it" easier, I post this MC page.

“Together, we can connect the dots between mobility, economic development, jobs, workforce, housing and quality of life,” said Haigh. “This is about connecting development with jobs, jobs with people, and people with their homes, communities and local businesses.”

Haigh said the Council has a full plate in 2012, with a work plan that also includes:

-- Beginning development of a housing policy plan that will help to expand affordable housing opportunities.
-- Awarding additional grants to promote development and redevelopment along transit corridors to help attract more private capital and additional development, as well as complement other Council initiatives to promote economic opportunity.
-- Launching a collaborative effort to develop the 2040 Regional Development Framework, a long-range plan for delivering innovative, efficient services and infrastructure in a cost-effective and collaborative manner.
-- Further embracing growing diversity by expanding federal inclusionary policies to all Council purchasing, hiring and contracting practices.


During Haigh’s first year as Council Chair, the Metropolitan Council:

-- Secured a Full Funding Grant Agreement for Central Corridor Light Rail, committing the federal government to paying half the cost of the $957 million project.
-- Secured federal government approval to enter Preliminary Engineering on Southwest Corridor Light Rail. The project is just one of 12 projects nationwide to achieve PE status.
-- Launched the “Corridors of Opportunity” collaboration to target investment along transit corridors as a way to shape growth and guide land uses to ensure the region’s ability to be competitive.
-- Achieved Metro Transit ridership of nearly 81 million rides in 2011, marking the second time in 30 years that ridership has exceeded 80 million.
-- Avoided an across-the-board transit fare increase, despite a state general fund reduction of 40 percent for the biennium.
-- Produced the Stadium Proposal Risk Analysis, evaluating the potential risks of the proposal to build a stadium in Arden Hills.
-- Achieved an historic record of wastewater treatment plant compliance with state and federal clean water regulations.


Haigh called on partners in government and the private and nonprofit sectors to help continue the work of the region and to help grow transit, expand housing opportunities and promote healthy neighborhoods and well-paying jobs, and to help promote the region as “one region, one economy.”

See

Haigh’s remarks, as prepared for delivery.
The Council’s 2011 Annual Report.
The Council’s 2011 Record of Accomplishment (pdf)

[...]

The Metropolitan Council is the regional planning organization in the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. The Council runs the regional bus and light rail system and Northstar commuter rail, collects and treats wastewater, coordinates regional water resources, plans regional parks and administers funds that provide housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income families. The Council board is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Governor.

[links in original, italics added --- gotta keep the planners' cash flow flowing ... they are heart and soul of what Met Council is/does - worth every penny, some believe]

Outside of "one region, one economy," Wright and Sherburne Counties seem content being different regions, different economies.

The aquifer we in Ramsey rely on for water extends beyond Met Council jurisdiction, and is utilized with new wells outside of the Metro Area. DNR can regulate water best, because it has jurisdiction over the entire aquifer - groundwater systems of the State.

Met Council should not be trying to overreach or hide things, that way, and with Northstar reaching beyond its jurisdiction, there are politics it can most surely influence heavily, but which it cannot fully control.

Last but not least, this page, where you can take pleasure in watching an embedded video of Mayor Rybak, and note that Met Council has an anchor focus:

“With a spirit of partnership, we can achieve and surpass the aspirations we share for this region,” Haigh said.

Panelists discuss benefits of regional partnerships

A panel that included Matt Kramer, President of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, Jan Callison, Hennepin County Comissioner, and Bruce Nustad, President of the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce discussed transit investments, housing needs, and how regional and local planning decisions affect businesses decisions about where to locate or expand.

Oh, did I say, spinmeister?

Image from the embedded video, here. I watched that entire video, (sound off - why bother), and it was a bit distressing. All those talking head career politicians, and not our own Matt Look, with one of Jim Deal's buildings as a backdrop, or our mayor with an oil rig backdrop, saying this-that about the hustings - and jobs.

You would think, submitting to an annual new tax of $300,000 should buy coverage [a transit district tax - local control subsumed]. The new tax burden is being assumed by our town's taxpayers in exchange for the benefit of being able to bond debt to pay a big chunk of the cost of building a Northstar stop at Town Center. With that submission, of our town's leadership to a new tax for us, you might expect that City of Ramsey would have gotten some kind of non-chump featuring in the tout-video. Not so. Not even a Darren Lazan/Landform clip or slides on public-private-partnership (P3).

No featuring. Just the new tax. Pay to play. Second fiddle.

___________________________
POLL RESULTS: The most recent four-question sidebar poll has closed. Briefly, there was a two-to-one split favoring a return to a five member all-at-large council; a decisive near-unanimous favoring of cutting Landform/COR instead of more cuts elsewhere; a near-even split on Ulrich -vs- Nelson as the administrator to keep if one has to go, (with Ulrich favored); and a unanimous belief that as a symbolic thing the honorarium payments to the council members should be cut proportionately, i.e., that there should be a symbolic sharing of hardship. Because the stipends are low in relation to the workload, any such reduction would be symbolic, but it was favored that such a "statement" be made by those imposing hardships.

SOPA, PIPA blackout.

For one day, today, the Crabgrass banner is modified, along with the "blackout" effort. It's all symbolic, and Obama has quesitoned such legislation, as presently written. This Google, SOPA. This, PIPA. Wikipedia on SOPA. Do you remember Christopher Dodd?

Google's main page one day, today, protest appearnace:

_________UPDATE__________
Should anyone notice, the altered Crabgrass banner continues. I think the statement is worth going beyond a day of protest and notice. I may go back to the regular banner next week, but for now, No on SOPA, on PIPA.

Friday, Jan. 20 - Crabgrass banner restored to normal. SOPA/PIPA news indicates the web-wide effort was effective; here, here, here and here. This Google News. With the four remaining GOP pres-candidates clucking correctly, House and Senate lobby-owned Republicans might be hesitant to presently lick the feeding hand. Ditto among Democrats, where Obama's been lukewarm and Reid backed away from a floor vote. The effort is more likely shelved temporarily than dead. Stay alert. Now if only we could get the so-called Patriot Act nullified. Ron Paul favors that.

____________FURTHER UPDATE__________
Andy at Residual Forces properly twice dumps on Klobuchar's co-sponsorship of SOPA. Here and here. Does she know what she's doing? Not this time. Other than following what staff/lobbyists tell her. In my mind, her stances on SOPA/PIPA and the internet, on sulfide mining, and on the bridge to nowhere, (from Stillwater - to Scott Walker land), show a disturbing lack of anything but ill-informed, indifferent middle of the road same old, same old.

Is there a progressive to oppose her in a primary. Jack Nelson -- Yo, duty calls.

Thinking about Ramsey, triggered by a thread of comments of a reader.

This is aimed to supplement Ryan's thread comments, here, on an earlier Crabgrass post about Sakry reporting of the Mayor's proposed upheavel of top city administration; Ryan's last comment being:

Not sure I understand the real benefits from any posturing about taxes in this case? This isn't congress in Washington that we're talking about. And I doubt that we'll end up outraged at the lavish lifestyles our city council is going to lead as a result of their re-elections and/or good or poor decision making. This is all about deciding whether the COR is a good public investment or not and we all know where Ramsay, Wise, and McGlone stand and if the election works like it should these 3 will have a good idea of what the public feels about their decision making to date. Personally I don't think it matters who is in office. At the end of the day, the city has already gone past the tipping point on what direction they are heading with the COR. The public investment (infrastructure costs in the beginning from RTC, purchasing RTC land after implosion, paying Landform, Municipal Center, Northstar,etc.) as well as the creation of the new TIF district sealed that fate. If the citizens really care about this city they will start demanding a detailed accounting of COR spending and COR income. And they should start demanding an answer to the question of how the budgeting in the COR is impacting our current budget for core (not COR) city services because I haven't seen enough from this standpoint. And even more to the point the Landform agreement should get much more scrutiny at this point than it has. I've seen enough of the dog and pony shows explaining to us how difficult it has been to unwind the former development agreements (you should have known that prior to buying the land). And I've heard enough about deals Landform has closed when it's obvious the majority of these deals were inside jobs perpetuated by Deal and Look (semi-hearsay, can't say I know this first hand, just through talking with folks) or deals that do nothing to reimburse the public (I'm talking finances here, not talking about the intangibles of getting the VA). It's honestly put up or shut up time. Sell some land, close some deals, reimburse the public for the gambles you've made or get ready to face the music. But then again what music will that be worst case? Oh yeah thats right, taxing the public for gambles they didn't vote on in the first place. I honestly hope the COR ends up succesful in the end but I am beyond distraught over the means this city has used try to correct a mistake from the past. And I'm even more distraught over how desperate the council and hra might get with their decision making as they attack the budget issues in our cities future.

Ryan and others should submit letters to ABC Newspapers, Strib, or PiPress.

I italicized one sentence, because it is the only place where Ryan and I may disagree. "... past the tipping point ..." is what Ryan wrote, while I firmly believe we never should have new decisions driven by sunk costs. We should always be open to options such as dropping an approach, or sit-tight-wait-and-see as alternatives to feeling or claiming compelled to plunge ahead, headstrong, full bore, and precipitously.

SUNK COST PITFALLS: Great sunk cost can bias decisions substantively, and by a false sense of urgency, to collapse timeframe and "do something."

Tammy Sakry reported Jim Deal as saying a full Town Center build out might take twenty years. That level of patience is lacking on council.

Changes in direction can result from a focus on sunk costs. For example, present council majority thinking, (and consequent Landform activity), aims at development where the concept of "walkability" is abandoned as a key factor.

Current maps for Town Center have a peppering of retail boxes each with its own parking lot - auto-centric vs. concentrating on foot traffic. This is not different from other metro small-mall proposals. There is no uniqueness. Whether that is better or worse as an approach emphasizing "walkability" deserves debate, not indirect insinuation via map differences without discussion.

SUNK COST EXAMPLES: Lehman and MF Global were driven by sunk cost. Decision making was high-risk, and leveraged. The market took them down for imprudence and impudence.

Also, should we have stayed longer in Iraq or Vietnam, because of how much we'd invested, the sunk costs we'd suffered?

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) pioneered the mini-computer and became a billion-dollar company with Ken Olson its founder and CEO at all times. Olson was quoted to me as saying, "I will not obsolete the VAX," that being a sunk-cost cash cow in the mini computer market at the time with Olson believing, "The PC is a piece of junk." DEC no longer exists because sunk cost on the mini computer business model blinded him to the reality of the market. He did not let the trend be his friend.

THE HOLD AND SIT TIGHT OPTION: "The trend is your friend" is a phrase relied on where people are not so sure of themselves to believe they can buck trends of the market they are in, in our case town booming.

Many metro towns were caught with dreams run aground. Officials in many places may be frustrated, impatient and uncertain.

But saying "I doorknocked my entire ward and what I heard is that people were tired of Ramsey being a laughingstock on Channel 5," is no justification for what's been done subsequent to the 2008 election, arguably to resuscitate a CORpse. Sitting tight, after having decided to buy the distressed land and waiting until the market cycled back to boom times, and then selling the block of land to an experienced private sector operator, to take development risks, was never even considered by the pell mell plunge into Landform's consulting arms.

Pure and simple. Using that "Channel 5 - doorknocking stuff" to argue to justify multi-million dollar gambling and impatience, is bogus. While there was cause for Channel 5 broadcasting, allowing it to drive new decisions is no assurance that there will be less and not more future ridicule and laughing.

GRANDSTANDING - ELECTIONEERING: Suggesting on short notice with no analysis to chop a head, (Kurt not being anyone's yes-man), comes across as something done with an eye to "fiscal conservative" posing for the election, or as a vendetta.

The cost-benefit balance on the rail stop will not be apparent by election time. Nor will there be anything but ground breaking on the Flaherty gamble. We will vote without evidence of what even short term outcomes might be.

James Norman in pushing an overly expensive city hall as an anchor/catalyst, did not have history as his teacher, early in the decade when he acted.

Not that he'd have paid attention.

But current decisions, having a history, are not made good in any absolute sense by comparing them to past bad decisions or using past decisions as an excuse.

It is false to suggest the town is forced by its past to burn money in today's market with no proof of any return worth the spending -- and with no evidence that build-out can be shortened by a massive money burn, now, for consultants. Nor will money burn assure us a better long-term outcome than patience would yield.

BOTTOM LINE - AND VOTING: Ryan's comments are sound. How we react and vote in the election will depend on who runs, what they say, and what we might anticipate from challengers vs. incumbents.

The higher turnout going with presidential election years can bring in voters not fully informed, down-ticket. Also, down ticket outcomes can be wrongly influenced by irrelevancies, e.g., a great number of highway signs yielding name recognition.

THE DILEMMA - CHALLENGERS BEING HEARD: There is a built-in bias --  those on council have QCTV to make their pitch during televised sessions near election day, and via "Council Updates."

The problem is particularly acute when League of Women Voters Candidate Forums can be side-stepped by one of two candidates. (LWV rules do not allow a single attending candidate to proceed alone.)

We should view harshly any incumbent (with a QCTV forum), who side-steps LWV-sponsored opportunities to appear and debate. For me that would cause me now to not vote for a candidate doing that (although in the past I ignored it, in the Look vs. Cook election for an at large Ramsey council seat - and- in that situation it was the challenger who ducked the LWV opportunity - Cook, the incumbent, attended and expressed frustration over being held silent during the LWV broadcast. Hind sight is always 20/20.)

____________UPDATE__________
I am supposing Wise, McGlone and the mayor, along with Lazan of Landform and Nelson, at best would say the strategy is to not go with the trend, but to be a trend-setter. To capture the leading edge of the wave for when the market rebounds, to not be caught trailing other pioneers. Aside from pioneers being the ones with arrows in their backs, that Gestalt is entirely incompatible with chintzy posturing as fiscal conservatives against undue risk, cost, and waste. Wise, McGlone and the mayor want to do big time gambles, together with a low-budget mentality for basic established traditional governmental duties, roads, parks, cops, firemen, and public works and city hall workforce.

Wanting egg in your beer and the foam at the bottom, is irrational folly.

They want traditional private sector things, land speculation, to be their toy, but traditional public sector government functions to be privatized to consultants. It's Alice in Wonderland, a mad hatter's Tea Party. Ass-backwards is another term for it.

_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Along the lines of front-running the opposition, or attempting to and the wisdom of that, Strib's busy North Metro scribe, Paul Levy, today reports online:

Next stop on Northstar line: Development
Updated: January 16, 2012 - 9:48 PM

When Indianapolis developer David Flaherty proposed his housing project in Ramsey, he looked beyond the city's mostly vacant 400-acre development area and focused on the railroad tracks in the distance.

"We want to build high-density housing where you'll be able to walk from your apartment unit to the rail station," Flaherty said. "This whole project was dependent on Ramsey getting a Northstar commuter rail station."

From potato fields in Big Lake to empty lots in Ramsey once linked with defaulted loans and bank fraud, cities along the Northstar commuter line see their rail stations as key selling points to lure new development.

Although the two-year-old, 41-mile Northstar line has struggled to meet ridership projections, city and business officials see signs a commuter line can flourish someday, even during high unemployment.

[...] "Northstar put Big Lake on the map," said Katie Larsen, senior city planner.

With 10,000 residents, Big Lake is the least populated of cities with Northstar stations. But with 300 available acres and a role as a hub for bus riders who come 30 miles from St. Cloud to hop the Northstar to Minneapolis, Big Lake leaders envision a developer's dream.

"People driving through Big Lake a few years ago saw potato fields," said former City Council Member Chuck Heitz. "Developers saw a potential gold mine."

[...] "The difference between commuter and light rail is there isn't going to be anything happening around the station during the day," Larsen said.

"The train isn't going to be the driving force for retail development," she said. "It's an amenity."

Larsen said she believes that passengers will one day get off at the Big Lake station, buy a newspaper, head to a coffee shop or other stores and mill around. But city officials were convinced they would need "at least 100 new rooftops" before retail develops, probably in 10 years, Larsen said.

A 33-unit townhouse development is underway. Big Lake will soon have a 20-unit assisted-living complex, and a 72-unit apartment complex recently received City Council approval, Larsen said. "Are these developments directly related to Northstar?" she asked. "I believe so."

[...] Big Lake saw the biggest ridership among the six stations: 97,699 rides from January to November 2011. Elk River was next with nearly 92,500.

Big Lake officials feel the down economy even helped them, because they were able to go slowly in forming a development strategy.

"If not for that, we wouldn't have had a plan in place by the time the train rolled out of our station in 2009," Larsen said.

By contrast, Ramsey's more aggressive approach -- seeking funding for projects years before being guaranteed a rail station -- did not pay off. [...] It was a tremendous blow to the $1.3 billion Ramsey Town Center project. Other troubles included mismanagement, a defaulted loan and a federal investigation that resulted in a fraud conviction and prison term for one Forest Lake banker.

The development area, renamed "COR of Ramsey," is starting to rebound with last year's additions of a Veterans Affairs clinic, the Falls Cafe and an Allina Health Clinic.

[...]

As always the excerpt captures a part of the larger report, again here, for full detail.

The report neglects, Flaherty is being greatly subsidized. It neglects, the Flaherty gamble is a gamble.

It neglects that land speculation has never been a legitimate municipal function. While I am not a hunter, my understand is you sit, you wait, and if a deer comes to you they you shoot and tag your success. You do not hire a drum beater to go among a wolfpack, (a developers trade convention), to shout, "Here, deer, deer, deer."

It is counterproductive to do that and it exposes your being an amateur at what you are attempting.

Curiously, Levy who usually is quite thorough, has neglected to report what of all that Big Lake stuff has reached ground breaking or contract signing, and what is up in the air hopes and dreams.

Finally, Levy reports what others said but in reporting does not editorialize toward the question of whether Flaherty is wise building allegedly upscale housing directly adjacent to the busiest freight line in Minnesota, with regular train traffic night and day, train after train. If all the pipe dreams happen as hoped, vs as Ramsey Town Center exposed realities and risk, then things are easy and life is problem-free. Ask yourself, has your life been easy or problem-free? So, what do you expect?

_____________________________
One afterthought - Lazan and the mayor are not giving statements these days? Or is that not to Levy in ways that reached into his reporting?

Ulrich, not Nelson, is being quoted about things on which Nelson spends 70% of her time, specializing.

Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting. Political fallout of a failed council coup?

We await seeing how budget cutting will be proposed by staff, and ultimately voted on by council.

Japanese reporting on Russia entering the WTO, and opinions about Doha.

After 18 years as an applicant, it appears Russia will join, making the WTO encompass 95% of world trade. As a condition of entry, Russia must approve WTO rules and requirements, including WTO's ways and means of trade dispute resolution. Globalization grows, for better or worse. This link.

More about RAMSEY, its costs, and cost trimming.

In a private email, one individual who lives in Ramsey wrote me:

Are you telling me that Heidi Nelson spends 70% of her time with Landform?

My initial and direct reply was:

I am not telling you anything. I published what SHE told me, in an email.

On reflection I wrote a follow-up email:

If the Ramsey Town Center, however lipsticked up, were put on ice, a sit tight vs. pushing on a rope strategy, then Nelson could be converted to a part-time employee, at 30% of present time, 30% of present pay, and things would be fine. Save money on Nelson, staunch the cash drain to Darren; that's win-win. Or am I missing something? I have to admit to simplicity in thinking sometimes, with nuances escaping me.

That got me to thinking, the normal 40-hr workweek, with two week's vacation, is 2000 hrs. annually.

The claim is that even with the five-figure Landform money paid out each and every month as regular as clockwork for that firm to do its creative thinking such as has been done, why would 1400 staff hours, a pay-out of $70,000 as seventy percent of a hundred thousand dollar salary, be needed for saying "yes."

Contract negotiation with Landform has led to multiple council rewriting because the contracts gave too much, and the council had to modify and revise. If there was not too much "yes" and "anything any way you want" on the city's part in the negotiation exchange, a lack of undue pliant concession-giving is not apparent in the city's generosity, initially or as revised.

Consider --- What is the bang for the buck that attaches to the 1400 staff hours that Nelson spent on "The COR" and Landform matters? The question is not a hypothetical, but one the council must face in its looking at costs as an outcome of the mayor's "fire Kurt" putsch. Recall that the mayor precipitously proposed, fire Kurt and give Nelson the top job, and that brings front and center the question of how efficient has she been with time expenditure, were she have been put into Kurt's place. No analysis of such things went into any presentation by the mayor, on the record, when the mayor made his "fire Kurt" proposal.

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I have always believed that under today's real estate realities, a "sit tight vs. pushing on a rope" strategy was the only thing making sense regarding the failed half of the RTC - the raw land. I thought so when the land was in foreclosure and after the City bought it for what the City paid.

Now with a will to cut budget, my belief may be one the council adopts.

When Reed left, Nelson took over human services responsibility, or that title at least, and I am surprised not more time was consumed in bringing about the past year's lowering of personnel costs by staff contractions (i.e., by firing people) and (when administrators left) by job duty transfers vs replacement hiring.

My guess is that Nelson's actual role was secondary in such serious matters, with Kurt involved in the hard decision making, as to imposition of hardship on some and the increase of workload for others.

That level of decision making is what Kurt does, and does best. He is nobody's yes-man.

His leadership is needed, certainly more than 1400 hours of last year at $50/hr for interfacing with Landform, which firm was paid $15,000 per month to function largely autonomously, and to be the source of innovative thought and action, with staff only supportive.

For a perspective - That's a lot of cash to Landform along with a big bite of staff time, with Jim Deal's efforts added into the equation where clearly he served his own real property interests but also was a private-sector no-fee bonus to City of Ramsey, with the Morgue, the Cafe, Allina Clinic and the VA locating onto property he owned.

While that did not compensate the city for any spending it took on in buying raw land and buying Landform extended services since mid-2009 (if I remember correctly), it at least gave the council something to brag about as new at Town Center.

It improved the overall package. It was not window dressing, but substantial.

Bottom line - Deal was more effective than Landform. And he cost the city less, in not taking any fee or salary, but directing growth to his private-sector property instead of on the property of his public-sector competitor, City of Ramsey.

Also, it was the Governor's bonding bill that resulted in the rail stop, love it or not, and Deal is not without attention and respect from senior DFL officials.

I think of the basketball career of Karl Malone, called "the Mailman," because he delivered.