Sunday, June 06, 2010

Ramsey - A Historical Note - One of the main pushers behind Ramsey's Town Center fiasco, an ongoing saga, surfaces as city manager at Albert Lea.


The image is from that city's website, at this link.

The official city website report of hiring of James Norman by Albert Lea, here. They appear to have a progressive green initiative, which the city features prominently on the website, this link. They have a Wikipedia page, here.

They have an interesting downtown, that appears to have grown naturally and not been shoehored into existance or any half-baked posture by smart growth planners; this link. They own a fire truck. They have formulated a community development initiative.

I made the effort to find online an outside photo of their city hall. Failing that, there is an inside photo in a local paper, the image below from here, showing what appears to a a cozy well-scaled situation, unpretentious and not gaudy or excessive in any way apparent from the inside-view photo.



The photo is from the local paper's story of the Norman hiring, (again here), see also an earlier item from the same press, here. Ramsey is mentioned, but not the Town Center or its landmarks. We can hope for the best for James Norman and wife Oksana, and that they may remain in Albert Lea for the foreseeable future, indeed into retirement years as their present and future community, there in southern Minnesota for the rest of their natural lives.