NEXT: You have to see it to believe it, this link:
http://coratramsey.com/
If you scroll down about 500 to 800 words, you get to learn what the "COR" is [don't say, "Rotten to the ..." because that has become a cliche already]. It is an acronym not for "Count Our Revenue," because so far I think the "COR" is anything but a net revenue source. It is more like a vast almost bottomless money sink, given the Norman Castle and extravagant purchase price the city recently paid for the vast vacant land portion left after Nedegaad and the Feges friends had their hand on things and the bank foreclosed with nary a private sector buyer over many months stepping to the plate to have a swing at hitting in this little home run derby.
Nor is "COR" an acronym for "Clear Overriding Rectitude." Rather, we are told, it is "Center of Ramsey," per this screenshot (click it to enlarge and read).
I am unsure, but I think the "OUR" in that "OUR VISION" caption refers not to mother and child, but to a couple of guys named Darren and Mike.
The fact is if you look at the opening map the double-crossed area is not the center of anything.
Nada.
Arguably, the center of Ramsey, walkable from my home, is where the City Hall WAS.
Across Nowthen Boulevard from Ramsey Elementary.
Or at least it was a city hall close enough to the center of town to be convenient for the largest percentage of existing taxpayers - rather than a by-the-tracks out of the way place that the Met Council lady dreamed into being. Her or her Dream team. That dreaming was done to reach the current dreamed-out status, given that the dreaming was being done without any manner of due regard for reasonably foreseeable downside risk by anyone depicted as prime movers that this archived Met Council online little hummer touted, as posted on the MC's website just prior to the 2002 elections:
-------snip---------
And now the temporary outtake portion that was snipped above from the middle of the long Met Council post, because you could clip it out and put it right back inside of the Landform "COR" spiel, it is all generic interchangeable planner-speak BS, (but separately paid for dearly this last time to the tune of thousands of dollars), but see if you detect any actual stylistic difference after an intervening eight years of absolute unquestionable proof-is-on-the-ground failure and only a flat learning curve shown by the BS slingers - they are still treating the current Ramsey citizens as mushrooms -- prove it yourself, stick this where you think it best fits into the COR spiel (and don't worry, Darren and Mike can handle background color consistency):
For the life of me, I cannot yet figure out why that item ended up scrubbed from the Met Council's website.
It documented history in the making. And we learn from history or are doomed to repeat it.
The center of Ramsey is not at all where, due to circumstances beyond general citizen control, the palatial city hall now IS. That's way off to a side of town adjacent to the noisy BNSF tracks - but where trains could stop, come and go, had the land been kept as a place for industrial growth and high paying job possibilities.
That locale is not the center of anything, except perhaps folly and mistake.
That site on Nowthen was walkable. Within a mile of where I live. And, if driving, no bothersome stoplights intervened. There were the civic amenities. None of the nuisance.
But some people of questionable judgment installed a melanoma symbolized by the central "O" exploding in melanistic color, from the center of the central letter of "COR" as depicted on the advertising site, this:
But wait. There's more.
Here is a rendering:
That "Lake Ramsey Park," I would rename it.
...............................................................................
They are part of the vision, for they are the existing tax base part that will subsidize the thing.
Another thought: Possibly call that waterhole thing on the rendering, "Lake Darren-Matt-and-Mike."
Also, don't forget what the very first screenshot tells you, "Retailers and potential developers responded positively when The COR brand and plans were tested at the International Council of Shopping Centers in May 2010." For what was paid to send a booth renting official collective to Vegas [yes, that's whre the confab was] and with no mention of how many "retailers and potential developers" responded that way, can we speculate? A grand in expenses, per positive response; two grand; what?
Vote in the August 10 primary.
Two contestants for the seat in County District one, Steffen and Look, respectively are the bookends on the failure-prone venturing, Steffen back then, Look, same story, now.
The other two candidates are not flawed that way.
Terry Hendriksen was in government and warned against the downside risks and wanted to instead preserve a jobs-and-industry corridor along the tracks that had been shepherded since days when Arnie Cox was mayor, and Hendriksen was dismissively called a negative thinker by the most recent past mayor [see the first Met Council snippet above], since Hendriksen alone seemed to not have had first or seconds or thirds of drinking the Met Council Koolaid.
Andy Hillebregt was not in government in the past and is not now, but after meeting him I cannot envision his being easily hoodwinked by planner-speak either.
So vote your conscience. Vote your pocketbook. Vote based on your view of good and bad judgment.
____________UPDATE____________
Terry Hendriksen by email noted that the quoted money purchase price of just under seven million overlooks the fact that millions in tax and special assessement arrearages were compromised when the City bought the situation. Naming it "COR" clearly will not change that. Hendriksen is correct as best as I can tell. Anoka County, by comparison, assured county liens got paid off. Tell me, who's the better shepherd of the public interest, that way?
One other thing. Reserves were used for the purchase. Using reserves allowed the council to loudly shout they did things without raising current year-to-year tax rates, for a year.
It's as if you spend your retirement savings on a Lexus, and say you did not exceed your family's budget that year, in taking the plunge. It is trading savings for a chance to claim to be a spending and taxing conservative, by doing the spending big-time, but not doing the taxing as one would normally and naturally do in sanely balancing income and expense.
I don't necessarily fault using reserves to that extent, as I think Ramsey's reserves were unnecessarily deep. That part was okay with me. What I fault is doing it and then doing the chest pounding about not raising taxes. It was big time spending; government spending; when the private sector valued the property at zero, i.e., no private sector buyer stood up at any foreclosure sale, saying, "I'll pay seven million for that risk." Indeed, no private sector buyer stood up offering a dollar three-eighty for it. Figure how that's the market setting a value. Figure what that value is.
So, one difference exists in the Lexus analogy. A Lexus is worth something. It's not a used Yugo, if you get my drift.
Have a look at the two comments to the post. I view Steffen and Look as opposite sides of the same coin. Stamped, indeed stamping themselves, to be superficially distinguishable, but attached that closely when it comes to actions, if not so close regarding choices of product differentiating words. Town Center Bookends, in fact and in spirit.