Certainly Elvig's history is one of enjoying his cups, and of decision making about sewer-water routing that put it into the north end or Ramsey at the Bauer gun club location, and at the cornfield across Hwy 5 from John Peterson's home, adjacent to Trott Brook. At least that bypassed established housing in Ramsey which ended up not (for the time being at least) being enforced to be on municipal sewer-water hookup; but allowed instead to remain at peace with nature and neighbors on lots of about an acre or so - or more - all single family detached homes and not shared wall - with private well and septic tank arrangements adequate for public health and safety and for homeowner convenience and enjoyment of ownership and occupancy of a home.
Ditto for Steffen. As a major force with Elvig on the failed Ramsey Town Center promotion [the CORpse], and as Met Council sewer-hookup maven, she has changed the community in ways I do not think best. Yet it temporarily at least has left uncorrupted a part of Ramsey with established neighborhoods not wanting sewer-water hook-up corruption to ruin a good thing. Elvig and Steffen each lives in homes on land served by private utilities - well and septic - and hence each can identify with feelings of those wanting to keep the status quo. In fairness to the opposing candidates, I believe all four are free of homes compelled to be attached to municipal sewer-water; with each household of the four happy with such an arrangement. Being in established neighborhoods that way, and apparently enjoying it, are not unique to Steffen or Elvig, as candidates for office.
That said, however, the new breed GOP sorts on the council have served the same Koolaid, more strongly flavored, that was served by Elvig and Steffen in the past -- the new breed GOP mavens having bought the failed thing out of the private sector and private ownership while Steffen had only pushed the project as a private sector gamble, (along with Met. Council and other public subsidy but not as a totally owned public white elephant), and now promoted by the likes of Landform and its troublesome flat rate lack-of-detailed-reporting-accountability contract that the GOP new breed decided to install. One of the key operatives of that decision-making also, after the white elephant had been purchased and contracted for five figure monthly city money to Landform but without a single positive and substantial thing to show for fifteen million of purchase money and compromised taxes and assessment liens, has elected to vacate the city council promptly, to seek other office; while calling it a "success" well before any of his chickens have come home to roost.
Figure that one out, sometime, sports fans.
Harry Niska is opposing Elvig. For the Ramsey Ward 1 seat.
Harry Niska put out a card-flyer, scanned into the following images:
Harry Niska is Mike Jungbauer's campaign treasurer. His wife Jenifer is Tom Emmer's scheduling staff person. Harry Niska has ties, at least past ties, to the Federalist Society. None of that impresses me, but negatively. Judge him by the company he keeps and all that.
How can one in Niska's place convincingly say he favors transparency and accountability in local government, when there is Ramsey's history of the exact clear opposite regarding the Landform dealings - involving Darren Lazan and the individual for whom Harry Niska keeps accounts; Mike Jungbauer and all that SF 2500, grant application stuff with Landform declining to distance itself from seeking in the future to accrue a piece of the intended money proceeds of that SF 2500 bill which Jungbauer authored and advanced, while Jungbauer was on the Landform payroll and with Landform on the Ramsey payroll, and with the money to be routed through DEED, Ramsey, and onward to ultimate payees. And all that with an abnormally deficient paper trail, and without transparency, or accountability over what disbursements were anticipated for Landform from out of the $2.6 million that SF 2500 aimed to see moved from State hands, to local.
Beyond such cause for me to favor Elvig as a lesser evil because he has no such apparent present situational status, there is this. While I have a feeling that Dave most clearly is very GOP, I do not believe he is in any way a rabid member of the Jesus jockey camp, while I believe the Niskas are.
I don't like intrusion by such people at all into family planning and choice of others, and I am as strong as Thomas Jefferson in my belief in needing and having to have an absolute immutable wall of separation between Church and State. No "Chinese Wall" between the two could be tall enough and wide enough to make me feel fully comfortable against the Jesus jockey crowd, which I fear for its intentions as declared openly and most brazenly by the likes of Michele Bachmann, Mary Kiffmeyer, and others.
Finally, and this is admittedly a totally subjective coincidental perceptual thing, Niska's boyish face when I see it strongly and immediately triggers my mind to recall the burned in cinema image from Cabaret, "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," same boyish face as at the start of the song, etc. This link. This Google (where you can view the video which is on YouTube).
And, certainly, it is a feeling-emotion thing to make that link; admittedly; and I am not suggesting any reader should form a voting opinion based on it. However, I most assuredly advise cogent readers to form an opinion based on Niska family ties to Jungbauer and Emmer, and to the Federalist Society. This Google.
That tie-in only strengthens my visceral remembrance of the Caberet segment; since I am strongly but most surely not positively impressed by anything about the Federalist Society or its icon people such as Scalia, Thomas, or Roberts. Vote as you prefer, but be informed about aspects of who is on the ballot.
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Anonymous comments aimed at this post are not being published. To have a comment published, identify who you are, and put that with what you say.
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The Google link given in the paragraph under the last image is less helpful than: This Google.
FiredogLake had a good series about Monica Goodling testimony; e.g., here and here.
John "Torture's Fine With Me, a Non-victim" Yoo, also has his feet firmly in the Federalist Society; this google. I recall Jesse Ventura's comment, "Waterboarding is torture. Give me a waterboard, and Dick Cheney for an hour, and I'll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders." At times Ventura has been good at getting to the gist of things.
Here's a hummer of a Google, with a local flavor, Federalist Society member, Rachel Paulose.
What a bunch.
Gonzales, as DOJ head, was, aside from the White House itself, most responsible. But it embraced a pack of Federalist Society and Regent University Law School grads, running amok, wiping their dirty feet on Justice as it should have been.