It cost millions and millions of borrowed dollars. The City sold bonds. Investors bought the bonds. Citizens will pay down the bonds and will service the interest. It's all out of your taxes. So the picture is yours free. I put it into the public domain. No rights reserved. Yours for the download. Enjoy.
You paid for it all, get the picture free.
Note also the CRYSTAL PALACE, aka Ramsey Municipal Center, 7550 Sunwood Drive, barely visible to the east of the BIG RAMP (at the far right of the photo). You paid for it too. It also is a multi-million dollar unnecessary structure, like the ramp. Both easy to find, since both stand alone in the middle of a multi-acre vast empty space aka "Town Center."
Any photos of mine I publish here are yours free. Since you should get something for all the tax dollars things will cost you, you get pictures for free. What a deal. If you print the picture and bring it to City Hall [aka the CRYSTAL PALACE] I believe Jim Norman will autograph it for you; or will autograph a limited number since he is a busy man.
NOW, the next two pictures are not free, they're owned by Met Council, and are not mine to give you. Remember this?
And remember this, the cornfield the Kuraks sold for a fourteen million dollar profit while she sat on the Council?
Before sewer-water was made available the land could have been condemned for a fraction of that $90,000 - $100,000 per acre price the Kuraks obtained from a "limited liability company" spearheaded by a developer named Bruce Nedegaard. It could have been condemned, lock, stock and barrel, at its value w/o the sewer and water and w/o cozy zoning allowing acres on acres of ultra-dense housing.
The City decision makers did not go that route, however. The Kuraks made a bundle, and now developer Bruce Nedegaard is in the driver's seat, not you and your representatives, despite the money the City's plunged into it all. Does it make you wonder, whose Town Center project it's been from the start, after all, if you're not getting any real benefit from it except a shorter trip for groceries now with Coburns?
On Oct. 9, 2002, a month before the election where my opponent DAVID WAYNE ELVIG [full name for Google searching] ousted incumbent Terry Hendriksen, Met Council ran a posting touting Elvig and featuring his chairing the "Town Center Task Force." Since taking a council seat, he's chaired the Council's Public Works committee [as in building these Town Center boondoggles, ramp and palace]; he's chaired the Council's Finance committee [as in taking in taxes and deciding where the money's spent]; and has been awarded a spot on a Met Council land use planning board. Truly, an active man.
Elvig was featured in the 2002 pre-election Met Council post, along with his former Sunday School teacher, Natalie Steffen, Met Councilmember from and living in Ramsey.
While arguaby not aimed at influencing that election, Met Council's publication may have had such an effect, with rosy stories of promise and dreams where, "If you don't have a dream, someone else will drop one on you." Do you feel bonked now, at this point, by someone's dream turned nightmare, with you left wondering why your wallet's thinner?
Met Council touted many things, but without saying who would pick up the tab, how much it would cost Ramsey's taxpayers, whose profits were at stake, what other expectations Elvig and Met Council had of Ramsey for growth in other parts of the City, etc. Nor did it disclose that ultimately over 3100 new shared-wall housing units would be installed there with a consequent added stress on everyone's existing, severe, rush-hour commuting ride.
Moreover, a costly multimillion dollar water treatment plant now is being planned for Ramsey, forced upon us because of growth "dreams" exceeding capacity of our wells and the aquifer they reache into to supply the glut.
Drinking river water is Ramsey planners' answer. That is a subject for a separate post, because for now the Mississippi is not drought-stricken but some were here in the 1980's when it was.
And besides, who wants to drink river water, when the wells have been fully sufficient - and would continue to be - without Met Council inspired growth.
Excerpting of that 2002 pre-election Met Council web post reveals:
Even greater change may come from the planned Northstar commuter rail, the first of its kind planned for the Twin Cities region. Recognizing the increasing growth pressure, the city and the Metropolitan Council have joined hands on a novel development opportunity for a 275-acre vacant greenfield site with a southwest edge along Hwy. 10 and the proposed commuter rail.
Ramsey is designated as a future station site. In spring 2003, Mn/DOT will open a transit park-and-ride stop in Ramsey on a line from Elk River to Minneapolis.
In contrast to the highway-oriented jobs and retail progressing up Hwy. 10, Ramsey's proposed town center would fill a void where no strong local community gathering place exists today. The town center would be a walkable environment, oriented and connected to the community. It would include a small grocery store, anchoring small nearby shops, plus pockets of light industry surrounding internal courtyards. Key elements of the plan – the commuter rail station, grocery store, a new city hall and new community center – all would be within a five-minute walk. In fact, most of the development is accessible by a 10-minute straight-line walk.
"I would compare our task force effort to baking a cake. The effort blends several ingredients together – citizen input, a market study, city needs, and now the Calthorpe illustrative plan for a town center." [said] David Elvig, chair of the Ramsey Town Center Task Force.
Haas Steffen said, "I would call our task force the 'Dream Team.' This plan is what might be – it is not set in concrete. A lot of people contributing to this plan have had a dream. If you don't have a dream, someone else will drop one on you. What this dream will ultimately become depends on us here in Ramsey and on the economy."
Over the past 12 months, the Ramsey Town Center Task Force has received approximately 1,300 comments on the plan, according to task force chair, David Elvig.
And now the money's run out, there's no transit hub as in that "neato artist's rendering" above from the Met Council, and Ramsey's not now slated for a Northstar stop. There are two open-air bus stop stands. That's it.
David, I think you can now make it 1301 comments . The key-cutting woman at the kiosk on Main Street summed it up for me as, "We got screwed."