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Saturday, December 09, 2006

Two of the "sparkplugs" are gone - causing more uncertainty - plus, campaign spending, conflict of interest, and why that much money?

Sparkplug Troika: One of the last posts in November was on propaganda, suggesting:

Going to meetings or being in city meeting rooms, there always are charts, boards, graphics about Town Center along the walls. Cluttering the room. OFFENSIVELY cluttering the room.

And propagandizing me. And I object strongly.

One request to the new council members, and the holdovers. Get the stuff out. Give it back to Bruce Nedegaard and his architectural toadies, and let them store their stuff in a barn somewhere.
Bruce Nedegaard died a few days after I wrote that, at age 58. It is a sobering thing to me as I am four years older. But there remain others to take custody of the offending "stuff".

However, Nedegaard's death substantially worsens uncertainty about Town Center.

The uncertainty contagion before his dying involved the general tanked housing market, shared-wall market oversaturation in Ramsey, higher mortgage rates, and the sheer unadulterated ugliness of lego-land stuff put across the road from Connexus. It worsened substantially from that with Nedegaard's death, and that's saying a lot.

In my view, three people - a troika - are most responsible for Town Center being in the predicament it is.

Neither of the Kuraks and neither of the Steffens are in that troika, although the Steffen-Met Council "Dream Team" has a role in the play.

Bruce Nedegaard
bought and was the promoter. He was key. James Norman already has been noted as declaring himself last summer to the business press as responsible for putting our city hall in there (and shamelessly overbuilding it into a palace for bureaucracy in the process). That was key. He'll be riding into the sunset at year's end, God bless, so he is the second departure.

That leaves David Elvig yet to depart. He is the remaining "sparkplug for what it is" figure. He was head of the Town Center Task Force. He headed the Finance Committee when the Town Center development contract was haggled over and inked. Ditto, when infrastructure and related bonding was being done (at a rate that would astound a drunken sailor and dwarf his spending). The Taj Majal has to be paid for after all. The PACT school bond-play counted against bonding limits. There was doing and redoing Ramsey Blvd. -- a snafu, as if it were not done right the first time and needed to be dug up after being paved, to be redone.

Somehow,
however, things were jiggered and juggled with all that other Town Center spending so sewer-water could be gotten to the gun club. It was forced there despite the "Message from David Elvig, Ramsey Town Center Task Force Chairman" saying "A master planned, properly balanced Town Center answers nearly every one of Ramsey's future growth needs." [emphasis added to weasel-word, "nearly"]. Apparently feeling the "need to be in front of and to help mentor" that routing, an effort started before he even was sworn into office as a council member.

David Elvig first abstained; then to break a 3-3 deadlock against the idea of pushing for sewer and water to the gun club a change of title to the gun club land was arranged and he cast the tie breaking vote setting the row of dominos falling [recall Pattiann Kurak drawing criticism for a comparable step]. Presumably Jerry Bauer and David Elvig discussed that outside of anything reported in council minutes. Jerry Bauer, after all, had been reported in past council minutes as "owner" of the gun club. David Elvig married his daughter many years ago. It would be a surprising situation if they had not had private planning discussions.

Conflict of interest is a question of opinion over how law fits facts. Your view of conflicts of interest might differ from mine.

Each of us probably differs to some degree in our thinking and from David Elvig's or Jerry Bauer's view of things (whatever the legal-&-ethical perspective might be that they share and/or differ on, among themselves).

To me there's conflict of interest misconduct. An appearance of impropriety in the gun club events and sequencing seems present. But form your own opinions. Watch and think.

Certainly the two of them, Bauer and Elvig, came less close to the wrong side of Minn. Stat. Sect. 471.87 than Pattiann Kurak did in her promoting city infrastructure investment in Town Center land from the council table. Cf. AGO 90e (Aug. 25, 1997). How "personal" is an intimate family interest in chain of title as a flawed "personal financial interest in a contract" and how "personal" would a financial benefit arising from a sewer-water routing contract need to be to fit the gross misdemeanor statute [MS Sect. 471.87]? Can an intervening [possibly only technical] change in land title between the time a contract is first proposed (or a first step is taken) and a contract's reduction from conditional bargaining to a done deal with pipe in the ground cleanse a conflict of interest taint? And, what standard of bona fides would govern such an intervening title-transfer event, and, factually, did gun club sewer-water dealings fit that bona fides measure or have unique factors weighing against the measure fitting? There may be no clearcut precedent for an answer.

Then there is election campaign spending. In November I posted here and here about Ramsey 2006 election results.

For that election, I spent a total of $370 as a Ward 1 candidate, and it looks as if my oponent, the successful candidate, incumbent David Elvig, may have spent 14 - 15 times as much. His disclosure was that $5335 was raised for his campaign; but he's disclosed, so far, only $479 in itemized expenditure. That leaves $4856 unaccounted for to balance income and expenditure. Either his campaign holds a substantial cash surplus or he spent more than reported as of Nov. 28, per city records as of that date. I have yet to see his final campaign disclosure affidavit.

$479 seems an appropriate amount, for only a ward seat. Fifteen times what I spent seems somehow excessive - spending $5335 would be staggering, if that indeed was what Elvig spent.

Why would anyone collect and/or spend that much for a Ramsey Council Ward 1 seat? Who would contribute that much? And why?

Does it possibly relate to land interests in the general Town Center neighborhood, and who owns what on the west side of Armstrong Blvd north of the tracks and might want or view it as desirable to have an intimately related friendly person remain on council, for any such reason? Is Ramsey Crossings and other neighboring planning something for which strong feelings cause large cash outlays, for a ward seat?

Somebody has to give me the answer.

I was not sitting at any table where my opponent discussed such things, and I could only presume who the contributors might be and what discussions they might have had with him.

What is uncertain is the future of Town Center - and most importantly - the future of public spending of taxpayer money there (and on the nether side of Armstrong). I would say "public subsidies," but that's a dimension of opinion where "public spending of taxpayer money" is a clear and adequate term, for now.

Time will tell a "subsidies" story on the west side of Armstrong, or lack of one.

We can only guess now. So keep your eyes and ears open, and stay duly skeptical. Some are quite extravagent with their own money. It is easier to be extravagant with other people's money. Wasting taxpayer money - throwing good money after bad for whatever motives or causes there may be of bad judgment, should be avoided if at all still feasible, in relation to Ramsey's Town Center as it so far stands and as it may yet be shoehorned around.