The mayor opened the Comprehensive Plan session last night, then disappeared early, or seemed to. He did not stay for future agenda thinking, at the end.
At least he was there. Others were not.
Learning curves should always be upward sloping. Even for those my age, and younger or older.
The reaction should be less of how to be a political animal - to achieve distance, to disassociate or disaffiliate from soured things; but, what have you learned and how do you show the courage to publicly show up, listen, and learn?
How will you now be more restrained, more receptive, wiser, less dogmatic?
So, who do I mean? Who was not there?
Start here. End there, if you like.
Briefly, a bit more on the thought, then move to the positives of what happened at the session last night.
A range of impressions: May the regular citizens take over a much larger role. Good ideas. Good staff participation. A consultant bright enough to listen and reflect and not try to play "the world's foremost authority" game, to not BS too much. That's real positive, as an alternative is the talking suit. The omniscient talking suit, which can be alienating for those wanting a role and not a show and an act.
Might does not alway make right. You can hide. You can hunker in the bunker. But what have you learned? How has your perspective adapted and expanded? What is your behind the scenes agenda setting now? As always, or less self-assured and more open to alternatives? Less manipulative of the process? More trusting of it? Why still operate behind the scenes at all? Sunshine is nice. Light on the process is good.
What marketing plan will be next? Honest assessments honestly given was the mood last night. Low-key not glossy. Open not closed. Refreshing. Will it reach and take hold on those holding votes? It seems to have involved some. Dehen, Look, Jeffrey, Strommen were there. Long haul. Full meeting. Or mostly so.
Olson has been a generally regular participant in RAMSEY3. Will Thompson and Olson were Town Center Task Force members, but not the ones talking about having to market things to Ramsey's residents. Still showing up.
Speaking of what they think best in two-way circumstances; not speech-giving from microphoned tables.
Now, last night: What role did you have in getting the medical examiner to locate in Town Center?
I had none.
It will not add to tax base. But it is a positive thing. Space is available. Those will be skilled jobs. Some, in making a decision to move, will look to lower the commute. Good 2-1/2 acre lots with nice houses will attract those professionals to set roots.
Years earlier, "roof-tops are magic" simplistic propaganda was dispensed, amenable to developer and landholder profits and Met Council sewer hook-up income -- the go with density and convince others it's best. Over estimate growth in unrealistic ways.
Etc.
This time the mood seems different. A different sizzle, same stake, perhaps. It is too early to tell. There presently is no steering committee or focus group of handpicked poohahs. No Town Center Task Force presented for an up/down council votes with the appointment process - private - as a way of saying "back room," whether smoke-filled or not.
Ultimate decision-making --- same old, same old is most likely - the father-knows-best crowd. But staff will be interacting with those people with a grounding in what citizens have said and thought.
At last night's session, Phil Carlson gave opening background info. He is the Bonestroo lead consultant for the firm on its contract for work on the 2008 Ramsey Comprehensive Plan effort.
I thought City staff handled their following part of the session well. It must not have been easy to stand at the front of the room and dissect where Town Center stands. Put it that way. Patrick Trudgeon and Breanne Dalnes followed the consultant's info presentation with TC talk, and then ideas for issues for future sessions.
People already in Ramsey will not want to be forced to hook to municipal sewer and water - and that is the major part of what I mean in suggesting the topic of preserving the integrity of existing neighborhoods. If that direction of protections is affirmatively and unequivocally put into the city's charter and into its comprehensive plan - and Met. Council does not choke on it and Lake Elmo us, much good will have been achieved. People along any proposed utilities routing should be viewed as "stakeholders" with a vote in a majority controls voting decision on whether the proposed routing is done or declined. That should be a protection put in both the charter and the comp. plan. That is what protecting the integrity of existing neighborhoods boils down to, in terms of implemention or constraining detail. Do it or don't decision-making by concerned stakeholders, so defined, those along a routing who are at risk of being compelled into an unwanted and unneeded hook-up situation by state law, Met Council, or whim and vote of the Ramsey council.
Countering that risk strongly and effectively would be the single most helpful step in protecting existing community integrity.
On the session slated for "property rights" and such, I posted proposed topics of stewardship, and "2-1/2 acre lots are GOOD!" Stewardship is the reverse side of the "rights" coin. The land was there before you and progeny. It will last beyond you and progeny. Ownership is stewardship of a part of the overall land, which is contiguous.
Water moves.
Beyond restraint of public nuisance, what public rights are there against individual steward rights to control the destiny of a piece of land?
2-1/2 acre lots -- that is clear enough to need no further comment - beyond, it is not "four in forty" which is next to saying, "We put you in four-in-forty we effectively are saying you have no realistic range of options, good luck on your entirely discretionary case-by-case PUD proposals." 2-1/2 acre allows more Tiger Meadows sorts of options. Look on the map and drive north on Armstrong and look at Tiger Meadows. Would you like to live there more than in a Town Center townhome?
It is not cluster-and-ghost-plat, a concept back burner for now but not out entirely.
City hall - the bank seems to not impact title and ownership there. Some smoke and mirrors info --- It is owned by the Ramsey Economic Development Authority, which leases it long term to the City of Ramsey, with the lease income going through the EDA to the "bondholders" whoever they may be [private placement? public offering?]. "Public Facility Lease Revenue Bonding." That's the euphimism.
It is a means to escape prudently placed limits on issuance of general obligation bonds, as best as I can see, and little else. A way to move a city hall and overbuild it, a grandiose thing, and without any referendum suggested as a helpful or necessary precondition to moving or not, with referendum not viewed as good, by City of Ramsey council, or the Ramsey Economic Development Authority. They acted. They had no referendum. That mentality still exists. And it still controls, for now, with the next election being November 2008.
We have an HRA, and an EDA, and if James Norman had fully had his way there would be a Port Authority, a PA to go with HRA and EDA. A PA, saddling taxpayer debt virtually without limit upon the good folks of Ramsey.
But City Hall - Like it or love it, it's happened. I grumble but I cannot turn back time. The bonding was pieced together and there is the new building - where it is and according to staff, with free and clear title except for the bondholders' interest. Minnwest's foreclosure reaches other land, not that under the new structure. Next -
There exists $3 million in earmarked letter-of-credit money, earmarked for infrastructure - to be released to the city from escrow, for decision making over infrastructure spending priorities to consume the three million. It was not scooted away to other pockets as part of the Nedegaard bankruptcy.
There is more infrastructure growth than three million will cover, but it helps lessen the weight of the changes somewhat.
A misc. closing thought: One alternative to the townhome sweepstakes is go with quality, and try to attract high-end work and jobs with high-end housing going hand-in-hand. Ramsey is not Wayzata. It has swamps, not a Lake Minetonka. So, is it a doable goal, or pie-in-sky musing? Would it sell nearly as many Met. Council sewer hook-ups and generate as much cash flow for Met. Council's own debt service and planning staff payroll as townhome rooftop sweepstakes? Probably not. Is it better for Ramsey to aim that way? Probably.
That has to be a patient process. It may not yield as much per acre in a sale of overpriced cornfield to an undercapitalized developer with a gulible lender which will later cast about for a bail-out. If your thinking or your objective is in whole or in part to maximize the move in family land fortunes or to believe you can overnight make a silk purse from a cornfield, you may favor townhome sweepstakes, even with that a soured sector in housing, for now. You can adapt as changes happen - or not. Will, wisdom, and personal priorities are all factors.
Planning is all about reaching a balanced progression in size without any community distressed locales. It is patience. It is acknowledging you cannot force a market and that a market can change radically on a multi-year project, and force you to accept it. Whether the trend is your friend, or not, don't think you can buck the trend. It fails.
Then, planning is about stepping up to the microphone and saying how it is, what prospects are, and being public, not hunkered back in denial or hiding. It is stepping up that way, whether to claim responsibility for a success, or a failure. It is consistency in stepping up that way. Staff did it last night. Others took a rain check and despite the thunder it did not rain.
POSTSCRIPT_______________
The definitive word: 322 acres, 2400 planned housing units. That from Patrick Trudgeon, after a question of what parameters are proper for the current Ramsey Town Center Master Agreement, as it has grown; acreage and planned units, with differing numbers reported in different sources, over time. As of today: 322 acres, 2400 units.