Stay the course or abandon ship? Bail out like the crew in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, on the ship full of pilgrims in stormy seas?
Will Ramsey City government "cut and run," to use a phrase being bandied about in other contexts?
Is this new Ramsey policy? If so, don't leave taxpayers stranded in abandoning ship - be fair instead to their already plundered purses.
Dave Orrick of Pioneer Press reported days ago:
Ramsey wants talks on Town Center
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 10/18/2007 12:17:37 AM CDT
At a workshop Tuesday night, City Council members unanimously agreed to open for discussion several key aspects of the initial vision agreed to in 2003 with project developer Bruce Nedegaard, who died last year days after being forced into bankruptcy.
"The city recognizes that the Town Center plan must change to accommodate changes in the marketplace," City Administrator Kurt Ulrich said Wednesday. At the same time, council members reaffirmed their commitment to the project's amenities, including pedestrian accommodations and aesthetic qualities.
The original dream for Town Center was that a virtual city would sprout from 322 acres of cornfields off U.S. 10 in Anoka County. About $1.3 billion in investment would provide shops, businesses, an entertainment district, parks and 2,800 new homes.
The reality is that it's mostly vacant, and Ramsey, while not on the hook for the millions in lost investments and loans, is left with nothing to show for anticipated permit revenue and tax income yet to materialize.
Several City Council members advocated for nearly a year that the city's vision was too strict and optimistic for any private developer to embrace in the current real estate slump, and Minnwest Corp., the lead bank with a claim to the land, agreed. But Mayor Tom Gamec and a majority of the council held firm.
Because of the impasse, Minnwest scheduled and canceled a sheriff's foreclosure auction three times.
It will be interesting when minutes come out on this, to see the usual "It was the consensus of Council to ..." without any explanation or detail. Or is the Kurt Ulrich era different from that of James Norman as city head honcho? Will the work session minutes now say something?
In this matter, I agree with the former position of "Mayor Gamec and a majority of the council" previously holding firm, and I have written this several times. Yet, mention of the mayor and a "majority" begs the question of naming names. Who's backing down now, and why? What is precipitating a change? What dynamics are at play between those who "advocated for nearly a year" for early concession making and the previous stay-the-course majority? Will we citizens ever have a full picture painted for us of the answers to such obvious and important questions?
In any event, sensible questions aside, with three million popped out of a court action from a Nedegaard escrow, for "infrastructure," don't sink it into the ground when you have a work session conclude that what the ground will look like is presently and not hypothetically open to change. Right now it's a rathole for money that may have to be respent if the plan becomes more sensible and taxpayer friendly than the present one. And why do this for the bank that only sat and failed to manage its Nedegaard lending prudently? Let them take the hit they deserve. Their eating their mistakes is their due, not Ben's.
Then, if holding the bank to absorb consequences of its actions and judgment, when a "White Knight" does emerge to put his own real money at risk, citizens can have him prove his bona fide good faith by seeing him paying assessments down before badgering Council and Staff for concessions and favors that might only further burden Ben and other Ramsey taxpayers.
With 2008 elections around the corner are we seeing a "Get this thing off the front burner now" mentality among the four seat-holders up for citizen balloting next fall? It is hard to not see that as an aspect of decision-making -- as in, stay the course having a political cost some might find uncomfortable.
Only they for certain know their own hearts and minds.
We know what they tell us, so we await clear and thorough meeting minutes for review.