Either it is stupid to continue to not have minutes for critical Finance Committee activity online, or continuing legacy intent, from days of James Norman.However, in trying to unravel the exact initial contact point on record between Tinklenberg Group and City of Ramsey, I met a stone wall at December 2002.
Online records do reference that there were contacts or at least one contact made before James Norman and Elwyn Tinklenberg were exchanging correspondence that was put on record, (although with a reference to "enclosures" from Tinklenberg that never made it into the full agenda for the council).
[As always, click on the image to enlarge to readable size, or open it in another window]
These images present Council minutes and full agenda evidence of at least one mid-December face-to-face visit between Elwyn Tinklenberg and James Norman. Those resource items reference a crucial Jan 14, 2003 finance committee session involving the Tinklenberg for-fee proposals, with no paper trail of what transpired before the matter days later going to Council. Perhaps, just perhaps, the enclosures not in the full agenda were on the table before Finance Committee, and if their agenda and minutes were published online we'd see the full package. Perhaps not. But without it online, it is like the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon Tapes. A black hole.
That was back when David Elvig headed that committee, (if I recall correctly). Perhaps in a blog comment David might share his recollections of all he knows about the initial Tinklenberg insinuation of himself into Ramsey affairs, for a fee, with Tinklenberg Group thereafter ultimately taking payments from Ramsey totalling $840,000, according to City spreadsheet records I have seen.
Some schmoozing, or fair arms length contact, who's to say which without a paper trail, happened leading up to the Tinklenberg Group's first appearance in minutes (that I could find), Dec. 2002 - Jan. 2003.
Not putting Finance Committee agendas and minutes online -- It is like the refusal to televise council work sessions.
Indefensible.
Do they not keep minutes of such an important deliberative activity? Is it a feeling that while minutes and agendas do exist, they are not worth posting? Or worse, is there no maintained paper trail at all?
Either way, not putting Finance Committee matters online in full disclosure form, minutes and full agenda, is shameful and should change.
After all - the money and situations concerning the money - what is more important to citizens to know and weigh?
Setbacks from wetlands? Sure that is important.
But get real.
I shall publish favorably the names of any council candidates filing this July and running for election, who will publicly commit and inform me of the committment to have work sessions televised again, and minutes taken and posted electronically for the Finance Committee.
Indeed, why not televise finance committee and public works committee? Parks gets televised. Finance and public works does not. That's strange.
For now, on the "Documents" laser fiche page, all I could find are four "outcome" categories; nothing deliberative - no hint of decision processes before finance matters are presented council.
Transparency is good, sunshine is the best disinfectant. Justice Brandeis pointed all that out as far back as 1914, regarding dealings in "Other People's Money."
__________UPDATE_________
SOMETHING certainly happened at that 18-minute gap meeting of the Finance Committee. While there is no paper trail record of it online except the following reference back to a decision having been made then, off camera, for later on camera pro-forma approval and the Tinklenberg letter agreement even referencing that the day after the stealth meeting, James Norman and Elwyn Tinklenberg negotiated a deal where conveniently enough for the both of them, James Norman would be Elwyn Tinklenberg's official contact person in dealings - and I have presented in earlier posts evidence that after Norman's precipitously abrupt ouster/leaving Ramsey, he was a Tinklenberg Group affiliate - he had his revolving door, in the lobby, much like Elwyn's.
________FURTHER UPDATE__________
Interestingly, that initial Tinklenberg-to-Norman Happy New Year letter embodied the "federal dollars" or "federal funds" theme that much on the Internet indicates as a repeatedly used theme of Elwyn Tinklenberg in soliciting or finalizing cash-flow business for his Tinklenberg Group:
Also, I would like to discuss with you the idea of using federal dollars to advance the official mapping of the TH 10 corridor. I think the potential exists and it may serve the City's interests well.
The man apparently does have that as a sales-pitch approach he likes and relies on time and again.
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For something completely unrelated and wholly different, this photograph:
