Pages

Friday, May 23, 2008

They said it. A study of Ramsey Town Center's promised foreseeability.

This from the City of Ramsey's website, published there in 2002 although undated, looking to the future of Town Center:

As a growing community, we need to be thoughtful about our growth to maximize the benefits while minimizing any negative impacts. We know that we cannot stop development from coming to our town. Therefore, we must take the initiative to prudently plan and steer the development into something that we want rather than something that we're just stuck with.

[...] I am delighted to be part of our community's long term health and I would encourage others to take the time to become involved with the "smart" growth of our community. Ramsey truly has some outstanding opportunities that we need to be in front of and to help mentor.


Yeah. Right. "... rather than something that we're just stuck with." Uh-huh.

"... part of our community's long term health ...".

Uh-huh.

"Opportunities we need to be in front of." Like that commuter train. In front of it we are so lucky, it stops, everytime it passes Ramsey, so we can move from being in front of it. Makes sense to do that, doesn't it?

"We know that we cannot stop development from coming ...". Right? All over the place they are building like crazy in that weed patch that used to be only a held-for-speculation green acre cornfield?

Not exactly. "Progress" takes time.

Even though a tax-base bonanza and uninterrupted "progress" clearly was a foreseeable mechanistic thing, baking a cake.

There's more.

The Town Center planning ---

Mission

The Ramsey Town Center Task Force is created to facilitate and encourage a Transit-Orientated Development in the City of Ramsey that will fully utilize multi-modal transportation options, including the Northstar Commuter Rail, and that will provide the residents of Ramsey and the region access to desirable businesses, services, housing opportunities, natural resources and most importantly, a centralized area easily identifiable as the community of Ramsey.

[...]

Contact Information

City of Ramsey
Patrick Trudgeon
Principal Planner


They said ALL that "fully utilize multi-modal transportation options, including the Northstar Commuter Rail" stuff, from well before Bruce Nedegaard paid out any borrowed dollars for Kurak and other land. It was all this neat and tidy before-and-after presentation we received, while being told of how the tax base increase would be a relief to us all:

Before-



After-


Remember? It's there now on the ground, just as in the pictures, now that it's 2008 and years have passed.

Yeah. Right. There on the ground just as the artist rendered it. Warm. Fuzzy. Walkable. Transit oriented hub and all. All the stuff, and better than the drawing.

A 2002 Met Council posting, (since scrubbed by Met Council from its website - hello, are you there, Natalie - why's it gone Natalie),

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. [...]


Phew!

"Ramsey is designated as a future station site." It said that. Back in 2002, before outsider Bruce Nedegaard bought into it, Nedegaard not being an old-time long-time Ramsey good-ol'-resident, not in that circle. He bought. Station got pulled. Presently Elwyn Tinklenberg's getting thousands for his group to accompany Elvig and Gamec to DC mid-April of this year, the very same day as the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board determines and posts that Tinklenberg is not a lobbyist. And why were they in DC? To get that "designated as a future station site" thing finalized, now six years later, or to make that attempt, with Nedegaard first going broke and then going dead, and with weed field replacing cornfield.

Elvig after chairing the task force was then, back in 2002 when Met Council posted that stuff, running for the first time for a city council seat, and we were being told of that lock-in to a Northstar station stop. Slam dunk. Done deal.

Uh-huh.

Some think leadership and sound decision making is a rare talent. Practiced with directness and without deception.

Others see things as easy as baking a cake. Or say so.

The Kuraks made fourteen million in the process.

I expect neither Tom or Pattiann would view it as a flawed process.

Nor would Elwyn Tinklenberg, or if he would it surely would surprise me. Not that he's ever voiced an opinion, flawed or not. He's cashed every check Ramsey issued Tinklenberg Group. He is agreeable to moving the process along.

So you tell me. Was Nedegaard hung out to dry? Led to believe the transit hub hype? Then with the rug pulled out, bled slowly?