Ramsey holds community center focus group meetings
Thursday, 12 June 2008 -
Tammy Sakry, Staff writer, tammy.sakry@ecm-inc.com
Do the residents of Ramsey want a community center? What do they want in a community center?
These are two questions and many more that the city of Ramsey is hoping to find out by holding a number of focus group discussions.
Five meetings will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Alexander Ramsey room of the municipal building, 7550 Sunwood Dr., July 16 and 24 and Aug. 6, 18 and 25.
Two afternoon meetings be held from 2 to 4 p.m. July 17 and Aug. 19.
The city is compiling a list of questions and will be taking comments to determine if this is a project the residents want, said Tim Gladhill, management intern.
In addition to determining the desire for the project, the city also wants to know what elements residents want, such as a pool, fitness center, children’s center, meeting rooms and/or a banquet center.
The meetings are taking place so the staff can gather information before talking with private companies that may be interested in partnering with the city, said Gladhill.
“We want to make sure we are getting the elements that are important to the community,” he said. “Private companies maybe focus they think the community wants.”
“It is also important information to have when we talk about financing.”
According to Gladhill, the information gathered from the focus groups will help an architect, to be hired at a later date, determine the community center size and cost estimates.
After the focus group meeting are done, the city plans on forming a community center task force of six to 10 members.
For information, call Gladhill at 763-576-4308.
Hey, let's sniff out the miasma. Aside from that opening sentence, (which is the only place I see "Do we want ... " a factor), there is the distinct over-ripe stench of "done deal" to the entire stupidity.
And a Task Force.
A Task Force.
The last task force was the Elvig Town Center Task Force and we know what it yielded.
###
With all the open space a community center is less a good idea than a wind farm. There's space enough for multi-megawatt big three-blade horizontal wind mills, four-hundred-eighty feet tall in that big vacant open windy space.
Look at that last artist's rendering of the windmills if bulit at Town Center. Don't they liven up the drabness somewhat?
So -- Why not do that? It probably would cost less and be useful, reason enough for this Council to avoid it. Go useless "community center" instead.
Now this -
REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM, REFERENDUM.
There.
Kurt, the last guy didn't have one and acted as if the word were nuanced and a total mystery to him because he wanted his Norman castle more than he wanted to be fair.
Nineteen million dollars later there's the castle, dead Nedegaard, dead Renne, six-figure Swiss bank accounts stashed away, indicted bankers up in North Branch, and Ben Dover the Ramsey taxpayer on a pedestal across the street from the castle.
The last guy, Kurt, had co-conspirators aka councilmembers, and the sweep is not finished until this November, but --- please let it be an election issue, let it stay an open question until then, put a referendum - fairly worded - cost to us fully disclosed, if you would, on the November ballot, no special election required.
If it's an election ballot issue, think how people will feel, puzzled because it's not being done to them, but in meaningful consultation with them.
Not the normal smoke, the normal mirrors, but meaningful.
And I pledge, if there's a cogent and sensible referendum fully disclosing what it will cost taxpayers atop all the other stuff, and if enough idiots vote for it, then I will shut up and say majority rule still is a good thing if the ballot's fairly worded.
BIG IF.
The last time there was a quasi-Referendum, "Would you like nice shoppes and restaurants," and people generally said, sounds okay, sounds like private money at risk, and then there was millions of public dollars spent, lego land, the palace, the ramp in the middle of nowhere, "For Lease" as the commercial node chief tenant, and - oh - no restaurants. None to speak of. The closest thing Town Center ever had to a Restaurant was the Burger King, there before the dream began, and the Town Center traffic engineering killed it dead.
SOP in Ramsey is the cramdown.
Try this, however --- Let's think Obama, Change We Can Believe In.
Believe it if/when we see it, after all it's Ramsey we're discussing.
Kurt - the focus groups are fine, hold a few, hold a lot, hold focus groups until even whoever the officials are pushing this brain fart are tired of focus groups, just don't bias them the way the last guy before you, Kurt, loved to bias things.
That insulting disdainful way of The Town Center Task Force, choose between the red toy car or the blue toy car, the Calthorpe drawing with a grid of streets and humungo amount shared wall dense housing, or the Calthorpe drawing with spoke streets and radial cross streets and the humungo amount of shared wall dense housing, laid out differently - be less disdainful, please.
Even, even ---- Be fair. Huh? Could you? Would you?
It's hard to buck a Ramsey tradition, I understand that but - be fair.
Launch a new way of doing things. The Kurt Ulrich be fair way.
Put it to a voter-taxpayer referendum. What's the cost to you Ms. Voter, what's the perceived benefit for you Mr. Voter, and then let the folks decide.