The individuals I see as part of a thread, Met Council, a Met Council member, and a consultant make me regret I voted for Ventura. He promoted Elwyn Tinklenberg to a state administrative post, and Natalie Steffen to Met Council, where she remains to this day.
The public online evidence is spotty, and we can only guess at what took place in phone calls and official contacts outside of the open meeting law, and/or without generating a public data paper trail. If there's a paper trail, it may be like needle-in-haystack guessing anyway, you get what you request and who besides the insiders know what's to be requested? Here is a start, a recent ABC Newspapers report:
East Bethel trying to get piece of federal stimulus pie -
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
The city of East Bethel will focus its efforts on the state for federal stimulus package money for Highway 65, trails, sanitary sewer and water projects.
Through spending and tax cuts the federal government hopes to stimulate the economy with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009, which presently will cost about $838 billion.
The city of East Bethel over the past several years has contracted with The Tinklenberg Group, a consulting firm specializing in transportation and other government issues. Most notably, the group helped East Bethel work on its 2030 comprehensive plan and reauthorization bill legislation in Washington, D.C., to try to get transportation dollars for East Bethel projects.
Last month, the city sent a packet to all Minnesota congressional representatives on sewer and water, transportation and trails projects for which East Bethel would like to obtain some federal stimulus package dollars.
The total for all these projects equals an estimated $240,720,000.
City Administrator Douglas Sell said the city does not know if there is a limit to how much it can apply for because the stimulus package has not been passed and thus the parameters for how funding would be distributed have not been determined.
Elwyn Tinklenberg, the former mayor of Blaine and president of The Tinklenberg Group, suggested in late January that the East Bethel City Council approve a trip to Washington, D.C., for one of the council members and a city staff member to talk about their projects.
When it became clear that stimulus package dollars would be going directly to states, Tinklenberg suggested that the city should focus its efforts on the Metropolitan Council for sewer and water funding. The city is already working with this state agency on the planning of this infrastructure.
[...] The largest chunk of the request pertains to Highway 65 improvements at an estimated cost of $81 million.
It calls for Highway 65 interchanges to be constructed at Viking Boulevard, Klondike Drive, 221st Avenue and 237th Avenue and Highway 65 overpasses to be constructed at 181st Avenue, just south of Sims Road, 229th Avenue and 245th Avenue.
The proposal also includes seven median closures and 14 miles of frontage road construction.
The projected $81 million includes $76.8 million for construction, $3.6 million for design and $600,000 for planning.
The city’s water and sewer plan is split into four phases with the first phase being split into Phase 1 and Phase 1A.
Phase 1 is the farthest south on Highway 65, while Phase 4 is the farthest north. Phase 1’s northern boundary is north of Klondike Drive and south of 205th Avenue. Phase 1A encompasses the neighborhoods around Coon Lake.
[...] All four phases of the city’s water project are estimated to cost $77.41 million and factor in $73 million for construction, $3.9 million for design and $510,000 for planning.
All four phases of the sanitary sewer project are estimated to cost $73.41 million and include $69 million for construction, $3.9 million for design and $510,000 for planning.
The proposed distribution systems for water and sewer both equal 91 miles. The water piping consists of 6-inch through 18-inch trunk and lateral water main piping. The sewer piping consists of 8-inch through 54-inch gravity sewer and 6-inch through 16-inch force main trunk and lateral sewer piping.
The water and sewer systems would serve an estimated equivalent population of 76,000 people at full build-out.
[...] An average daily flow of 7.6 million gallons of wastewater would go through the sanitary sewer system, the city’s report estimates.
[...] “What’s happening with regards to transportation and infrastructure is those dollars appear as if they are going to flow through the states,” Tinklenberg said.
“The Congress will not be designating where those dollars would go in terms of specific projects and so spending a lot of time working with the members of Congress in terms of trying to identify stimulus resources for city priorities doesn’t seem to me like it would be time well spent.”
In a Jan. 28 e-mail to Sell that was included in the council meeting packet, Tinklenberg said there is reluctance by politicians in Washington, D.C., to put earmarks for specific projects in the stimulus package.
“I expressed surprise that a Democratic Congress and administration would give so much money to so many Republican governors, but the anti-earmark rhetoric of the campaign combined with the need to get the money out quickly has prevailed,” Tinklenberg wrote to Sell in the e-mail.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) submitted a list of “shovel ready” road and bridge projects to Rep. Jim Oberstar’s office that could be candidates for federal dollars. Oberstar chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
The 12 metro district projects include such candidates as building a four-lane freeway and interchange on Highway 610 where it currently ends at Highway 169 in Brooklyn Park to Fernbrook Lane in Maple Grove and the reconstruction of the Highway 169/I-494 interchange.
Tinklenberg said once the [other] politicians become involved, this list could look much different so it would be important for East Bethel officials to get to the state capital.
[...] Tinklenberg said his firm’s efforts could be more limited than the $47,900 work plan it originally proposed for its contract with the city between January and September this year because he is recommending less of a presence in Washington.
Councilmember Anne Klein asked Tinklenberg why it is important for East Bethel city officials to go to Washington, D.C., and asked how they could be heard when many other cities would be sending representatives to the nation’s capital.
“I need to understand how can you help the citizens of East Bethel. If we invest these dollars in you, how is that going to make a difference so we’re not just another letter on the governor’s desk or whoever’s desk it is?” Klein asked Tinklenberg.
Tinklenberg responded that there are lines of people promoting projects in Washington, D.C., and they can get pushed aside because they are not continually promoted.
“You’ve got to keep it in front of them all the time, you have to be responding to requests for information and we can support that,” he said.
Tinklenberg said it is important for East Bethel officials to meet with key members of Congress to get their projects known including Oberstar, Rep. Betty McCollum, who is on the appropriations committee, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is on the transportation commerce committee. Meeting with other key congressional representatives not from Minnesota is also important, he said.
[...] Klein asked if The Tinklenberg Group could train city staff and council members on how they could do some of the work themselves without needing Tinklenberg doing all the work.
Tinklenberg said they could do this.
“Frankly, one of the things we recommend to all of our clients is it’s really important to get you in front of those people,” he said. “It’s about you and it’s about your city. We are simply the facilitator.”
Later during the Feb. 4 meeting, the council decided to not pursue a trip to Washington, D.C., at this time, but asked Sell to work with Tinklenberg to formalize a plan to work at the state level to obtain federal stimulus package dollars before bringing this plan back to the council.
So while apparently still a candidate for congress and now after dropping out, Tinklenberg was looking to the lobbying function at federal and state levels, whether having registered himself and/or Tinklenberg Group as a lobbyist at either level, or not.
It is surprising that apart from the Biblical split between God and mammon, the Rev. Tinklenberg has forgotten Matthew 6:24 on serving two masters - he was willingly taking money from City of Ramsey for Highway 10 project promotion/facillitation and ditto now, clearly for the article says so, from City of East Bethel for comparable promotion/facillitation regarding Highway 65. So, the question is if East Bethel is more "deserving" of his help snaring cash than Ramsey, is it a case of, Ramsey what have you done for me lately? It is an inherent conflict, and when saying East Bethel should go to Met Council; that's the second devilish fork seemingly introduced. If asked by Oberstar which project has more merit, might he say one paid me more, but another paid me, more recently; and, moreover, he also was promoting/facilitating Highway interchange and housing via being a registered lobbyist for Hassan Mainstreet, LLC., until it was abandoned, i.e., working the other side of the Mississippi, ostensibly for the same thing for everybody - pork - whether playing favorites or not. How many masters besides three being served, I truly do not know.
And with all that East Bethel sewer and water capacity the article touted? What's to be done with it all, all that bountitude? Apparently the evidence is that East Bethel wants it, for some unclear reason - at least some want it there, and therefore Met Council sees an opportunity for East Bethel's neighbors to be planned to be suitably disadvantaged-over, by Met Council pressure, despite both Ham Lake and Oak Grove decisively rejecting the pressures put on them as part of the comprehensive planning charade to absorb a part of what is forecast to result from East Bethel's wanting its way, expansively.
Get serviced whether you want it or not? Bend them over, Ham Lake and Oak Grove, whether they want it or not? Perhaps, but perhaps not. What's the online evidence, or what of it I have discovered?
Start here, a Met. Council online item 2007-195:
I do not see how else you can read it but that East Bethel will be complicit with Met Council's inherent Ponzi-like expansiveness, and the neighbors, not wanting complicity, are told they have to "share." How else can you read that Item 2007-195? They draw lines on a map, and suffering is imposed beyond the willingly complicit township. And they say it's not an imposition, but we will not approve a comprehensive plan unless it provides xyz and pdq, as we've dictated. Go figure.
The Oak Grove community wants 2-1/2 acre rural-feel lot planning. Go rewrite your plan - our way or no way - is the Met Council response, and they send Natalie Steffin to personally tell them, "No."
As for other evidence, the unwillingness of Ham Lake and Oak Grove, there is Crabgrass here on Ham Lake with an ABC Newspaper link to here, and Crabgrass on Oak Grove here and here, linking respectively to ABC Newspaper reporting, here and here.
This post may from time to time be updated, with other online pieces of evidence.
AGAIN -- Please any reader, having supporting or contradictory evidence re the inferences circumstantially discussed here; please email links or Adobe pdf format documents. I will post as an UPDATE any such legitimate item called to my attention by email. This regional wastewater expansion is noteworthy because unlike connecting to the underground grid running to Pigs Eye, this stuff can leapfrog anywhere, to any benign and happy town, not expecting to be suddenly flummoxed with part of a neighboring towns whim and fancy in ways Met Council likes - to have a mandated growth cram down aimed at making them become something the folks living there don't want, and something they moved there to get away from.
Who wants to be Blaine? Yo, is there anyone out there to say, "Me, me, me - my town, just like Blaine?" If so, let me know by email, along with the acreage you own, how much and where, and an estimate of your expected return on investment.
This East Bethel thing is baneful. I wonder where that push is coming from out there. Who in this instance is the motor running this infernal machine?
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Finally in closing, whenever Natalie Steffen shows up in one of the recalcitrant towns, people should be sure to tell her,
"We don't want to end up like Ramsey."
She lives in Ramsey, it's her own nest, so go figure.
_________UPDATE_________
I need help. Does any reader know the story on northeastern Andover? Has that made the papers or are cards being played close to the vest? Why is Oak Grove getting more recent heat from Met Council than Ham Lake? Can anyone help on current politics and history? Is it that Andover is being planned for linking into Pigs Eye, via the same big pipe of Met Council that Ramsey's compliantly using? Is it a felt need to show some support beyond the Tinklenberg advised folks calling shots in East Bethel? Is it purely arbitrary, use of raw power without rhyme or reason? Phrased another way, who owns what blocs of raw land where, if that's a factor.