And - don't confuse him with Gary Gruber - the names are close but Gruber owned and ran the Diamonds Sports Bar, while Greb is a retired Qwest worker, still involved in related work, as a Minn Telco Pioneer volunteer community service officer and grunt worker.
He lives behind the retail node along the west side of Hwy 47 between Hwy 116, and Hwy 5 merging, where the historic old Ramsey City Hall is located (could they but shrink and fit themselves in there now so the new building could be sold to recoup something for the rest of us in Ramsey not buying into shared-wall village - aka Ramsey Town Center). As with the last council, none of the current council members live there, they each have pleasant detached single family homes on reasonably sized lots. I may be wrong but I think Dave Jeffrey is the only one on Municipal sewer and water rather than private well and septic systems, and last council Strommen and Jeffrey were the only two.
Quiz: Name the last mayor of Ramsey who lived on municipal sewer and water while voting for it to be infiltrated into the community? Did Arnie Cox, way back then, live that way? I recall that it was 1976 with a letter he signed as mayor in city records, that the infiltration via the CAB big pipe across the river began to have play in Ramsey. So, the answer unless I am wrong is there never was one.
Anyway, because some raging activists closed down a public road near where he lives, we discussed that, and he seems largely in agreement with my view that when the rest of the world pays half the cost of tarring the roads and all of the cost of snow removal for those public streets it is for a public purpose, road travel by autos, motorcycles, etc., and not for selfish neighbors wanting streets as playgrounds for family children who have parks a simple short walk or two away.
With childhood obesity such an epidemic the little tykes should walk more.
And it would be good parenting to encourage them to walk a short block or two to the pedestrian friendly Hwy. 116 and Hwy 47 traffic light, where well marked pedestrian crossing lanes abound and are clearly marked for the children to follow.
That gets them safely to the Rum River Park under the Hwy 116 overpass, with play and nature areas, and there is The Ponds park nearby too. But a loudmouth or two got the road closed so that the rest of the world has a lessened way of dealing with exiting the shopping areas and there is the consequent lessening of business traffic at those shops - all done despite protestations of present council members of being business friendly.
Greb said he also opposes a Matt Look proposal of an unneeded traffic light on 116 between Thurston - Dysprosium, and Sunfish Lake Blvd; a light he said he believes would be serving little purpose in his mind but to allow Matt Look as a council member to have a special ingress-egress light for himself and a few neighbors to the detriment of the rest of us not wanting or needing such foolishness. In both instances, closing the road and proposing such a light, I have to agree that my view of the public interest, vs local folks wanting to be treated as special, I agree with what I heard from Greb. It would leaven the decision making to add new blood at the council table. Differing views of public vs. private interests makes for best government.
Greb seems to share my view that the entire Landform money drain going on now in Ramsey is questionable - we do get a few nice pastel posters to decorate city hall - I admit that - but at fifteen grand a pop, per month, for Landform alone and another ten grand a month flowed through Landform to others in ways and for services I am unclear about - especially as to value, if any, to anyone in Ramsey who might prefer lower taxes instead. Professional services, they call it. They say lawyering is the second oldest profession, so land planning must be third.
For that twenty-five-grand-a-month amount I know from the recent Paris art theft that we could not get Picasso or Matisse, but we're getting something that looks insufficient for the cash and little different from stuff Feges-folks churned out in exchange for bleeding cash from Bruce Nedegaard before he went broke on the same set of bad Town Center dreams and ideas that few wanted, but which proved amenable to Met Council and land speculators, and others taking a liking to unsound stuff --- as in, can you say "Smart Growth?"
That term seems to be buried these days as deeply in a grave as is Natialie Steffen's responsibility for her publicly inflicting of bad dreams, may they rest in peace.
More on that angle and some Met. Council press clippings, in future posts. For now there is but a quick nostalgic look at an image I posted before of a dreamland fabricated by known dream-weavers and cookbook recipe fans - with the outcome also known as "taxpayer nightmare" or simply the hide-my-wallet-shakes:
Somebody surely dropped a really heavy anvil of a dream on top of unsuspecting, sleepy Ramsey. And the tidy easy 1-2-3 soufflé, somehow also seems to have dropped precipitously, while baking.
_________UPDATE_____________
Here is a facebook page screenshot, from here, and I think it is the same Gary Greb, given the Abeler "friend" link.
