An unforgettable portent of things to come. Who then, seeing promised tent show gala times, would have guessed this child, once failed and disgraced, would be devoid of claims of close kinship.

September 30, 2003


Groundbreaking Schedule of Events

We invite community members to join us for a momentous occasion: our official groundbreaking for Ramsey Town Center on Friday, Oct. 24, from 10 a.m. to noon.


Our Schedule of Events is as follows:



Time What





10:00 a.m.

• Gather in large tent on the Ramsey Town Center site
• Enjoy coffee and punch
• View various maps and visual imagery of the Town Center
• See how school children define “Community” through art displays
• Register for door prizes

10:30 a.m

• Formal Program to unveil Town Center Plans and announce first tenants
• Official speeches
  
  Natalie Haas Steffen
  Ramsey Resident, Metropolitan Council Member
  John Feges
  President, Ramsey Town Center, L.L.C.
  Tom Gamec
  Ramsey Mayor
  Jim Norman
  Ramsey City Administrator
  Kathy Tinglestad
  MN State Representative
  Michael Jungbauer
  MN Senator
  Mark Kennedy
  U.S. Congressman
  Tom Weaver
  Metropolitan Council Regional Administrator
  Dennis Berg
  Anoka County Commissioner
  Mick Hedberg
  PACT Charter School Elementary Student Council President
  Justina Coons
  PACT Charter School Senior Student Council President

11:00 a.m.

• Official Groundbreaking

11:15-Noon

• Cake cutting and refreshments
• Commemorative gift
• Door prizes
• More time to view children’s art along with visual imagery of the Town Center 

_____________________________________________
Data from THIS LINK.

For preservation of history as it was happening, we again are thankful to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine - enabling recapture and re-presenting this text from the failed Town Center promoter's propaganda website. The ground tells the story of yet more money being wasted on glorifying a ditch there - drive through and have a look. I would guess well over a million, to concretify the contours of that ditch, but - a ditch before, a ditch after, the big difference being Ben Dover, the Ramsey taxpayer's pockets will be emptier for ditch-glorification expenditure. Ben will be funding this exercise in good money chasing bad, probably because the poobahs identified in the historic preservation listing above do not like the look and feel of their embarrassing black-eye failure.

What other explanation is there?

The current council likes wasting money? That's not at all unlikely as at least a supporting premise.

BOTTOM LINE: Redoing the ditch will not make it less of an eye-sore. I wonder at the ambitions of those responsible for the initial dumping of good money into a failure, and also for the present same scenario. It appears some are poised to want to gain a chance to do county-wide mischief and to propagate failure and exceptionally bad judgment on a bigger stage.

The question is, who are the ambitious? What is their record of success and soundness of decision making? Do Ramsey taxpayers want to elevate profligate spenders, spenders of tax money on personally satisfying pet projects or on mopping up the same, to a seat on the County Board of Commissioners?

Each primary voter and general election voter should form his or her own answer.

For me, two names stand out.

Matt Look, a present Ramsey council member behind Landform consultancy expenses presently being incurred by Ramsey, and a supporter of the taxpayer costs of concrete ditchifying.

Natalie Steffen, Met Council promoter of and founding lead speaker atop the historical listing of those at the tent, when a dream was being laid on Ramsey.

The story is ongoing. I support another different candidate for the county board seat Berg is vacating. It involves feelings of personal friendship and respect for that person, and I intend to try to be clear in disclosing my preferences, my bases for them, and factors that may be alleged as biasing my view in favor of or against individual candidates. Tha candidate I favor for the job is Terry Hendriksen. He is a person who I have worked with in an effort, unfortunately not successful, to forestall snaking of sewer and water services northward into virgin parts of Ramsey, opposing efforts to spread high density into quieter neighborhoods.

At least there was John Peterson's money (or his bank's) at risk for that hummer; so that city taxes into the unwise and premature thing were less than they would have been had Peterson not felt development ambitions.

_________UPDATE__________
I reread that eminent speaker list. The top four.

Steffen, Feges, Gamec and Norman.

I'd recalled that the four horsemen of the Apocolypse all rode their horses toward compass points in different directions; not helter-skelter full-tilt in one direction, each with a tasking and ambiance. At lease one image, here, has them in line and riding the same direction ...

Wikipedia notes, "The third horseman may also reference Daniel 11:38-39 "But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.""


Hmm. To rule over many. Divide the land for gain. It smells of Crabgrass to me. Maybe the four lead speakers all rode into the tent miracle on Black horses. I don't have any photographs ...