It was a Trojan Horse type of thing from the get-go. And there remained one single-term council member who during his term embarrassingly kept saying it was a mandate for what got done, as it was being done, the way it was being done and the cancer-like housing-only growing that only quelled when the developer want bankrupt and the market made that shared wall suburban and not urban stuff impossible to get rid of without a massive equity sting being felt - all shared wall inexpensive buy-in housing, no community retail or eating amenities beyond a Coborn store that had to fight Jim Deal tooth-and-nail in court for months before being able to contract in a Bank of Elk River branch, to serve the citizens while Deal was claiming exclusionary rights against the citizens having any bank but one he wanted or might want.
No shops. A few but none of note, nothing much to speak of. Not what you'd write to relatives or urban friends living elsewhere about, saying, "WOW! GUESS WHAT!"
Now, years and years later, one above-average Mexican food outlet, but only after a six figure subsidy arrangement was given by Ramsey to get it to happen - and not otherwise.
Rumor of a Wells Catering commitment exists, which would be good since Wells has a quality reputation. Hopefully they will not have their hand out for a subsidy, however.
So now after that ballot question learning experience, I see a purported survey saying a majority favors a Duluth-Twin Cities train, with zilch reported about methodology including the basic wording of questions and how the survey sample was chosen.
That's "reporting" with a small "r". This link.
I have characterized some stuff coming out of ABC Newspapers as "pom-pom squad" stuff, this has me wondering that way, and yet some other stuff is solid from the same source.
I know there are sincere and vocal high speed Duluth - Twin Cities rail skeptics out there - so guys, do your homework, report detail about whether this was a fair or biased survey, and I shall link over to such analysis, if posted.
That said, Anoka County has two initiatives, that train thing, and finally getting us real and useful 21st century ready braodband with all the economic growth potential such a move has.
Choose between the two, prioritize in your mind, between those two proposals and know that the braodband would cost less and a most fortuitous federal grant has been awarded. A smart grant for a change, instead of a dumb one as a sop to land speculators and/or developers.
This ABC Newspaper broadband story, this link, it is WORTH QUOTING;
Big boost for Anoka County broadband project
Wednesday, 07 July 2010 -- by Peter Bodley, Managing editor
The Connect Anoka County high-speed Internet broadband project has received a boost from the federal government.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded the county $13,382,593 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars to expand broadband services in the county.
The Anoka County Board earlier this year approved the submission of an application for federal stimulus dollars for the project as well as a letter of agreement with Zayo Bandwidth, LLC to provide the infrastructure and also made a commitment to sell up to $3.5 million in tax-exempt bonds to pay the county’s share of the project cost.
“This is fantastic news,” said County Administrator Terry Johnson.
The federal stimulus dollars are in the amount the county requested, which means that the county can finalize its agreement with Zayo and move forward with selling the bonds, according to Johnson.
“We will get the project moving as fast as possible,” Johnson said.
According to Cindy Kevern, county information services director, the county has 30 days to sign the contract to receive the federal money.
And once the agreement is finalized with Zayo, the county will be ready to move forward with the fiber laying project, hopefully as early as this fall, Kevern said.
Zayo will be responsible for the fiber laying, either below ground or on poles, plus the provision of hardware devices to be placed along the fiber route, she said.
Under the federal regulations, the county has two years to complete the project, but the bulk of the work has to be done in the first year, Kevern said.
“We are very happy to get the money,” she said. “It is very exciting.”
The purpose of the project is to lay fiber to connect all institutional buildings in the county, including the county, cities, school districts and colleges, while providing the backbone for business and industry to connect if they wish to.
The estimated cost of the phase one project to connect all government buildings with the fiber optic system is some $20 million, of which the county’s share is 10 percent and Zayo’s 20 percent, with the federal stimulus grant picking up the balance.
The article has more info, so go there for the entire report.
It could not be better.
It is the infrastructure backbone fiber, connecting government centers; and if only that, a bummer. HOWEVER, it is opt-in backbone for business and domestic subscriber expansion. Nobody will be forced to hook up, and pay horrendous amounts as with Met Council sewer services, where even that planner cash cow is having its present-market burps and Met Council staff is now saying less SAC fee income means stinging households more per flush - i.e., the ongoing fee structure will have to carry more cost [planners apparenly being immune from being fired], charging more by the flush or shower [sewer service charges being linked to metered water consumption] since the SAC hook-up nirvana is not flowing in as much as the flushes are flowing out these days. (The SAC fee is the one-time sometimes forced buy-in imposed on new construction in MUSA areas, and in some situations against existing homes when services are put into the road adjacent to the home.)
Back to broadband fiber: Monticello has its municipal fiber to the home program, and it is a national braodband leader that way. So, it is good that Anoka County has the fine sense to start catching up with the most innovative and progressive of our regional pioneers.
(See the sidebar link for Monticello info. - or merely click here for the same link)
Isn't that more sensible than concretizing a ditch in Ramsey Town Center - as if that would somehow be sufficient as CPR for the RTC corpse? Concritizing a ditch with an "amphitheater," no less. Drive by and have a look. Tax bucks for concrete, same ditch as before.
That kind of silly highly localized but multi-million dollar thing, vs. braodband, for the entire broad countywide community. What makes more sense to you and what would you want an elected county board of commissioners member to have in mind, as sensible prioritization?
__________UPDATE__________
The propaganda release by the rail promoters is online here. It looks as if they cherry picked people along the proposed route, no info about numbers here, vs there, just listing in a footnote the locale, it was done in February, and without the questions we have to presume no question of the kind of if it cost $xxx to $yyy for a one way ticket would you still be interested in riding, nor was there any Anoka County wide questioning, do you want your sales tax or property tax hiked countywide, so folks along this limited corridor stretch can have a train in their neighborhood? Let me word the questions, I will give you very different numbers, ya betcha.