Anonymity was requested.
I will email the link to Matt Look, if he wants to say more in rebuttal, but I prominently featured email from him in the earlier post and my guess is he would consider it sufficient.
A decision to decline further comment should NOT be viewed as any form of admission of fault.
It would be a choice, and not to be read as more or less than a choice.
Two emails were sent and I excerpt out only small parts so that almost the entirety is quoted:
The story I heard from a very reliable source is that Ted Hagfor state elect. insp. for the past 20 years caught a young man wiring in a building, a sign business owned or co-owned by Matt Look. The young man was not licensed,did not have a electrical permit and was wiring in a high voltage electrical service. Ted the inspector told him to stop, not to do any more wiring and when he came back the following Monday he saw that the wiring had continued over the weekend. Matt Look apparently took offense to this and decided to replace Mr Hagfor in Ramsey. The other part of the story is that the City of Ramsey sent out for an RFP for electrical inspections and Ted Hagfor was the low bidder. Matt Look then took it upon himself to order the city to go out for a second RFP and recruited a Mr Toklee to bid on the contract. Mr Look then took it upon himself to influence the city staff who interviewed both Hagfor and Toklee making it clear that Mr Toklee was to get the best recommendation for the job. Staff is afraid of Mr Look in these times of lay-offs in city government. If you review the council meeting tapes you hear Mr Dehen the head of the personnel committee (Look isn't on the committee) asking at the meeting whom from staff decided to go out for a second RFP. The assistant administrator danced around the question but it was obvious that it was Mr Look working behind the scenes. [...] It seems the staff is afraid of Mr Look. The interesting part of this is that some council members don't want manager form of government that would prevent this abuse of employees by Mr Look. It will go on the ballot in November. Please don't use my name for fear of retribution.
and
More BS from Matt Look- "major mistake on one of my wiring jobs" I don't think so, Hagfor has been doing electrical inspections in Ramsey before Matt was born and would not make anyone change anything that didn't need changing. BS statement #2 no inspector is going to say that he makes a homeowner do more then the state requires- the state would replace him in a heartbeat for a statement like that. Doesn't make any sense and he also would have to make another return trip to reinspect the job at little or no cost. Matt's "Gustapo inspector" statement is a statement I would not expect from a level headed candidate for county commissioner. As for having offended four council members- I could count only two- Matt and McClone [sic]. The mayor said something about a relative having trouble with Ted. [...] On another note, I wonder what ever happened to the market analysis that was done before the start of town center. Who wrote it, who read it, who paid for it and was their another done before this council bought the land. Are we ever going to see a report on the two trips to Vegas, what it cost, what was accomplished and is this going to be an annual event. Another question is why we are sending a lame duck when he knows he won't be around after this year. Sorry about not wanting my name used [...]
Well, my feeling is Matt Look is jumping ship in Ramsey to seek higher office well before decisions he has been instrumental in advancing reach the stage where their efficacy can be assessed.
He clearly feels differently, with a Facebook statement indicating the questionable decision making behind extravagantly spending millions of city dollars on the gamble of buying the distressed and clearly failed town center situation out of foreclosure status, and not getting better terms and conditions in line with the distressed nature of the property, was in his mind a kind of qualified or unqualified "success," and with the statement suggesting a motive of seeking county office as a stepping stone, all of which I see as a premature abandonment of an accountability situation before any of the Ramsey-Look chickens come home to roost:
Successes include the purchase of town center from a tax forfeiture outcome, negotiating with the banks from a 15 million dollar purchase price to a 6.5 million dollar deal with a final purchase price of 6.75 million. [...] I lobbied at the Capitol for necessary legislation to better position Ramsey Town Center as we plan and build the center of our city (3 of 4 bills were passed and signed into law). Mostly, I cut wasteful spending every chance I had.
I promise to be the "sentinel" of ACD1. We fixed the city, I am running to fix the county....expect me at state someday!
Sorry, but I cannot read that last part without the image in mind of taking the dog to the vet to be fixed. And I cannot see blowing nearly seven million of scarce public funds on a highly questionable gamble as any manner of defeating of "wasteful spending."
That is especially so, where the "15 million dollar" supposed valuation figure is a sheer invention, apparently premised on nothing beyond Bruce Nedegaard's boom-time ill-advised willingness to pay that kind of inflated price per acre. We ALL know or should know how that gamble ended for Nedegaard.
So, 15 million is an invented number but the nearly seven million actually removed from the wealth of City of Ramsey is surely quite real.
Seven million for that weed patch in distressed foreclosure was worth - open market - zero, if you trust the market to set a price. It was where no private-sector money would touch the garbage over months and months of scheduled and postponed foreclosure sales, one after another, with the private sector having more sense than was shown in socializing the risk of Town Center's future development, i.e., Socialism from time of city purchase, onward.
So, as did the author of the emails, I suggest that far, far too much was paid the banks in buying this distressed Met Council dreamer's thing out of foreclosure. The Dream Team thing.
I presently via public data disclosure am trying to make sense of the money flows and total amounts Ramsey gave up in cash and in compromised taxes and special assessments for distressed land that's little but a weed patch at present.
Two Ramsey online minutes entries recorded months apart have me seeking public data document disclosure about Jungbauer involvement, indirectly or otherwise in Ramsey matters, and whether there was any unusual or questionable quid-pro-quo dimension or representation weighing into things affecting Ramsey's hiring Landform (and not another firm) and flowing six figure money to that entity already, and supplementing it to a five figure tune every month.
That is curious to me and a conscientious County Board candidate should be expected to be pushing staff to expedite responses to my paper trail disclosure requests and such, especially when he is on record that there's nothing to hide.
The entire Landform situation is curious. For openers, it was a 4-3 vote to employ them at all, with the four supporting votes being the same four that have been junketing to Las Vegas shopping center trade shows - apparently at Landform's recommendation.
On July 29, 2009, Tammy Sakry reported the strange circumstances of that vote, this link, where strange procedural events were documented. I notice the city's website has face pages for the full agenda for the July 14, 2009 meeting "REVISED" to reflect Landform being an agenda item, but the paperwork re Landform from that meeting is not in the full agenda online, with the revised face sheets. It was tardy, handed out at the meeting, and never made of record.
More troubling to me, in a Sept. 14, 2009 HRA meeting, p.5 of the minutes has this curious exchange [emphasis added]:
Commissioner McGlone stated we are trying to sell Ramsey as a unique opportunity. Because we are only 10 percent built out - that's a unique opportunity not found anywhere else. [sic] We can talk about what we are trying to do but they may have a specific thing in mind let them know we are open to whatever.
Commissioner Look asked where Senator Jungbauer is on the water recirculation grant.
Mr Lazan stated he is nervous [sic] about being too public on that.
Commissioner Look stated maybe we leave out the grant part but say we are interested in expanding on that.
Huh? Jungbauer? Some kind of grant at issue? "Water recirculation grant?"
Jungbauer is a Landform employee, held out to the public as its "Water Resources Manager," a specialist.
What grant? What Jungbauer role? Is hiring the Landform firm some quid-pro-quo for unpublicized grant possibilities that "Senator Jungbauer" is offering, or has shopped around in some fashion?
Nothing in the documents Ramsey has put on its website gives much of a hint of an answer.
There is this in July 14, 2009 work session minutes I have downloaded, i.e., from the off-camera preliminary meeting that day, held immediately before the official televised meeting followed and where the 4-3 split vote on hiring Landform was on camera [again, emphasis added]:
Councilmember Dehen stated he has always been a proponent of a fair bidding process. He stated that he would like to be careful about these types of proposals because he thinks this will hurt Landform if the City moves forward with a competitive bid process.
Councilmember Look agrees that it would disadvantage Landform in an RFP process. He stated that he thinks there is some benefit in using this company because Senator Jungbauer works for them. He noted that the Senator is aware of pilot programs that are out there that may not be on everyone's radar screen which could be very beneficial to the City.
So, July 14, 2009, work session minutes allude to "Senator Jungbauer" in the context, "that the Senator is aware of pilot programs that are out there that may not be on everyone's radar screen which could be very beneficial to the City," and the context that "some benefit in using this company" might attach because of these possibilities - and the later September 2009 item indicates nervousness about public discussion of some kind of grant situation. What my understanding in August 2009 was that Landform would get a single shot contract and that routing the contract that way, a $23,000 city expense, might mean a grant tree being shaken by Jungbauer (wearing his Senator's hat), with a grant for ponding and landscaping use of ponded water - or not, but the figure was in the range of a $2 million possibility.
Now it's been about a year, no grant exists, there was "nervousness" about public discussion of the situation a half year ago, and hundreds of thousands of Ramsey money is down the Landform rat hole of grant possibility and possibly not, and a bottom line consideration is how is any of that stuff really an example of good government, rather than a shabby and shady bit of distasteful horse trading among people with a public service duty who should act better?
An allusion to special pork that way, in the context of "there is some benefit in using this company," i.e., an implication, vague but there, of some quid pro quo to this particular consultancy being chosen is not a charming thing to see as an iceberg tip, where there's allegedly nothing to hide.
Back to the electrical inspection emailings: Another point they raise is the repeated trips to Las Vegas.
It is a bunch of amateurs, nobody with land promotion and fundraising and funding expertise that are "playing" at developer roles (instead of seasoned developers there is: a hauling contractor, a refrigeration maintenance contractor, an operator of a sign and printing business catering to GOP politicians, and a proprietor of a failed former specialty furnishing and interior finishing business with two million of bank judgments of record and the building up for sale). That is the range of council member backgrounds of experience and expertise represented by the four council members that went to the Las Vegas shopping center developers' trade shows.
It appears to be sending amateurs to mix with the professionals, thus showing a distressed project's what-do-we-do-now backers that has desperation written all over it, mixing with a pack of sharp and seasoned wolves? Hence the earlier image of sheep to a fleecing. As yet, there's been no cash from Ramsey to any of the development interests from the trade show attendees, but the only hope is that caution will attend any approach by any such interested party, checking out what Ramsey has on the ground and where a buck or two can be made from it.
If any major developer interest for a long-term peer-to-peer relationship is shown, it likely would not be of a "What can we take them for now quickly," kind, but a follow-up on an exchange of cards that might not lead to any of that kind of real and sincere exploration until two or three election cycles from now. That would be where, hopefully, there would be a beneficial turnover of personnel so that entrenchment on council, a past error in Ramsey, does not recur.
So, what's the value of sending today's council on a meet-and-greet gamble in Vegas, when they likely are not to be the decision makers on any ultimate deal? One positive thing, at least none of this pack in office now appear to have direct or close family land speculation interests with a potential to be in conflict with civic duty. So if opportunity knocks promptly, there would be no unsavory dimension of that kind. And if opportunity for improvement of the Town Center mess, the "COR" mess, happens soon, I would happily be proven wrong that way. I simply believe now that it is folly to expect a quick rebound, happy days being here again, on a prompt timeframe. It seems these folks on the council now must have more faith in the Obama administration's ability to ressucitate the economy than I have, and they are the "conservatives" seeing a prompt recovery while I am a "liberal" expecting the Obama corrections for eight years of Bush-Cheney to realistically take longer.
In closing - sending at five figure budget cost sizable contingents of local people to Vegas - I can see Landform liking the chance to rub elbows with the big boys on an annual subsidized junketing opportunity basis, but what's that worth to Ben the Taxpayer, in terms of Ramsey picking up Landform's tab?
What's the embodiment, on the ground, in Ramsey, to show for any such gaudy collective travel? What will it be as the primary election and general election roll around, when near-term judgments are made by citizen voters?