click the image to enlarge - image source, this link - that's "Sandbur Center" in the background
Then there is the victim, this link.
There are several further subpages to the Look campaign website. None address the socialism of the city with Look's approval buying into a land development situation in competition with private sector entrepreneurs.
Regarding the VA clinic, now a decision on hold because of a protest by another site [not City of Ramsey where the mayor endorsed to the press the city's backing of the successful Deal proposal], that was a private sector win, despite taxpayer-subsidized city competition. That outcome shows the private sector, Jim Deal, had in the decision makers opinion a better proposal than the competing public sector effort.
That chain of fact is absent in the Look webpages.
No pages of the Look website address the Jungbauer friendly council majority and crony dimensions of Landform having its consultant contract taking six figure money out of Ramsey; with Jungbauer involvement noted from the beginning by Look as July 14, 2009, city work session minutes indicate:
[Look] stated that he thinks there is some benefit in using this company [Landform] 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.
Note that no true or actual "pilot program" has ever been documented anywhere within city records. All we have is "the Senator" putting a bill under his sole authorship in Feb. 2010 into play, SF 2500, for over two and a half million of state dollars to be routed through DEED into Ramsey venturing coffers with Landform's role in things had the money been appropriated left unspecifed and off record.
There is more.
Jungbauer touted as a key in-house water resources and "public policy" consultant in a Landform promotional brochure dated June 19, 2009, i.e., put together and delivered roughly ten days before the City had even closed on the multi-million dollar Ramsey Town Center distressed land purchase contract it arranged with bankers. That brochure was addressed to the Ramsey city administrator, hence, that there can be no confusion as to its motive and purpose, and it stands as a material part of the Landform sales pitch used to induce the City to give it a lucrative contract -- and here's what it noted about Senator Jungbauer as a key person in the consultancy:
I wonder why they only called "the Senator" Mr. Jungbauer in that tub-thumping item; especially since, as Look noted as a material consideration of his (worthy of entry into city minutes about Jungbauer), the appearance was, hire Landform - pay them money - and the Senator (Jungbauer) might lead the City to pork.
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Wow. I kept the post shortened with two images saving a couple thousand words.
The minutes and the PR brochure page are the absolute truth. Each is a saved snapshot, and historical papers neither misrecollect nor shade factual recitals and presentations after the fact [i.e., the papers don't change their stories nor "spin" truth in tortured circles].
My criticisms in this post are not new. Yet I did not make the Look webpage of negative allegations. My feelings are a bit hurt. I suppose it's not "negative" to simply publish the truth.
Either that or Look regards paying out millions and millions of Ramsey money on a gamble which he is leaving months after having a material part in city decision making to take such a CORpse-intended roll of the dice, (along with having an equally material roll in instigating and propagating Landform dealings), as if it is a success and cause to pat himself on the back, and not a negative question at all, to him.
My suggestion, put the words "Landform," "Jungbauer," "the Senator," and "Ramsey Town Center multi-million dollar purchase-gamble" on the campaign website - giving notice beyond what's there now for voters wanting to make an informed choice on the ballot between Natalie Steffen and Mr. Look, the remaining two candidates for the important Anoka County Board District 1 seat.
I have not been told by Look what motivated him to bail out so soon on the long-term consequences of the city's land purchase decision, with the Landform situation attached, and to seek a different job instead of staying the course.
My understanding is the paycheck is substantially better for county commissioners than for Ramsey city council members.
Besides thinking Steffen the better and more level-headed choice, I also appreciate the fact that Steffen has not seen it necessary to wrap herself in flag bunting in order to run for a county commission post.
No flag. No eagles. Just Steffen.
__________UPDATE___________
Besides millions of Ramsey dollars paid out from reserve accounts another part of socializing the project was to compromise the city's millions and millions of tax lien arrearages against the property, something a private sector venturer would have had to face and cure. A part of the actual city cash paid away went to the County, which did not compromise its tax position but got paid dollar-for-dollar its tax arrearage amounts. My preference for the county and its board is to maintain it being peopled at the policy-making top level with those who do not fecklessly compromise on money owed, so that other taxpayers need to span a gap or to see reserves diminished short term, with long term consequences.
A short-term year to year juggling with reserve accounts can keep tax rates down short term, but down the line, the piper gets paid. That's the way with gimmick financing, and land-deal gambling after the deal's gone very, very sour to where a prudent council would have given it time to adapt and adjust instead of throwing millions at ghost possibilities. So far, after years and years, only one restaurant in the Ramsey Town Center, and that involved a six-figure subsidy to make it happen.
But view the truth in things, the escalation of Ramsey HRA spending, outside of city general funds, during Look's tenure on council and after his participation in the decision to spend millions and compromise millions more, and with "professional services" costs going through the roof, once, as Jeff Wise, (with italics added) explains, "Two years ago Matt succeeded in recruiting fiscal conservatives to run for and be elected to Ramsey City Council. The realized benefit of that today is a reduced budget and reduced property taxes." Subject, of course, to "two years" worth of real numbers that reach beyond blowing "fiscal conservative" smoke at voters.
Truth has it's own way of intervening into an otherwise good story.
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That's an update's two more images, and another two thousand words saved. The fact that the compromised tax and assessment and accrued interest amounts exceeded by over a million dollars the amount of actual city cash paid out of the coffers, is undeniable, per a quoted email provided me by the city's CFO in response to a public data disclosure request; with the text of the email posted earlier on Crabgrass, this link. The combined spending and compromised income add up to about a fifteen million dollar gamble placed, without any referendum or such, upon the taxpayers of Ramsey. And when's the last time you have heard Matt Look say "Taj Mahal" about excessive municipal spending. That was spending without any help from Landform, spending he once had criticized.
__________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
From the Matt Look the victim page, here, after saying the Steffen people lack free speech on publicly owned land, the "MY BOOTH" thing, he further rages:
All I've ever done is protect the taxpayer by reducing the budget and cutting taxes. To imply otherwise is mudslinging, otherwise known as dirty politics.
Matt, in a comment, tell us what evidence I have posted of drastic INCREASES NOT CUTS in HRA spending including the "professionals" serviced at Landform is to you false?
It seems clear on which side of the street truth and falsehood stand.
Ramsey taxpayers have not been protected. Instead they've been hung out to dry on a bad-odds gamble and are not protected from monthly Ramsey money going as regular as clockwork to Landform.
Zippo protection.
Not even Jungbauer or anyone else at Landform is having to submit time and performance billing statements. Landform's been given the equivalent of a regular fixed amount check. Without transparency. Without accountability. Without sunshine, which Justice Brandies back in 1914 termed "the best disinfectant."