The picture is of a "want" and not a "need." It is the proposed Ramsey Northstar station-stop.
Dan Erhart wanted Northstar rail. He did not need it. It always was unneeded. Not needed by anyone.
The Crabgrass minions, wanting to cash out land holdings, wanted it, and collaborated with Erhart.
Matt Look wanted Ramsey to buy the failed Ramsey Town Center.
Ramsey did not need to do that.
Paying money to Landform is something Darren Lazan and Michael Jungbauer want.
Ramsey had no need to do that.
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So far, we have Mr. Look going to the county board - talking the wants-vs-needs talk.
Has anyone seen him walk the walk? I voted Steffen, not expecting it really. Not expecting it based on track record. Track record while on the Ramsey city council.
Dumping on the Duluth rail proposal will be easy. Matt's already started that.
It, however, is not entirely walking the walk.
Denying Ramsey its wanting an unneeded rail proposal is where he walks the walk, or not.
Keep that truth in mind, as he moves to County Board.
My bet, Matt Look continues to talk the talk. Only, or largely, but certainly not consistently choo-choo-wise.
THIS reporting out of Duluth is walking the talk, but IF AND ONLY IF Cravaack, despite community displeasure, stays the course as he has set it so far. Without revisionism. Honestly instead, i.e., without redefinitions and qualified explanations (aka, lies and excuses for the newer ones):
Just hours after his stunning victory over an 18-term incumbent, U.S. Rep.-elect Chip Cravaack stunned the Duluth area, commenting about “pet” projects here and the need to separate “wants” from “needs.”
He mentioned specifically the $64.9 million of construction under way at Duluth International Airport, including $42.3 million for a new terminal building. Cravaack said he wasn’t sure it was needed. “Even the people that work at the airport are kind of questioning it,” he told the News Tribune. “Again, is it a need or a want?”
Few would argue in support of wasteful spending, and the red flags being waved about mounting federal debt are well worth heeding. But to lump Duluth’s airport-terminal project into any outcry over “pork” or “big government” or “out-of-control Washington” has to be seen as uninformed at best and wrongheaded at worst.
“I don’t think he understands the project,” Duluth International Airport Executive Director Brian Ryks said in an interview last week with the News Tribune editorial board, referring to Cravaack and his comments.
I expect Cravaack might turn out to be a true conservative and not a spineless and decieving lip-service imitator. Like it or hate it, but it IS the real thing and not a Spieler - if he stays the course.
If Cravaack expects to maintain credibility as the conservative he paints himself to be, he will understand turning Quisling on his promises will be observed, pointed out, and empahsized.
Quite simply put, facing the same situation of professed vs actual intent as Cravaack, if Look expects a future career advance among the hard-liner Tea Partiers, the Palins and the Bachmanns, he'd best pay attention to his stance on unneeded Ramsey Northstar (and Water World) proposals. Or will he play footsie with the Landform planned pork procurment effort shown via the failed SF 2500 item, last session.
A new session will start with the new year, and it would be no surprise to see the same game, with a greater likelihood of success given that there's a GOP pork forking leadership that just got elected and can't help themselves --- rhetoric and promises be damned, it's free money on the table.
Etc.
We wait. We see.