As an introduction, think of a souffle, started from an unworkable recipe, that has fallen with the town fathers in a dilemma on how to reinflate it to ultimately say, "My it tastes good." My understanding is that inserting many dollar bills into it, cramming it full of Abes and Jacksons, might elevate the top superficially when looking at it from the outside, but it's cheating and you'd choke on tasting it while perhaps wanting to nonetheless say, "Tastes fine." Cramming it full of paper money is of course an "inside the box" solution and we must transcend such thought.
First, dump as absurd "the COR" and dump Darren with it. That reinflates nothing, but it would make you feel good.
Beyond that obvious step, think historically. Think rail stop.
Return to the subsidies of business a few centuries back, the railroad land grant expansion into the frontier.
In short, here's the deal. If BNSF will stop the Northstar at Ramsey and build from its cash the rail stop that Ramsey's finest desire, then give them clear title to the thing. The entire thing. All that was purchased out of foreclosure litigation limbo. Make it trainster property. Private property with private property rights, as town fathers profess best independent of how they actually act.
Land for rail development. It's worked before.
Think of the positives. Staunch the exhausting of city reserves, per the adage, "A foolish town and its money are soon parted." That first, but what else?
Well, the philosophy of the property rights bloc now in town along with the "shrink government" mentality and the elevation to a near religion the belief in the capacity of private enterprise and free market decision making - all that would be met and satisfied in a real "feel good" way and should be incentive enough for the dabblers now in things to hand over the play toy to a business of large size with a history of duration; thus transiitoning the play from putzing amateurs to folks who know how to run a railroad. It's sensible. It is immune to ideological attack from Republicans, in this instance a virtue.
Government socialism will cease competition with the private sector. BNSF is private sector. City of Ramsey is not.
Now what would BNSF do with the land? Who cares? As private sector we can trust the highest and best use to percolate through events like magic, and whatever happens is for the best. Mom used to say that, whatever happens is for the best, and independent of that the thought deserves some respect as a way to rationalizing acceptance of windmills instead of attacking them in a noble warlike way, "tilting against windmills" being by now a phrase fully within folk wisdom, for folly. So if the land sits fallow and jackrabbits and sandburs prosper under BNSF holding title, that proves itself to be the highest and best possibility. Four centuries from now we presume that something different will be there, and that seems to be a fit time scale to believe that BNSF or its successors in title will survive to institute something beyond fallow. If it takes that long, so what? It would not be more pushing on a rope. If finding another thinly capatilized chump to put propped up into the drivers seat for a while is the highest and best thing to do, i.e., repeating history, then BNSF will do so, and it will be for the best since it's private sector dealings entirely and we know that is the paradigm to reach highest and best. Tim Pawlenty's told us so.
In any event there would be the rail stop, privately owned - part of the deal being that BNSF builds it for itself and not for socialistic aims -- again something I believe Tim Pawlenty has said is best. BNSF, unlike Ramsey, is bigger than Met Council and probably owns more of Washington DC, as needed to assure grant money from federal taxpayers is properly put into the ground in Ramsey. More clout with the louts, you might say. At least in considering louts outside of Anoka County, in federal decision making positions awaiting transitioning to K Street. Louts on K Street too, for that matter. Do you question BNSF's private sector ownership of ways and means of influencing federal money allocations? Why? Isn't private sector exercise of property rights best? Didn't Tim Pawlenty say that too?
So there you have it. Outside of the box. It fixes everything. Returning a moment into the box, what would it take beyond the swap itself to make BNSF take the deal? Well, outside of the box, (the box that says stuff the fallen souffle with dollar bills to prop up the top and make it look correct), if BNSF will not take the deal that's private sector decision making at play, and hence the best outcome possible. If it's not worth the effort of BNSF, doesn't that mean that it's not worth Ben Dover's participation? That seems rational, inside or outside the box. If private capital will not touch the risk why in the world should Ben Dover want it touched? All the good sense of the world is behind that thought. Not that good sense is in control everywhere, we cannot assume that from recent history, but if there's a flaw in that logic no one has demonstrated where and City of Ramsey buying the thing out of foreclosure limbo while the market remained tanked does not refute the notion that if private capital sees it as a senseless risk then Ben Dover should think it that also.
As a final side thing, everyone should consider renaming the Northstar Rail the "Folly Trolly," as a more fitting name and as a way to lessen the abusive tendency among Minnesotans to assault the North Star with absurd naming.
The star aligned with the axis the earth turns upon, more or less so, has been a fortuitous thing for navigators, and as such deserves respect so that there should be no North Star Laundry, or North Star Pet Grooming, or Northstar Rail. The naming of the talent-starved hockey team that left town is but one more example that disrespect of the North Star has consequences.
It would show more respect to nature to do the renaming - we could call it "rebranding" - and the term "Folly Trolly" is more fitting to what the thing at least in the near future really is and will be. In the long term we're all dead, Keynes was right on that, and again the railroad is expected to be a survivor, and a decision maker long term, something the town fathers cannot claim because unlike private sector corporations they cannot even theoretically exist in perpetuity.
So Ramsey leadership, what are we waiting on? Get it done.