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Thursday, January 20, 2011

Presumably the Governor's people did their vetting. But with Petters as a background angel, is there a devil in some details?

Upon Googling and Binging about what Ted Mondale spent time on between Met Council and the stadium gig, I encountered data that appears to need a defining press conference, media scrutiny, all that, including whether any clawback might reach into profits from a firm since sold, that had Petters money provided at the venture capital stage. The way the Governor handled alcoholism questions early in campaigning is a paradigm of how I'd expect his people to explain and defuse any lingering questions about specific appointments and vetting.

As a start, there is Biz Journal reporting about the sale of Nazca to First American, including this screenshot excerpt re firm history (my questioning being apart from and in addition to a standard revolving door dislike, i.e., the leaving of the real estate kingdom-fiefdom of Met Council to reap private benefit from ties and knowledge; the same thing I have disliked about Tinklenberg Group and its follow-up to a MnDOT stint).


There is an undercurrent unemphasized hint without much substantiation in that reporting that early Petters venture money was a key factor in an ultimate growth and sale at a profit. Key and not incidental or cumulative. The item is from Nov. 2010, i.e., not from well before the Petters fan loaded up, but while the unwinding of things Petters had started its progression.

Other things raising Petters-related flags, online and published and indexed by the search services, suggest Mondale family ties to Petters' venturing that reached beyond the merely coincidental:





[red highlighting added, items online here, here and here]. I understand that aggregator-links and business-reporting web presences have proliferated and can be incorrect, and outdated. I have no knowledge of how trustworthy this one "spoke" site is, and its publishing should hence be taken with a grain of salt. However, the screenshot items above have been published and indexed by the web search services - leaving questions begging that should be publicly aired, sunshine being, as Brandeis wrote in 1914, "the best disinfectant."

The Wilf family might also prefer not having any Petters name-attachments spilling over to questions of whether citizens should give the Wilf family undeserved piles and piles of stadium cash, free stadium money, simply because Zigy wants it and feels deserving and has an affluent well trimmed public appearance.

Muddying the waters is never, (or is seldom), helpful. The Mondale-Petters ties, if any -- what, how, phantom or real, should be discussed and attended to publicly so unrelated things can move on from there (or stall on their own merits apart from diversionary fact).

Finally, to the extent anyone might regard any part of this post as in any sense "Brodkorbian" I sincerely apologize and promise penance. I'd hate to have Eva Young who I greatly respect, regard me as another "drama queen." Also, I would not want my open non-secret dislike of Met Council action during the Mondale-Steffen tenure to be viewed as a hidden agenda, hence I flag it now in the open, noting again how I dislike how Met Council aims and policy under Mondale-Lindgren, along with very, very much local land speculator "help" (aka "greed") led to the disastrous ruin in my community known as "The Ramsey Town Center;" a Frankensteinian experiment which proved to be as un-smart a malignant growth, as imaginable.