One last question in terms of expenses that may have gone up - at one point I believe somebody was suggesting that council members draw healthcare coverage from the City, something not done in the past. Did that ever go anywhere or was it only a stillborn thing? Is there still any active effort among elected/appointed officials to go that way?
Nelson replied:
Currently, there is not active discussion regarding the provision of health insurance benefits for Councilmembers. There has been some discussion in the past, however, it is not an item currently under consideration. This would need to be approved by the City Council and would have to wait to go into effect after an election.
Acting precipitously, which can be a bad idea, I had written:
Truly, it need not wait that long and should be hammered down tight, and now. These council muck-a-mucks might be planning to give themselves healthcare coverage as an expense, a new one, that taxpayers will be asked to absorb, with it done after the election in some remote and hidden way. And to do so after this great huffing and puffing show of extreme budget-and-spending concern, a concern they say they have.
Citizens need a definitive statement, on the record at the next meeting held, from each council member, a Sherman statement to the effect, "I will not push to impose a healthcare coverage expense upon the city's taxpayers by their providing me medical coverage I do not now receive, and if any such coverage is offered to me I will refuse."
Nothing short of such a Sherman statement will suffice as legitimate. That is how it is. They cannot be inflicting hardships in great measure while being poised to suck at the public fisc. That would be unconscionable. An unconscionable double standard. End of that story.
That argument can be made. If you impose hardships, you have to face up to taking your share. However, the truth is that council service is primarily a civic voluntary thing, with the workload and time demand well out of line with the small stipend given council members. That is so aggregated over the amounts provided via HRA activity, and direct council work. While believing in single provider health care as inevitable despite the health-industrial powers arrayed to forestall it, we lack it now with only the VA, the clinic we have in Ramsey, proving that single provider does work and that the VA is more effective and efficient than UnitedHealth and its selling coverage - denying coverage way of maximizing profit. To the extent any voluntary service on council is done by someone without health care coverage, stability of the situation suggests it might be wisest to provide coverage because while severe ongoing treatment such as chemo might require a resignation and special election, less severe but covered situations can allow continuity without that. I believe that council members having other avenues of gaining healthcare within their families or from their regular full-time work should use that resource and not rely on taxpayer funding. However, those not in that situation, if covered as part of an employee group even though not full time employees of the city, should be able to join the pool. The main reasoning for that is if people under less than prosperous circumstances have a disincentive to engage in public service it removes a segment of opinion from the process where the process might benefit from having a less-prosperous person having one voice on council, so that others do not presume they and their circumstances are totally representative of the entirety of the community as to wealth and lifestyle and priorities.
I had criticized the mayor, who I believe acted precipitously and without full explanation of a logic for deciding one of two top administrators was surplus and that the other could handle the range of responsibilities two now share. I continue to believe the decision was not fully deliberated and was made in an unnecessarily provocative manner, but an expressed motive toward maximum efficiency at lowest cost, when actually feasible without downside consequences outweighing a change, is not a wrong motive. Wrong judgments can be made from good motives. I had written:
Now, something else seeming a double standard - you decide - right after the remainder of the council says okay to cutting the mayor slack for working in North Dakota and not suggesting he resign as mayor, the basis was, "He is doing it to support his family, it is something he has to do." Fine. They cut him slack and immediately after that extension of grace, the mayor comes back to sabotage another man's earning a living to support his family. Where is the consistency in that? Where is the compassionate conservatism, after seeking and accepting the grace of colleagues? Absent, is the only answer I see. Blatently so. Arrogant and insensitive.
On reflection the words I would use are precipitous and hasty and insensitive. One's own hardships ought to leaven one's ways of approaching extending hardships upon somebody else, and absent that, precipitous is the description. Ccounterproductive is another applicable word.
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This one I want an answer to - is the Strib comment right or wrong? Levy's report, here, had this comment stream, where the one sentence that intrigued me no end, was:
lobo11 -- Jan. 12, -- 9:53 AM
[...] Did anyone else see the owner of Landform texting Matt Look seconds after the 4-3 vote against was cast.
True or false? I will email each of the gentlemen, Lazan and Look, and surely they would not stonewall. If they do stonewall, I will post that.
UPDATE: Lazan promptly replied his texting during the meeting was to someone else. I believe him. He pointed out Look could have watched things on TV and known results as quickly as people in the council chambers knew. The broadcast is in real time. The Strib comment appears to be presuming something not true.
That is as previously written. I add that Lazan's direct and candid reply was helpful to my thinking.
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Next and last, as noted already, Ralph Brauer's statement is separately posted.
On to a wrap-up.
In closing the rewrite - I have never thought the idea of dense housing to be appealing. Never.
A compromise that sometimes must be accepted, yes, appealing, no. Transit arguments can be made, walkable resources are nice, (if realistically achievable which more likely than not is a factor wholly or largely beyond planning and planner effort). Development of amenities must be a bottom up thing that happens, rather than being planner-orchestrated. Some bad aspects of haphazard growth can be countered or forestalled by planning, but patience is a key virtue and you cannot do much trying to push on a rope.
My own experiences in dense housing, rental, have been that to have any sense of privacy you distance yourself from others close, you always bump into strangers in hallways and each, you and them, seem to want to keep privacy norms in place. In short, it is alienating, or was to me, and the noise of others - it is less, the greater their distance.
I think the existing Ramsey population majority live single family detached, and treasure that. I think shared wall is a compromise made out of necessity and not choice. For most people, I believe that is so. It certainly was so for my time in rentals. Sharing a house rental was nicer than my bedroom wall being the neighbor's living room wall.
Planners either deny, ignore, or downplay what I believe to be that simple sociological truth - that density housing is alienating. It is not desirable. Transportation efficiency can be touted until time itself ceases, but the truth is few want to live in shared wall housing if given the detached single family alternative as affordable under their family budget constraints.
Planners not openly and honestly acknowledging that dense housing is alienating, in my view, are intentionally deceitful. That is the basis for my belief that Flaherty's dense ultra-swank rental concept will fail and deteriorate to be a community detriment rather than an asset.
As built this may not be so. Full occupancy may be attained from the start, although I am skeptical of that unless occupancy success is proven once Flaherty's built and been issued an occupancy permit. However that shakes out, I believe that long term, when the housing market cycles differently than its current favoring of new rental building, the Flaherty thing will become problematic and people will have regrets. It will be like a bad marriage that seems okay at first but gets worse and worse as incompatibilities are discovered and suffered.
Ramsey is not Manhattan bordering Central Park, where upscale apartments exist and have reason to do so. Ramsey is not downtown or next to a vibrant university community. Ramsey is a bedroom 'burb, with problems attracting decent jobs neighboring where residents live. That is the reality of 'burbs, in general, and Ramsey in particular.
Trying to fight against the worse of bad 'burb development makes sense. But having grand delusions is quite unwise and likely to lead to mistake and heartbreak when unrealistic dreams terminate in reality. People wanting more house and lot for the money will take the isolation from culture and lack of interesting places and things as a trade-off.
But if living in shared wall is the proposal, people will seek a place for that where something is happening besides boredom and chain restaurants. And by something happening I mean something several cuts above Maple Grove or MOA.
Leave it at that. Communities grow into being good or bad, and never wholly one or the other, but they do so largely independent of planner will, planner hubris, or planner huckstering. Those are all basically conceits without substance. Window dressing.