Finally, some honesty about what Crabgrass mongers had in mind all along.

Strib reports on political bickering and backstabbing, or perhaps not that bad but just Matt Look being himself, pushy, after Ramsey's getting a Northstar station. Read Paul Levy's item, here, titled, "Anoka County no longer on board for Northstar formula."

The report is detailed. Briefly, Look contends Anoka County pays more than a fair share among counties paying annual amounts for the costly thing.

What is interesting, two stories told about what the entire 1/3 of a billion thing was intended to do to the north metro:

The relationship between Look and some Sherburne County officials has been strained for months. Look, a former Ramsey City Council member, campaigned heavily for a station in Ramsey that opponents said was unnecessary.

Sherburne County Commissioner Felix Schmiesing was among those who questioned the value of a $13.2 million station in Ramsey, saying the station would likely rely on passengers who previously boarded the train in Anoka or Elk River. Schmiesing said the focus should have been on getting the train to St. Cloud.

Ramsey was awarded a station in November. Look says the cost of the station will be $10 million, and not the $13.2 million originally approved.

"If the formula changes, we probably eliminate some stations in Sherburne County," Schmiesing said. "The model for this formula was tested. It was fair the way we did it.

"This feels like retaliation. We were honest, taking a position against the Ramsey station and sticking with it, and now we're being punished for it."

Schmiesing noted that the point of the commuter train was to get motorists off the road, specifically Hwy. 10, which runs parallel to the tracks in Sherburne and Anoka counties. With Northstar relieving congestion in the cities of Anoka and Coon Rapids, Anoka County benefits, Schmiesing said.

Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein said Anoka County should use Northstar to the county's benefit.

"Anoka County needs to do more economic development so they can turn their county into a destination where people want to go," Stenglein said. "That's the whole idea of this train. Instead of crying about it, build around it."

Did you get that? "That's the whole idea of this train. Instead of crying about it, build around it."

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

All that junk at Clown Center. The extra traffic lights on Armstrong now, and on Ramsey Blvd., unjustified in any way by existing traffic, with taxing being what it is, to pay for such unneeded things - all because "the whole idea of this train" is to kowtow to Crabgrass interests, those who would burden existing taxpayers with the costs of expansion so that Developers and land speculators [who profited from selling Town Center land, with others along Hwy 5 had visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads during the Ramsey 2030 Comp Plan proceedings, wanting to grow Crabgrass on their lands north of Trott Brook] could be more enabled to make unconscionable amounts of profit from building housing which, the bubble breaking, proved unsupportable as a free market concept; i.e., without a 1/3 billion transit subsidy so Crabgrass could "build around it."

Unsupportable, as Nedegaard proved when he went broke trying to do his deals. Unsupportable as the present gang-of-three, mayor, Wise and McGlone along with Landform are pushing.

Now, with Crabgrass briefly in retrenchment mode under present economic reality, the savants cannot get any present private sector takers, other than subsidy takers such as "free-parking" Flaherty, and Jim Deal who has been able to build and sell stuff. Town Center itself was a highly tax-subsidized Met Council and local pipe dream from the start. A pipe dream called "smart growth."

We been had. Some saw that from the start, which is why the bogus "Would you like nice shoppes and restaurants" ballot question, dressed up dishonestly that way, still had a 40% vote against subsidized prospering of Crabgrass.

Levy concludes his report with some numbers - to supplement earlier numbers given in the report; with it worth noting that all of the thing being paid by taxpayers at one level of government or another, with money in the pot blended so that any local yokel can say, "Look what we are getting when we only tax you $xxx of the full much larger $yyy of cost. What a deal." It is all government spending. The only private sector player in the Northstar saga is BNSF, and they are paying nothing, instead being given free public money since they, not the taxing entities, own the right of way which for substantial money, they sell in part, for Northstar to run its trains. Levy ends with:

During the first 11 months of last year, the Big Lake station had 97,699 Northstar passengers, followed by Elk River with 92,483, Anoka with 62,297, Coon Rapids with 62,176 and Fridley with 26,565.

According to Northstar figures, Anoka County is responsible for nearly $27.5 million of the $51 million contributed by local counties. The county "buy-in contributions" are: Anoka $27,489,000; Stearns $9,588,000; Hennepin $7,191,000, and Sherburne $6,732,000.

For a Phase II, which would take Northstar to St. Cloud, the local contribution is estimated at $25.5 million -- or half of Phase I. Stearns County would be the largest contributor to Phase II, paying $14,382,000.

Earlier numbers he reported, in context,

Look, who chairs the Anoka County Regional Rail Authority, has been a county commissioner for slightly more than a year. He wasn't part of the group that devised a funding formula for a commuter line that was originally supposed to go as far west as Rice, with a key station in St. Cloud.

But when a $157 million federal grant in 2007 made it possible for the $317 million line to finally begin running trains in November of 2009, everything stopped in Big Lake. Politics and a struggling economy delayed the line for several years and relegated dreams of a station in St. Cloud to Phase II status.

That seed federal grant did not come from the Easter Bunny, it came from federal taxation (and borrowing).

Arguably Northstar is not a bad thing in itself, as a part of a metro-wide transit system to lower atmospheric carbon loading and lessen climate change worry as north metro Crabgrass spreads, but it never was the next best peice to put in place after Hiawatha. The Central Corridor always was that, and the population density is NOT now in north metro, it is south of us, and buses could have been replaced for efficiency, by more light rail before any Northstar. Now, Ramsey has the better Northstar-enabled opportunity to "build itself out" to be just like Coon Rapids and Blaine. Wow.

_______________UPDATE_______________
So everyone understands, even the 40w light bulbs, I encourage job opportunity growth policies, since the commute load is due to peoples' work and housing not being in the same place. More good jobs in Ramsey would be good. But housing growth, without jobs, is someone else's idea of ideal, and I believe that growth should be tolerated in as small a package as feasible, highly regulated to not be as bad as developers given free rein would have it, and never encouraged as with the present council pushing to lower permit fees and topsoil regulations to encourage Crabgrass instead on nice lawns. Developers should never have been given the latitude to pick and choose how to overpopulate Ramsey by the city's government, in the 2030 Comp Plann process sending a plan to Met Council authorizing more growth than the Met Council's quota demanded. That was irresponsibility at its greatest, and a low point for Ramsey. I fault the planning staff greatly, and that sorry excuse for a consultant from Bonestroo even more. He was awful. And my understanding is he had his three legged stool out quite a bit, milking the cash cow.

Consultants, by and large, are Crabgrass. Should I retitle the blog? I will, on a trial basis. See the banner.