While absent from City of Ramsey, and in the Dakotas, the mayor can be reached at his email:
"Mayor Bob Ramsey" mayorramsey@ci.ramsey.mn.us
I am sure he would not ignore his clear and present duty to respond to citizens' emailing, and concerned citizens are urged to contact him directly, with an email trail, to learn his beliefs and intent, rather than to have me possibly misstate them. (As to the headline, and my possibly misstated, posslbly wrong view of the beliefs and intent of our own mini Grover Norquist obsessionist, this Google.)
_______________UPDATE_____________
Money would be saved by ditching the Ward system and going back to a five-member council, each elected at large. Besides saving two stipends (council AND hra - each with its overlapping membership/stipends), the cost of redrawing ward boundaries could be forestalled. That would be as much as or more than the difference between the City Administrator's pay, and that of the Assistant City Administrator; which some have decided to call a significant money difference (without regard for differences in education, experience, and capability). Here it would be a clear saving without having to consider such objective and subjective criteria. Simply go back to what worked better.
Perhaps an even larger bonus, on each agenda item five voices to be heard instead of seven, shortening meeting duration by 2/7-th, or 28.5%.
Transcriptionist time, city attorney cost, Darren attendance cost (for as long as Daren attends), all could be proportionately lessened.
________________FURTHER UPDATE______________
Sakry's reporting of ABC Newspapers, again this link, states in part:
“It is purely an economic decision,” said Ramsey.
The city administrator makes $26,930 more a year than the deputy city administrator, he said.
By reducing the top heavy administration, the city can save the $101,651 by eliminating the deputy city administrator’s salary, Ramsey said.
Since he has been mayor, “we have cut 11 positions, but not from leadership,” he said.
It will help keep taxes in line and pay for the $1.5 million debt on the municipal center, Ramsey said.
After reading the city charter, Ramsey said he realized he was being derelict in his duties.
The charter says “the mayor shall study the operations of the city government and recommend desirable changes and improvements to the council,” he said.
If either of the two lead administrators should go, it would best be the deputy, just as with sheriffs in the John Wayne or Randolph Scott films, the deputy is the more expendable, the lesser experienced, the one less relied upon. As noted in the reporting, eliminating the Deputy City Administrator would eliminate 1/5-th of the mayor's target half-million dollars to be hacked out of expenditures. And if Landform expense goes too, the need for liaison with Landform disappears and that would likely be the full five hundred thousand target met that way. There could be a win-win result, without sacrificing the very topmost talent level on staff, and without reliable key department heads imperiled.
Not looking stupid: There's a reason the old saying about cutting off the nose to spite the face has lasted. To cut a skilled and respected leader as Kurt Ulrich is, would add to the already prevalent metro-wide perception of Ramsey as a dysfunctional city. To hold onto the egregiously expensive and unproductive Landform situation, while cutting staff precipitously, would be an even worse proof of dysfunctionality, and indicative of wholly unsound judgment prevailing at the council table.
Would any potential developer put cash, in today's times, at risk in Ramsey with that kind of poor leadership? Would you? Of course not. This stuff defeats the goal of trying to look appealing as a town in which time and money might be invested.
______________FURTHER UPDATE____________
About not looking stupid. The dumbest thing I heard last night at either the work session or at the televised meeting was at the work session, the mayor saying, with regard to comparative data between Ramsey and other cities in the metro area, "I don't care about other cities."
The man does not want to be bothered by objective data, to confront actual comparative truth, in favor of ham-handed autocracy and admiring his own pontificating. He's mayor. Only one of seven on council. Not Pontiff. There was no puff of smoke with his selection. Nobody appointed him base commander, because this is not a military garrison but a city.
There seems an almost spoiled brat foot-stomping dimension to, "I don't care about other cities."