And I call that a secondary message because their primary message was:
 |
| This is Jim Deal. PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, and give US credit for everything Jim Deal's done, yes, yes, yes. |
In case some think I overstate the lit drop's primary argument, for veterans, there is Clinic praise in Strib, and yet veterans need to know the truth about who's done what for them:
 |
| Truth is truer than Fiction. Jim Deal's PSD, LLC, villian to some, built the $3.5 million building, using Jim Deal's money and credit, not seeking or taking any public handout, renting it to the VA as the VA preferred over the Agent Smiths' bid, AND paying the property taxes every year on this addition to Ramsey tax base. |
[click that image to enlarge and read - it is educational & true]
Yet, that truth is simply missing from the Agent Smiths' lit drop. Also surprisingly missing in action, from Agents Smith:
 |
| Truth is truer than Fiction. |
____________UPDATE___________
That was the group's Ward 2 lit drop. I expect Ward 4 got a comparable one, with Buccholz lit in place of the McGlone stuff. In fairness to the others who participated in this group lit drop, it was McGlone who most adamantly pushed the villainy, PAC, PAC, PAC brand, but they were all together in the lit drop, and interestingly, none of the items had the little "union shop" printing bug.
_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
One of the biggest falsehoods in the lit drop, courtesy of the mayor, was the claim:
They [previous councils] handpicked a developer that had less than a million dollars of his own money to develop a billion dollar downtown.
The truth is John Feges as agent for the land owner/speculator folks, reeled in Nedegaard to buy the land at an outrageous price using loan proceeds he could not cover, and when you want to assign liability or fault, you have to look at the truth, which includes who the Thomaswood favorites today are:
 |
| click to enlarge and see the five signs |
Moreover, with tax liens on the land and the ability to assess against the land, the city had preserved rights against the land in the event any private sector buyer decided to make an offer to the foreclosing banks. Which for months, and months, sale notice after sale notice, never happened - no private sector entrepreneur was dumb enough to touch it, except Jim Deal might have if he could buy at a reasonable price. However, the only actual chumps to show up and blow a multimillion dollar wad of cash --- well for the names, let's go back to the post's beginning, the headline, we got this lit drop in the household ...
_____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
The current pack contends others before them made bad decisions. I cannot defend some past bad decision making, except to say it was done during boom times when expectations could be defended; while this pack is spending now well over a million dollars on Darren who has only produced Flaherty with his hand out for a not one but an entire series of subsidies. And that spending is being pushed during the worse depression we had experienced since the Great Depression, with real estate markets in particular set to take many years to rebound.
The incumbents' approach has been spend, spend, spend. I cannot believe it would be that if the spending were of their own money, rather than public dollars.
I remember well that I supported the others besides McGlone (I had expectations there, and opted to back Andre Champagne while then in Ward 1 with no Ward 2 vote). I supported Elvig over Niska, and am glad of it and would do it again.
The others I supported because they presented themselves as fiscal conservatives, and that is what I thought was needed given the financial realities of the day and how true fiscal conservatives would be expected to react.
This batch then went on to disdain the private sector and all I expected from the fiscal conservative posturing, blowing a bundle of other peoples money on playing land speculators with land that was not going to go anywhere but stay in foreclosure for years, and they threw good money after bad, without the excuse of an exuberant market to color their judgment. They just went and did it.
Call it socialism, which is what entering into public sector land speculation against private sector speculators elsewhere is, in essence. Fiscal conservatives who socialized what had been a private sector adventure, to me, were hence masquerading under false pretenses.
All the other stuff, gutting staff to the point of having no engineering department and contracting for engineering, it would have fit the promises but for no accompanying real conservatism in avoiding waste on land meanderings. Meanwhile Jim Deal was building projects on his own, using his own money, within the same boundary area as the public wastefullness on Landform commenced and continued.
The gross wastefulness is appalling. Over a million dollars spent on Landform and chasing bad ideas with money that belonged to taxpayers before it was surrendered in the hope it would be spent wisely (and instead was spent on Darren).
Giving Flaherty grotesque and unprecedented handouts. That is indefensible.
Now, having a track record over the years, is it better to hope on the incumbents, still; or on others willing to step up and govern?
We know the status quo, and my total heartfelt and reasoned answer, is vote this cabal of bad judgment upon bad judgment ad infinitum out of office ASAP, and try somebody else.
I do not know what others once elected may do, but this band now holding sway, those I can read and anticipate, and enough is enough.
Indeed, too much already is too much. The election, then January, cannot come soon enough, in hope of voters having the good sense to vote for reform of the status quo.
____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Bob Ramsey, if my understanding is correct, was not around here when the unfortunate step of the Town Center land being sold to Nedegaard happened, and has no basis to make his "handpicked" claim.
Bob should talk to Tammy Sakry, who talked to James Norman shortly after his relationship with Ramsey was severed, when he admitted Nedegaard was "chosen" because he was the only chump to step forward, they knew he was likely too thin to have success, and once the hook was set and the land speculators bought out the "finalization" of the Northstar stops was done where the "transit oriented" experiment was set to proceed, without the transit. It was a shell game.
James Norman along with Feges and the Feges folks were the first to advance the "catalyst" spiel.
Build the above-need city hall, and it will anchor and catalyze Nirvana. Not so, obviously.
Nedegaard was strung out, and failed, and did so a bit before the housing collapse, although it was not admitted during the incumbents running in the 2006 election. After that election, within weeks, Nedegaard was served bankruptcy papers and croaked.
Now the hand picking, that was this group, with Lazan/Landform. It is incorrect to accuse others of what you yourself do.
The idea shifted from encourage the private sector to do it, to build dense housing satisfying Met Council quotas and to attract "nice shoppes and restaurants," a colossal lie from the start, with a little Ramsey Crossings across Armstrong mixed in for laughs. The developers laughed, none biting to where a hook was set on the Crossroads. So this batch, the NEXT BIG THING idea, we bribe people to come in site by site, compromise and subsidize, SAC and WAC that are humongous charges for single family detached homes get compromised, and if not "bribing" people to come and build stuff, call it "enticing" and "public, private parthership," the ubiquitous P3, in Darren-Nelson-speak. BS3, in my book. It is good that Nelson has left, and we wish her well. It would be the same with Darren.
So, the first failed thing - Nedegaard undercapitalized, a small fish but all that would bite.
The second thing - buy the junk, hire a consultant and "believe" as if it is your new religion, and it will happen much as in the Field of Dreams film. Just as dumb. The catalyst is the vastly subsidized Flaherty mistake, and Darren gets a commission there so it's not all bad.
Stupid on the first go. Stupid on the second. The mop-up question remains. Where do we go from here?
Sticking with Darren is what Darren recommends. Who else? Those who have taken on the belief. Darren says there is vast money that can be made, he has an understanding, and a dashboard.
Somebody says, "Well, Jim Deal is getting stuff built." He then, by succeeding, becomes an enemy of the belief system that Darren's way is THE WAY, and he is demonized and those suggesting he's simply smarter and more experienced than Darren are blasphemers, and what, we citizens are supposed to scale walls and defend the Prophet of Landform from those who would undermine the tight belief system?
McGlone's brewed and drank the lion's share of that koolaid, and Look, and together they have convinced Bob Ramsey to partake. It's failed, big time. Flaherty would likely deny that, but what's a few hundred hutch rentals by the busy tracks, night trains and all, going to do for me, in a single family detached home on a street of the same, on septic tanks and wells, miles from Clown Center, and happily so. It is going to produce more traffic. More lights. What else? Zippo.
So who do you vote for when those are truth? You decide. I think I have suitably debunked the "Jim Deal is a devil, PAC, PAC, PAC" stupidity, probably spending more time and effort on that than it, as an idea, deserves. As propaganda, it ain't bad, and McGlone, Look, and Bob Ramsey have done a better propaganda job than I expected of them.
Bob Ramsey, his lit drop item propagates the McGlone fear/loath the PAC, PAC, PAC, PAC, garbage; along with showing a genetic DNA with Look's item; where both use the same blue background where if you look closely you can see images of what must be intended to be patriots in powdered wigs; suggesting some tie to traditions and cherished icons, if you vote Look, if you vote Ramsey. It's where first you see the shade of blue is identical, then it looks like a textured background, then you have to look really closely to see the founding father array of images, something like closely examining a bill to assure it's not counterfeit.
Joe Field, he's a Republican party officer at the senate district level and at the CD6 level, as a county liaison, so you expect a stable mate to the remainder of the lit drop participants. Then, Joe, tell me. Why does every Anoka County political wannabe, especially of the Republican vaiety, feel compelled to present a photo of himself holding a fish?
I credit Harry Niska, of the Niska spouses of the chairmanship of Senate District Republicans, and the chairpersonship of the CD6 Republicans. Harry actually ran without presenting citizens a photo of him holding a fish. Also, he lost by 47 votes including the three from this household, but I doubt presence or absence of a fish mattered. Not at all to this household, not, apparently, to the other 44. That election Elvig did not use a fish photo either, although earlier he paid pisces dues, with big Muskies. First time he ran for council. Pisces must be the patron constellation of Anoka County, or some such. I suppose you cannot hold a moose up to the camera for a photograph, while a fish is scaled better. Something like that.
And folks, we have a prizewinner ----
I always see that, and think, I'd rather vote for the fish. Less mischief to it. All these fish-photo folks probably fit the joke. Their worse haunting nightmare is they die and the wife sells their fishing equipment for what they told her they paid for it.
UPDATE: Allison Lister, no fish. As close to Dennis Berg as Matt to his Muskellunge. Berg did well during his years on the County Board. Many respect his judgment.
In contrast - Can you respect any fish dumb enough to be caught? By a politician? I respect the ones that spit the hook and get away.
LAST UPDATE: The DNR website has this to say about a Muskellunge -
A muskie will eat fish and sometimes ducklings and even small muskrats. It waits in weed beds and then lunges forward, clamping its large, tooth-lined jaws onto the prey. The muskie then gulps down the stunned or dead victim head first.
Help me -- Why does that make me think of a Bain Capital corporate takeover?