It is informative, and "speaks for itself." Only two separate items, of many, will be quoted. First, the article's ending:
Retail view
As a retailer in the COR, Coborn’s manager Vicki Wredberg does not see a lot happening in the project.
Coborn’s has seen a 5 percent increase in its customer base every year, at least until the Sunwood Drive project stalled the growth, she said.
The COR needs to continue to bring in more people and business, but there is not much going on beyond the SuperAmerica project, Wredberg said.
[bolding in original, italic emphasis added]
Next, mid-article, before the previous quote:
PSD, which is focused on land sales, developed and owns The Ramsey Office Plaza and the Veterans Administration Clinic building.
Projects on former PSD land include the Allina Medical Clinic, the Midwest Medical Examiner’s office and the NAU Insurance Company,
[...] It is easier for Landform to push projects because it is in the front line as a city representative, said Matt Kuker, PSD assistant manager.
The bad publicity the city has received on its council and the COR project has also impacted at least one PSD sale.
One company walked away and gave the council’s dysfunction as the reason, according to [... Jim Deal, PSD LLC owner].
“Companies are a little afraid to jump because of all the bad publicity,” Deal said.
The Armstrong Boulevard overpass needs to be done for the COR to spark development, he said.
Big box businesses have told him not to call until after the interchange is in, he said.
There is also the safety issues caused by the rail line, Kuker said.
Deal said the city needs to employ a transportation expert, such as it had when it hired Elwyn Tinklenberg to work on the rail station funding.
[italics added].
What work is being referenced, by Tinklenberg, on the rail station funding?
Is the claim that Tinklenberg played a role in the actual final building of the recently completed Ramsey stop; or is the reference to earlier but unsuccessful work by Tinklenberg years earlier, during the Pawlenty governorship?
As to Tinklenberg and his business, "Tinklenberg Group," am I the only one who gets a 403 error trying to access the site:
http://www.tinklenberggroup.com/
Reader comment on that would be appreciated. It is possible that, as a Tinklenberg critic, my access to the sight may have been blacklisted by the site webmaster, presumably not without Tinklenberg instruction or consent (screen capture):
[red text added] Is anyone else getting that "403 Access is denied" message? (It would be a point of pride, an endorsement of sorts, if I alone got blacklisted by the Tinkster.)
It appears that for some time now Tinklenberg has not been getting his name mentioned much in the press; perhaps dating back to the Oberstar CD 8 reelection loss. So did he play a role in the current Ramsey Northstar stop arrangements, and if so, what exactly did he do, and who hired him to do it and paid him consulting fees, if any? And - who did he deal with on the financing provider end of things?
The Sakry report does not explore that.
The public deserves to know such information. It is not serving the best public interest if Tinklenberg played a role in that present Northstar expansion financing situation, and then full detail of any such role is hidden under a hat.
____________UPDATE____________
I can see Jim Deal approving some Tinklenberg activity, e.g., Highway 10 mapping, this image, from here:
Itmes 36, 37, and 38 (with item 36 being most interesting in its history, including escrow closing statements) would probably, if on Facebook, collectively get a Jim Deal "like" badging. At a guess.
It is a blind guess that the linked item might relate to Jim Deal's positive recollections of Elwyn Tinklenberg's transportation consultancy history re Ramsey and the "TH10/169 Corridor Coalition," with a major interesting consideration being how exactly Tinklenberg ingratiated himself into things to attain consultancy dollars. See also, here and here. Presuming those links work, look for mention of year "2012" prescience in the second of those two items (hint, p.2). [UPDATE: The last two links were unfortunately to the same item. Interested readers should explore the agenda and minutes for meetings in the January 2008 time frame. The error was left as is.]
On those two items, again, why Tinklenberg, what was the RFP and bidding history to his being retained as a Ramsey consultant well before the Landform consultancy now in place?
Have we as a city learned anything from the two consultancies, Tinklenberg and Landform, or is there to be a flat learning curve shown when the new council is seated in January?
We wait. We see.