Re: Anoka, preserving its heritage as a dysfunctional Weaver-run thing, this ABC Newspapers link.
Next bit of carping, try this link:
http://abcnewspapers.com/
Proof positive that change is not necessarily a good thing.
The site, previously, had a useful top banner menu, where one could be town specific in reading stuff. No longer. Some "web master" had a big-time brain fart, and felt the need to change a working thing with that need being, I guess, as compelling as the urge of Salmon to swim upstream to spawn and die. Bless them.
Readers, please voice your choice.
I sent my complaint to ABC Newspapers' local editor Peter Bodley. I hope he flows it on to whoever made this egregious decision.
peter.bodley@ecm-inc.com
If the reaction of others is as mine, and the communication of such feelings happens - if you take the time to let ABC Newspapers know, only good can result.
If you like the new arrangement better, let them know that too. But take the time to communicate however it is that you feel about the site's layout changes. If you even care.
_____________UPDATE____________
You can still search for town-specific info, by googling =
Ramsey site:http://abcnewspapers.com/
as the example of a site specific google of ABC Newspapers, for Ramsey.
Plug in another town name, get a town-specific return list for it, that way.
It's not the best of worlds to have to kludge around that way because of a web design error, but for now how it is how it is.
___________FURTHER UPDATE__________
Back to Anoka, and bricks and such, this quote from the ABC item
[Anoka Mayor Phil] Rice said he also agreed with Planning Commissioner Mark Jensen’s comment that if this type of [synthetic - not real brick] material was routinely approved, pretty soon Anoka would have a fake town with fake brick.
Perhaps Mayor Rice had Ramsey Town Center in mind, where the wood frame Flaherty big ugly thing has a brick-like facade. Is it real brick? Does any reader know what that stuff on the outside of Flaherty's structure is? Is it the "Dryvit" material that is at issue in Anoka? Or a functional equivalent? Or something else, even, possibly, real brick?
___________FURTHER UPDATE_________
From the Dryvit website, a before/after view of the product, here. All you wanted to know and more, here.
Now, consider Mayor Rice's "fake town with fake brick" critique. Is it not "fake" to keep a town from changing? With the dumpy little stuff in downtown Anoka, isn't it arguably being kept "a fake town" despite pressure to modernize?
Readers should consider the question and reach their own conclusions. To me downtown Anoka is a turn-off, and "fake" preservationism. While to me, Ramsey Town Center is "fake" from the get-go and always will be. At least the parking ramp used real concrete, but now you cannot see the ramp with Flaherty's big ugly hung all over it. All you see is the massive thing with city hall looking as if it is only Flaherty's annex.