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| UPDATE: A reader said I should clarify, Facebook button links do not work in a screen capture, in case anyone is confused. |
Among other things, we know young Nathan, wearing his colors, does NOT like "feminists" or "lukewarm Christians."
(Pop the latter in the microwave kid, give 'em a few minutes, warm 'em up ...)
One wonders, that shirt he's wearing in the above screen capture, what's it say on the back?
(Not really: That was likely a different shirt, another place, another time. But same Wayne.)
UPDATE: That sidebar thing. Surely the young gentleman can dress for success as he sees fit. The point, he is not the candidate, Wayne is, but the family posts the picture with a clear intention per the commentary, "Great picture," "Thank You." Then the site's scrubbed? What does all that together say? To you, not to mention to "feminists" and to "lukewarm Christians," that presumably being Christians who are less judgmental (Matthew 7, 1-5 or so).
JUDGMENTAL vs. LIVE-AND-LET-LIVE: This ABC Newspapers story, "Adult bookstore along Highway 10 in Ramsey razed as new Fantasy’s store opens," (By Eric Hagen - August 9, 2013), is linked to on the Buchholz campaign website. It shows a contention that Buchholz family judgments might, if on council, get in the way of success or failure of an entirely lawful business; one unobtrusively sited unlike the xxx bookstore was, where if you don't want or need anything from there don't shop, and if others do shop there, it's not your business.
If the community, by market dynamics unassisted by bluenoses, provides insufficient business, then the store the family dislikes will fail, while if market dynamics favor its continuation in business, that means the community supports it sufficiently that interference from the city council table would be an inappropriate infringement on the general shopping rights of others.
The term used frequently by right-wingers, "Nanny state," comes to mind.
Is that what the City Council is for? Moral policing of the community's likes and dislikes? Not as far as my vote went, (already, "absentee" under the new, nice no fault early convenience voting standards).
Beyond all that, the old xxx store along Highway 10, it was an eyesore, but it never factored once in my quiet enjoyment of aspects important to me in my living in Ramsey. Not once. It was a total non-factor. Not a burden. Not my concern. Not my fretting and moaning.
FURTHER UPDATE: Those caring to read the ABC item from months ago, and the comment thread, will see dots connecting Matt Look in county government with things Buchholz's comments discuss. With such shared contact (beyond Look's business venture printing election goods for Buchholz), Look doubtlessly told Wayne about how when he, Look, was on council and the remaining distressed Town Center land in foreclosure, it was Look's bright idea for the city to buy it out of hock when they did as if there was an urgency, because the county was then poised to be able to foreclose on the basis of unpaid county taxes. Yet, Buchholz in the comment thread, among "smut" assertions, wrote:
It’s too bad that another smut store will be coming into the City of Ramsey right behind the OUTPOST Bar and Grill. Our City Council wasted our tax dollars again, as this store was $60,000.00 behind in County taxes and missed their 2nd notice. So we didn’t need to buy this as the County would have taken it over for back taxes. And yes the County did advise the City of this before they purchased it.
So it is the Look-Buchholz team criticizing a step that is exactly what Look earlier engineered on a far greater scale from the Ramsey council table while bragging of it on Facebook. That earlier deal was for millions in buying the Town Center dream rather than hundreds of thousands to clean a blighted property. Look's intent was to see that the town could compete as developers with the private sector. Landform was hired when Look was on council - before he moved on and before any chickens came home to roost.
BOTTOM LINE: It is most curious, that the criticism is being leveled, by who it is, in the way it is, against what was done recently, in light of what was done previously but for a ton more money AND a lot of consequent distress.
At least in this latest instance Jungbauer with his Landform business card does not have his nose in things.
For the record back when Town Center's remaining distressed land was purchased, and later until Look moved to the county board, a strong voting majority bloc existed, Bob Ramsey, McGlone, Look, and Elvig being steady supporters of taking on the risk of things. The very first Landform hiring, right after the purchase of the distressed property closed, was strongly opposed by Dehen, then on council, and Jeffrey, history proving them right. Crabgrass, July, 2010 posted:
Look even stated to a reporter [Sakry, Anoka County Union, 29Jul09] that leaving some on council in the dark until the thing was sprung on them was a premeditated consideration:
While he can understand the concerns of his fellow council members, open meeting laws kept them from having everyone at the Landform presentation [held for some, prior to the July 14, 2009 decision making], said Couincilmember Matt Look.
For projects less than $50,000, the city does not have to go out for RFPs, he said.
[...] Sakry in the July 29, 2009 item further reported:
"It's time the city started taking the bull by the horns and it's going to take some money [to Landform] to get the ball rolling," Look said.
While LSA Design's work has been exemplary and it has found a lot of gratns for the city, he does not know if it is qualified to do some of the things that Landform can, said Elvig.
"Twenty-three thousand dollars is a small bite. There is a sense of urgency (to the project) now that the city owns (RTC)," he said.
He does not know if the city could afford the time the RFP process would take, Elvig said.
Dehen disagreed with Elvig on the sense of urgency.
It could be done in two weeks, he said.
[bracketed commentary added, parenthetical material in original] [...]
Moreover, if the county were to foreclose on unpaid xxx bookstore county property taxes as a senior encumbrance to city unpaid taxes, if any, presumably a foreclosure sale by the county would have extinguished city unpaid tax claims so that the city purchase, in each instance, served to avoid a junior encumbrance of city tax liens being extinguished. Or that is a guess; go ask a lawyer. Buchholz's comments ignore that aspect of things although it was argued "back then" by Look and Bob Ramsey, that city lien extinguishment was a consideration. This is policy debate, not stud poker, a game where some of the cards are deliberately held off the table in order to make it a game.
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FURTHER UPDATE: Being informed that Look really wanted the xxx store bought and ended while Buchholz disagreed with the purchase as a sound use of Ramsey public funds, and having no cause to discredit that communication, I go with it and with Look and Buchholz disagreeing and not being in concert. Great theories, meeting actual facts, is how progress is made when the theories are either abandoned or expanded to include the counterexample. The theory now is that Look and Buchholz get along fine, but disagreed on this instance. Good theory fits facts.
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FURTHER UPDATE: The term that comes to mind on that entire Fantasy-store tempest in a TEA pot, something of an archaic usage, but, "a scold."
There was a blog for quite some time, "The Cucking Stool."
It related to the common scold concept in our English law heritage. Properly enough the author published often about Katherine Kerstin, who drove him up the wall like fingernails on a chalkboard.
This concern about Fantasy is being the town scold, over "smut."
Not a major crusade, but he feels the need to intercede.
(Nathan in his tee shirt is being a scold too. Dressing code of a scold.)
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FURTHER UPDATE:
With primary election day less than a week away, and Ramsey's one open at large seat the only local council seat in contention, (but only one seat in seven). The vote count will define two candidates to continue to November. After the primary Ward 3 voters will learn more about their ward choice. It is a ward having dense newer housing to the south and at its northern boundaries and going southward for a fair extent, there are longer established neighborhoods. How that will play out will depend on how the two ward candidates present themselves and define thinking toward the range of demographics. Not residing there, not having a vote, that contest up to November's election will happen without much input to readers here.
Five of the seven council seats will be unchanged, with incumbent Jill Johns running unopposed in Ward 1.
The current at-large contest has four candidates, none of whom would be somehow disastrous if holding office. Towberman ran previously and was a low vote getter, and likely will not survive the primary. Williams has a recent EDA background, where a sampling of minutes show her arriving late on occasion and saying little. She would be the most in line with the current council, (it having two recent EDA persons, LeTourneau and Riley, already at the council table and remaining on the seven member EDA).
Continuity and council unanimity likely would be greatest with Williams.
Whether that is a goal or a worry is for voters to decide.
Of the remaining two, Buchholz is closest to McGlone-Bob Ramsey period players, but held no office than and cannot be charged with any errors made, nor can he claim credit for accomplishments. His Adds-Box campaigning card and his web publishing show he is not emphasizing that tie-in to past actions, and that is a fair step. Buchholz, if elected, would be an independent voice added to the council. More so than would be likely with Williams.
Hendriksen has a record of independent judgment and hard work from his past council term and his long efforts on the planning commission. Then it was "Planning and Zoning," meaning a background also in land use matters and familiarty with the yin and yang of comprehensive planning. He served during the James Norman period of administration, and earlier, and Kurt Ulrich is several cuts above the James Norman approach from which Hendriksen learned so that mistakes in style and policy by Norman, dating back then, would be unlikely to be repeated if Hendriksen gains the at-large seat. Hendriksen served when Margaret Connelly, Mayor Gamac, Susan Anderson, Jerry Zimmerman on the then five-member council - with his tenure overlapping with - others.
Those were perhaps more contentious times than now, where harmony among those not leaving the council seems apparent. Hendriksen did not avoid the fray. He had policy beliefs that many believe sound, and he did all he and Jerry Zimmerman could both aim to do on planning board and council, to see the town follow his view of a Ramsey growth pattern entailing more than bedroom-community status and instead promoting a sound and strong business base providing local quality jobs. That in a nutshell is my understanding of his thoughts and past effort. And he brings a background of owning and running an Anoka County small business for over fifteen years until it was successfully sold to allow his retirement. He shares retired status with Buchholz, each being less limited in terms of other time demands when service on council is a time-demanding task.
Nobody aside from Hendriksen at the genesis times of Town Center was more of a skeptic, in the best sense, thinking always of the cost and risks and possibilities from the start that things might not turn out to be as quick an unqualified success as some at that time spoke and thought. Hendriksen questioned priorities and challenged some Met Council planning dogma at a time when a Town Center Task Force had been formed to propagandize and promote the concept and "dream" to any citizens then remaining skeptical. He questioned whether the land some advocated, even on council, for a Town Center smart growth opportunity might have a higher and better use for the citizens of Ramsey, job-wise, even then suggesting that if such a development were to be inevitable it might better be located further west along Highway 10, west of Armstrong. Things happened as they did, not as they might have, so such things now clearly are moot, but indicative of what might be expected if Hendriksen gains the at-large seat as new matters arise. Diversity of viewpoint is always an advantage. And Hendriksen's viewpoint was that of a pragmatic business operator, not one grounded on ideological preconceptions.
Transparency was greater when Hendriksen was on council and council work sessions were televised. That changed shortly after his term ended and it has been the case that work sessions have since remained untelevised.
Hendriksen is on record as favoring switching back to televising them. I agree with that policy, and would myself go further - the EDA meets without any broadcast yet they do much future-oriented things, and decide matters of business subsidy. While not meeting behind closed doors (which would breach open meeting law); the EDA nonetheless remains untelevised in all of their deliberations. The Park Board is televised. Not the EDA. That seems an odd balance. Moreover, EDA business subsidy proposals often get to council in the consent agenda, not as items for review and debate during council broadcasts.
EDA deliberations and actions are high-impact, and should be televised. Transparency is greatest that way, and the likelihood of such a change to broadcasting EDA meetings would seem greatest if Buchholz or Hendriksen wins the seat.
So while any of the four could credibly be on council without the city falling to ruin, it is a city wide seat where everyone voting in the primary must, from whatever knowledge base they hold, decide who should be expected to do the job best.
A part of that judgment will be whether continuity and consistency on council is best, or whether one of the two differing but more independent candidates, Buchholz or Hendriksen, would be the better choice (Towberman being discounted as an unlikely primary survivor). Nine-thirty or ten o'clock the evening of August 12th, will be an interesting time to see uncertainty resolved as to the two continuing candidates.
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