For those interested in limiting government action by the "public purposes" doctrine, a link to a Minnesota court case from decades ago. Also, SSRN has a very recent 33 page paper you can download, on topic, suggesting, "[...] that such exercise of governmental power through the operation of economic enterprises should be evaluated under a more robust form of judicial review according to the following principles: (1) Protecting private enterprise from governmental economic enterprise activities, (2) protecting the public purse from speculative and inefficient governmental operation of economic enterprises, and (3) preventing official self-aggrandizement in the course of establishing or operating government economic enterprises."

The SSRN paper download page is here, while the abstract can be read via this screen capture [click the thumbnail to enlarge and read]:

Indeed, a 33 page argument that can be abstracted as simply as 1, 2, 3, and then fleshed out. In ways where readers might agree or disagree.

Each of the three points is interesting in and of itself, as well as being part of a short list. Below is a page from a Town Center pdf-format brochure prepared during Landform days in Ramsey. Prepared in 2012. The year of the last election in Ramsey before the one coming this November. It is from a document many may not know exists (with the reader challenge being to find it online and if you find it, leave a comment stating where you found it).

Readers are free to link the above-noted two items and the three-point list in their minds as they may wish.

Not forgotten, here is the Minnesota court case link. It is informative, and a belief is that the case outcome and its judicial reasoning, as subsequent decisions have built on the case, has been one of several factors that have energized certain arguably bad directions town councils in Minnesota have taken ever since.