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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

RAMSEY - Yesterday there was a Work Session and Council Meeting to which I paid inadequate attention.

The work session looked at page after page after page of boring budget stuff, but it is where the money is taken, where the money goes, so the link is here. A long multimegabyte pdf doc download. But better than the hypertext format sometimes used, chopping stuff up vs having it all in a single sequential easy-reading format. Better the big pdf file.

Work session news, the current econ development staff person, Ted LaFrance, has resigned and staff recommends giving Patrick Brama a new job title, greater responsibilities, and a likely higher salary in line with the other stuff. The alternative staff did not recommend was to not fill the vacancy, to cease having the job function. I'd not dismiss that possibility too easily or too promptly, but Brama has proven to be sound and should well handle enlarged responsibility. Not my decision. Same link as before, after the near-interminable pages of charts and numbers. For convenience, these screen captures (click the thumbnail images to enlarge and read - two pages of gov-speak to say give the guy a promotion):


Leaving the work session agenda without mention of salacious nanny state stuff might bother some "nanny state dislikers except for setting townwide moral constraints ..." readers, (council candidates or whatever); hence, this screen capture (same above link):



The main televised meeting agenda was a whopping 381 pages long, really, (snow in August), a bigger download file than some movies, and given that, the link is here. No screen capture. It is always hard to tell without study what might be hidden in the consent agenda, or within vague wording of the leading index pages of the full agenda. That was a big time problem during James Norman days, with less cause for suspicion that way with Kurt. Those on council going through all that load of stuff, they have my respect for tenacity, I am glad it is not my duty.

Download that humongo file and read to your heart's content, if you care. We have to trust the elected people to not pull any fast ones, don't we, and watching the televised meetings is tedious. At least they televise the formal in-chamber meeting stuff while declining to televise work sessions or EDA meetings where business fiscal favors can be reviewed and approved for doling out (to none but the deserving, of course).