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Friday, August 07, 2015

Cash for Tink. Perhaps a never-ending City of Ramsey saga.

ABC Newspapers online, here, "Ramsey extends Tinklenberg transportation lobbying contract -- Published August 7, 2015 at 8:00 am - By Eric Hagen, Staff Writer."

The headline about says it all, but a quick short excerpt to encourage Crabgrass readers to read the entire ABC item should be helpful:

This most recent contract extension is for July through December and will cost to city $27,000. By the end of 2015, the city of Ramsey would have spent $140,000 on lobbying contracts with Tinklenberg. This doesn’t include $5,500 spent to fly Tinklenberg, Mayor Sarah Strommen and Council Member John LeTourneau out to Washington D.C. June 10-11 to meet with U.S. senators and congressional members.

Council Members Mark Kuzma and Chris Riley supported the extension but is [sic] looking forward to the day Ramsey no longer needs Tinklenberg’s services.

“What it boils down to is the congestion on Highway 10 is really stymieing the growth effort of Ramsey because getting trucks in and out or even traffic and employees is a problem for our businesses here,” Kuzma said. “We all want to have more restaurants, more shopping and that type of stuff but before that can come, Highway 10 needs to get fixed.”

Tinklenberg organized the trip to Washington D.C. in June and will be in charge of following up with congressional members and staff in an ongoing effort to identify funding sources. [...] He hopes that Ramsey will be included in the “state bonding tour” as legislators and staff at the state capitol begin discussing projects to include in the 2016 bonding bill. He will work on organizing a Highway 10 “summit meeting” of corridor communities.

City Administrator Kurt Ulrich said Tinklenberg will provide monthly written progress reports.

“The Tinklenberg Group is a great voice for our community,” LeTourneau said. “This is about pushing a large boulder up-hill and I think he’s got us some good distance on that push.”

[highlighting of numbers added] The stuff of which legends are made.

Profits at least. If not legends.

Apart from that, and wholly unrelated, here is a link where you can research pricing at Menards for composted cattle manure. By the sackful. Premium grade. "Top-of-the-line."