Locally Grown

The DNC is history. The RNC begins on Monday.

What’s to like and dislike (speeches, spectacle, etc. ) about them both?

I took the photo of Contented Cow proprietor Norman Butler doing the Uncle Sam bit yesterday, promoting his pub’s Candidate Meet and Greet series for the Northfield mayoral/City Council primary.

The first in the series of three is tonight, 6-8 pm. See Politics and a Pint moderator Bruce Morlan’s blog post for details.

Brendon Etter met with me in a Carleton College conference room on Tuesday morning just above the school’s bookstore, where he works. Etter, also a playwright, said he would accept the position of mayor if elected, but calls his satire-infused campaign “political theater.” I attempted to keep a neutral tone during the interview, as did Joshua Rowan who accompanied me as a camera operator. I fear a giggle or two escaped. Still, in all seriousness, Northfield’s city government could improve, according to Etter, if citizens and officials were willing to laugh more.

Brendon Etter Platform from Bonnie Obremski on Vimeo.

Mayoral candidate Dave Hvistendahl on the CIP.

I drove by the Grand this morning and noticed the marquee. And then I noticed the poster on the wall at the entrance to the GBM. And then when I checked my email, I got this from Union of Youth (NUY) Exec. Director Josh Hinnencamp:

Hey Griff, I just wanted to make sure you know about the mayoral speed candi-dating event at the Grand from 2:00-4:30pm today (Sunday).

See Josh’s Youth Platform blog post on the Union of Youth blog as well as his post about today’s event on Northfield.org.

Griff just called me on the phone. He was racing down the highway in response to a Fluff Alert. I told him to slow down and I’d step up to the plate.

Here’s my swing at some fluff. US Senate candidate Al Franken (and SNL alum) was hanging at Goodbye Blue Monday this (Thursday) afternoon.

Yo Griff, if Tina Fey shows up in Downtown Northfield to campaign for Al, please give me another call.

Update 5:45 pm: More photos, submitted by Jane McWilliams, who wrote:

Ross, I caught Franken in conversations about the schools, Hager for mayor, and health care before he and his entourage walked over to The Sketchy Artist where, when I left, he was doing a sketchy candidate bit. (I couldn’t get close, but I think he was drawing blue states.) His aide said they were going next to OoLaLa and Rare Pair: Franken wanted to visit local businesses run by women! All that in beautiful downtown Northfield.

Update 9:30 PM by Griff: Robbie and I stopped by The Sketchy Artist to buy a sympathy card tonight and store owner April Ripka was nowhere to be found. However…

April’s mom, Linda Ripka and sister, Sarah Ripka were tending the store, and were quite happy to display the drawing of the United States sketched earlier in the day by Al Franken.

We got this email from attorney and Froggy Bottoms River Pub proprietor David Hvistendahl this evening:

I am mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!  I want all of you citizens of Northfield to throw open your windows and yell at the top of your lungs, I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!

Yes, I am running for mayor, and I have a serious and defined agenda.  A few of the highlights–

1.   CLEAN HOUSE AT CITY HALL.  When you want to reform a totally dysfunctional organization, you need to start at the top–the city administrator is our highest appointed official.  The buck stops with him.  Whether he is charged with criminal offenses or not, he should not a free pass for allowing our city government to wallow in mediocrity. The administration needs to reveal under whose watch the millions disappeared, and how are systems failed us.

2.   PRIORITIZE THE CITY BUILDING PROJECTS, RECYCLE AND REUSE.   The highest priority should be given to building a new police/fire complex on the MnDOT site between Woodley and Ninth Street.  The municipal liquor store should go into the present fire station, with the basement used as a warehouse.  A freight elevator can move the product to the first floor, where it can be high stacked.  The police offices should be recycled for use by the Chamber, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the NDDC.  The present Muni could be recycled as a home for the youth groups, such as the Union of Youth, and youth service organizations.

The hockey arena is an embarrasment to the city, and spending $1.4 million on it will not make it any less of an embarrasment.  We need a convention center large enough to hold two sheets of ice.  The project can be made affordable by negotiating with one of the colleges a land lease in exchange for ice time and use and by expanding our tax base.

3.   CHANGE LOCATION OF THE SKATEBOARD PARK AND ESTABLISH PRIORITIES FOR THE PARK BOARD.  Next to considering the mayor’s property for the location of Muni, the most dimwitted decision of this council has been to put the skateboard park at the busiest intersection in the city. Ames Park has no bathrooms and no parking.  The fact that is farther away from the  park  board  members’ homes than the  Memorial  Park location should not be the deciding factor.

4.   INCREASE THE CITY’S TAX BASE.    In order to accomplish the projects mentioned in 2 and 3, the city needs to pursue an aggressive policy of annexation to the north and west to accommodate commercial and industrial growth.  At the present rate of annexation, the signs for Exit 69 will read, “Faribault, first of six exits; also Northfield.” Just drive south from Highway 19 exit and count the miles to large industrial properties that mark Faribault’s northern most boundary.

We do not have an orderly annexation agreement with Waterford Township, so we should annex the township to give us industrial and commercial sites on Highway 3, Dakota Co. 47, and Highway 19.  Our present annexation ordinance directly conflicts with the state statute, which preempts any contrary local ordinances.  We need to bring our ordinance into conformance with the state law, which does allow annexation without the township’s permission.

More to come. . . .

I attended the DFL caucus at the Northfield Middle School last night, Ward 4 Precinct 2. Mike Mandsager was our able chair.  State Senator Kevin Dahle and State Representative David Bly made the rounds. In the presidential preference balloting, our ward voted 88 for Obama, 34 for Clinton.

Ariel Emery has a story in today’s Nfld News titled ‘Massive’ turnout for local party caucuses.

I’ve turned off comments for this post (not pingbacks, tho). Continue the discussion here.

See the album of 17 photos or this slideshow:

Newly-elected District 25 Minnesota State Senator Kevin Dahle (that links to his Senate page) has decided (wisely, IMHO) to use his WordPress campaign blog as his permanent blog, rather than a separate blogspot blog.

He’s named his blog Mr. Dahle Goes to St. Paul. We’re aggregating his blog’s RSS feed on our lower right sidebar along with a few other active civic/issue-oriented bloggers. See our Northfield Civic Blogosphere page for more.

I searched Meetup for Northfield-area groups who support the various presidential candidates but couldn’t find any.

Are there any organized gatherings yet?

If you know of any, attach a comment with the info.

1/31 update: I’ve removed Edwards and Giuliani from the blog post title since they dropped out this week.

2/9 update: I’ve removed Romney from the blog post title since he dropped out this week.

4/17: I’ve removed Huckabee and Paul from the blog post title

6/3: I’ve removed Clinton from the blog post title

Super Tuesday is coming. Here’s where to caucus in the Northfield area, 7 pm on Tuesday, Feb. 5:

Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Northfield Middle School, 2200 Division St S

Independence Party
New Prague High School, 221 12th Street N.E.

Republican Party
Northfield High School, 1400 South Division St

It’s been a long time since I’ve attended a caucus. How do Minnesota’s caucuses differ from the way the parties held caucuses in Iowa?

I’ve been following a thread I started a few days ago, “Enough of the Mayor and City Council Already“, in which I asked LG readers for suggestions about topics they’d like to discuss. I’ve made some notes as the comments unfolded, but one exchange is threatening to break out into a discussion over there, so I thought it would be best to give it a headline and keep things going here.

Carol Overland said,

. . .Energy Summit with Rep. Bill Hilty? He’s the House Energy Committee Chair who called me into his office to explain that we need more coal, just can’t do without it! That was not long after he presided over hours of CapX 2020 transmission promotional testimony and wouldn’t let me give my presentation against CapX 2020 (but hey, I got 2 or 3 minutes to testify!). That was just after he graciously gave the CapX promoters time to present AGAIN at the following committee meeting. The Committee only heard testimony of those with a contractual or employment obligation to promote CapX transmission! CapX 2020 is planned to run in the north end of SD25 (www.nocapx2020.info), the Cannon Falls meeting last month had the highest attendance of any across the state (I went to almost all of them). We sure don’t need suppression of information about CapX2020’s facilitation of new coal plants in the Dakotas at this critical juncture … sigh… well, this Summit should give him the opportunity to hear from those facing CapX 2020 in the neighborhood and learn how we can indeed do without coal!

Holly Cairns wrote,

That’s interesting, Carol. So you think Rep. Hilty meant that we should avoid sudden, economic, change? Do things slowly?

Ok, regarding the turbines: so we have electricity to our homes and DC doesn’t work as well… electrical stations at the base of every turbine would be stupid unless there was an expensive device to charge the battery faster and better than at our homes…

but let’s build turbines and have electrical cars, and have the city have a stake in renewable resource generation.

To which Carol replied,

Holly - no, I don’t think he meant doing things slowly. i think he meant what he said, I have to take at face value his statement that he supports building new coal plants (which is happening right now, they’re in permitting as we speak, it’s happening QUICKLY). he said that we “need new coal plants” and we can’t do it without coal, and that we need the transmission “for reliability” which he should know is really to do the bulk power transfer for market transactions (not regulated). To me, that means that he does not support change, and he said he supports more coal. He was not interested in how it can be done without coal, not in the least, he wanted to deliver a lecture on the need for coal! These new coal plants are billions and billions of dollars of irretrievable infrastructure commitments to coal plants and transmission lines that last 50+ years, and would grossly increase CO2 production, not to mention serious contamination with all the associated pollution, like mercury (ummmm… we already can’t eat the fish in MN, and with more falling from new coal plants, where will we be), pollution that will NOx your SOx off. The MN 2005 Transmission Omnibus Bill opened the door for new Dakota coal plants, and the 2007 “global warming bill” did nothing to stop all these new coal plants, instead giving them an exemption if they were in the pipeline. If they build these new coal plants, all the lightbulbs in the world, all the PV installations in the world, all the wind in Buff Ridge, will not effect the necessary change. He wants to go ahead with business as usual (and therefore not make the complicated and difficult and carefully plotted out changes to do our energy differently). He’s House Energy chair providing “leadership” that is forging down the same unworkable path. Instead we/they need to be standing up and turning the battleship around (that’s the slow painful change that we must make). Every time you hear someone yapping about global warming, CO2, ask them what they are doing to effect change, what changes they are working for — go beyond the talk. On a state and federal level, energy policy is going nowhere but warmer, lots of talk, lots of generation of CO2, and they’re not walking the walk. All the Minnesota legislative gains in wind and other “renewable” generation has been connected/tied with continued or ramped up noxious generation, coal and nuclear, when what we need is NO NEW COAL, and what we need is NO TRANSMISSION THAT FACILITATES NEW COAL. And don’t even get me going on our “Green Chameleon” Governor, or what these yahoos running for president think about coal… only Edwards has come out against new coal, Obama and Clinton are coal toadies.

On the other hand, there are a few of us working hard to stop the new coal plants and we’re doing pretty well, the utilities and promotesr are dropping plans, permits are being denied, contracts lost — check out the January/Feburary issue of Orion, look for “Stopping coal in its tracks.” It can be done, we’re doing it, but I sure wish that the policy wonks and well-funded “environmental” organizations would start leading and making real change, or at least get out of the way of those of us stopping coal.

… well, you asked!!!

There’s a brief writeup on the Northfield News website: Judge Rules Against ABE in Ethanol Plant Suit; Court says zoning ordinance is OK (look for story in Wednesday’s Northfield News print edition).

In his ruling, received by the township Monday, Wolf dismissed most of the charges made by ABE. They included:

• The township exceeded its rights in legislating a comprehensive planning and zoning ordinance to prohibit ethanol production;
• The ordinance was ineffective due to the township’s failure to present the ordinance to residents for a vote; and
• The timing of adoption of the ordinance was improper, and the township failed to give adequate notice of public hearings.

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In light of all the anti-religious sentiments posted here lately, I thought I’d perform an act of community service and warn people that there are a couple of very young and adorably sincere Mormons accosting innocent citizens on Division Street this afternoon….
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Kevin Dahle was shaking hands at the GBM early this morning. (”Be sure to vote tomorrow, Griff.”) Ray Cox was shaking hands at Carleton’s Sayles-Hill student center. I’m trying to get a photo of Vance Norgaard campaigning.

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