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By Griff Wigley, on May 15, 2012, 8:03 am
 Saturday’s Northfield News carried a front page story titled Concerns arise over Fire Department expenses; Northfield officials fear funding is going toward non-firefighting expenses. (The headline used for the online version: Ethical questions arise over Northfield Fire Relief Association expenses.)
 I’ve done four fire department/association-related blog posts since January (here, here, here, and here) as well as a three more on attorney David Hvistendahl (here, here, and here) who’s representing the fire and rescue squad associations. It’s a complex and constantly evolving issue.
So it’s really helpful to have a someone else, in this case, Northfield News reporter Suzy Rook, digging into the story, too. And for the first time, the paper cited Locally Grown (twice) in a story:
Fire Department officials, including Fire Chief Gerry Franek, did not respond to several requests from the News for association financial records or comment. Assistant Fire Chief Tom Nelson at an April 24 City Council meeting said documents posted on the blog Locally Grown are 2010 and 2011 relief association check registers. But those registers don’t clearly state how and where monies were spent, and are likely a listing of transactions from several accounts compiled into a single document…
The association had a net revenue of $14,263 in 2011, according to a Gambling Control Board report to the Legislature. Of that, $4,110 was used for what’s termed lawful purpose expenditures. In 2010, its net receipts were $17,730. Of that, $8,354 was used for lawful expenditures. Figures provided to the state Gambling Control Board don’t match the association’s 2010 tax return, a document Assistant Fire Chief Tom Nelson says he provided Locally Grown. According to that document, the association lost $2,209 in 2010.
I appreciate that. Follow Suzy Rook on Twitter @rooksuzy.
By Griff Wigley, on May 14, 2012, 7:32 am
I’m appreciative of Northfield’s media organizations who have been very helpful in drawing attention to Tuesday night’s (May 15) information meeting for the new Cannon Valley Mountain Bike Racing Team for area high school students.
   
Northfield News reporter Jordan Osterman: Northfield high school mountain bike team forming
KYMN News Morning Show host Jeff Johnson: Griff Wigley and Peter Behm on C.V. Mountain Bike Racing (blog post with streaming audio). Alternate: download/listen to MP3. (Peter Behm is a student at ARTech.)
Northfield Patch reporter Michael Garlitz: Cannon Valley Biking Team Pedaling Toward Starting Line
One point Wigley stresses when talking about forming the team is that the activity is open to girls, as well as boys.
“The big push nationally is to get girls involved,” he said. “And, there is an incentive for having girls on your team. Points earned by girls are worth more, which helps in recruiting.
Can’t make the May 15 meeting? Area student-athletes who are interested can now fill out a form on the CVMTBT website to be kept informed on next steps on the team’s formation.
By Griff Wigley, on May 10, 2012, 7:29 am
  
When the May 2012 issue of the Northfield Entertainment Guide (PDF) hit the streets last week, I noticed a typo on the cover. "GIRLS NITE OUT Saturday, May 11" says the text. Of course, May 11th (tomorrow) is Friday. I had the pleasure yesterday of informing NEG publisher Rob Schanilec (By All Means Graphics) about it. He groaned, "That’s not a typo. I would call that an error."
I could empathize. Last week when I blogged the flyer for the mountain bike racing team information night at the high school, I put ‘Wednesday’ instead of ‘Tuesday.’ Judy Becker, Facilities Scheduler at Community Ed, alerted me to the error. I fixed the flyer and the blog entry and thanked her. A few minutes later, she alerted me again. "Tuesday is the 15th, not the 17th. Are you looking at an April calendar?" Um, no, I wasn’t. I thought I heard her say, "Well then, what are you smoking?"
For all the GNO details, see Jessica Paxton’s blog post on Northfield.org: Don’t Miss the 6th Annual Girls Nite Out — this Friday, May 11! You can also follow Girls Nite Out on Facebook.
See my 2009, 2008, and 2007 photo albums for a bit of GNO flavor.
By Griff Wigley, on May 9, 2012, 8:07 am
By Griff Wigley, on May 4, 2012, 7:38 am
 I attended a free basic bike maintenance class at Just Food Co-op last night. Northfielder Ben Witt, proprietor of Milltown Cycles in Faribault, teaches the class once or twice a year. Last night he was assisted by his sweetie, Meg Jensen Witt, Just Food Co-op’s wellness manager.
Ben has class participants do some hands-on learning: changing a flat tire, lubing cables, and how to handle the rear derailleur to make it easy to take the rear wheel off and put it back on. Cool.
See the large slideshow of 17 photos (recommended) or this small slideshow:
By Griff Wigley, on April 29, 2012, 11:35 pm
By Griff Wigley, on April 28, 2012, 11:46 pm
   
I noticed yesterday that dozens of new trees had been planted along South Highway 3, from the rodeo grounds to Jefferson Parkway. I then noticed that the Nfld News had an article about it, Tree planting along Hwy. 3 in Northfield nearly finished and so I headed over to the blog at Knecht’s Nurseries and Landscaping where Deb Knecht has the story, The Greening of Northfield:
Last year, the Northfield Garden Club’s President – Mrs. EdDee Imm, helped the City secure a MnDOT grant for $10,000 to be used to beautify the City. It was determined that one of the areas that needed “help” the most was along the Hwy 3 corridor from the Cannon River to Jefferson Parkway.
EdDee approached us regarding the trees. The City of Northfield and the Northfield Garden Club, in a cooperative effort, purchased the 64 trees from us and we donated all of the labor and other materials used to plant the trees. Each year we give back to the City of Northfield with donations and this year, it is the Hwy 3 beautification project. This donation amounted to $4,000 in labor, equipment costs and materials.
The Garden Club also has received funds to be used to cover the costs of watering these trees for two years which is a commitment under the grant. We will be working with the Garden Club on keeping these trees well watered for the next two years!
Our crew – Jim Westlund, Todd Marnie & Ben Danielson planted these trees which consisted of Elms, Maple, Hackberry, Birch, Crabapples and Oak trees. Once again we are very pleased to have the opportunity to give something back to the community that supports our business each and every year.
Hmmm. Is this a case of LoGro trademark infringement?
By Griff Wigley, on April 27, 2012, 11:55 am
 As far as I know, the HideAway Coffeehouse and Wine Bar is still the only eating and drinking establishment in downtown Northfield to offer sidewalk dining, including serving wine and beer.
I stopped by to chat with co-owner Jim Spaulding earlier today and I asked him why others had not tried it. The ordinance has been on the books since 2008. He didn’t know and neither do I.
See all the sidewalk dining-related blog posts going back to 2006.
By Griff Wigley, on April 24, 2012, 12:09 pm
 I just blogged about Pink Posh Boutique opening soon in the north side of the Summa Building.
While I was taking photos, another grinning proprietor announced to me that he just leased the south side, most recently occupied by Tea Creations but most often referred to as the old Bagel Bros space.
It’ll be an art gallery in the front and a tattoo parlor in the back.
If you’re downtown-savvy, I bet you can guess who the proprietor is.
By Griff Wigley, on April 24, 2012, 11:30 am
  
I noticed Jim Bohnhoff (Bohnhoff Design) bringing a sign into the north side of the Summa Building this morning and to my surprise, discovered that a new clothing and accessories store is about to open.
Kelly Hubbard (pictured above with her mother Neva and daughter Brooklyn) will be opening Pink Posh Boutique on May 1. She’ll soon have a Facebook page up.
More background in last week’s Nfld News.
By Griff Wigley, on April 24, 2012, 6:23 am
 In case you hadn’t noticed, Northfield’s blogosphere is humming (Northfield.org here, Monkey See Monkey Read here, Just Food Co-op here) with the news that Atina Diffley of Organic Farming Works will be in town this week to speak about her new book, Turn Here Sweet Corn.
Why do I say "no bullshit" in my blog post title?
She was featured on the front page of the Strib’s Variety section last week:
and the last paragraph of the main article:
 The book deserves a wide audience, Dooley said. "I pray it doesn’t get pegged to a category. This is literature. It’s every woman’s story, about land use and food but also about resilience and being yourself." And even though Diffley finally caved to using cosmetics, she’s still very much herself, Dooley said. "There couldn’t be anyone more genuine. There isn’t a lick of bullshit in her."
I guess cuss words are aok in a family newspaper if someone is quoted using them.
Atina has at least one connection to Northfield that I know of. Her kids went to Prairie Creek Community School.
You can buy her book from Jerry Bilek at Monkey See Monkey Read bookstore in downtown Northfield.
Follow Atina on Twitter and read her blog here.
By Griff Wigley, on April 22, 2012, 7:33 am
 Last Monday, the Northfield News launched a new website using a new content management system for all its regional newspapers, putting all of them under the domain name southernminn.com. So the Northfield News site is now at southernminn.com/northfield_news (there’s an underscore between the ‘d’ and the ‘n’).
I have no problem with this change on the face of it.
Currently, none of the old articles are available. Presumably—hopefully–they will be restored in some type of online archive. But just like in Feb. 2011, the URL’s for those articles will change and the old ones will evidently not redirect. Last year, I wrote to Publisher Sam Gett:
At Locally Grown, we have linked to hundreds of your articles over the years and now, none of the those links work any longer. As you know, we drive a lot of traffic to your site. (And likewise, our discussions benefit from your content.) So it seems like you’d want to continue to maintain the old URL’s, if for no other reason than to continue generating pageviews.
I never heard back. So I again wrote to him early last week, resending that paragraph. He said he’d look into it, but I’ve not heard back.
And this morning, if you go to NorthfieldNews.com, you don’t even get redirected to the new site. Instead, you end up at a GoDaddy.com page that says:
Want to buy this domain? Our Domain Buy Service can help you get it. This page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com
See the above screenshot. This may be a temporary situation, an oversight on someone’s part, but it’s certainly startling.
Lastly, the changeover also removed all previous usernames and comments. People are being asked to re-register. I’ve never like the paper’s policy of allowing anonymous comments so I don’t consider this a great loss. But it’s indicative that they don’t value their readers’ comments either.
By Jerry Bilek, on April 13, 2012, 6:13 am
When I Was a Child I Read Books
 “Author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Gilead, Robinson weighs in with a series of tightly developed essays, some personal but mostly more general, on the Big Themes: social fragmentation in modern America, human frailty, faith. Her project is a hard-edged liberalism, sustained by a Calvinist ethic of generosity . . . In these times of the ever-ascending religious right, in the aftermath of what she sees as the ideologically secularist-driven cold war, Robinson bravely explores the corrosive potion of ‘Christian anti-Judaism’ and what it really ought to mean to be ‘a Christian nation.’”—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“The indomitable Marilynne Robinson radiates genius in her collection of essays.” —Vanity Fair
Ever since the 1981 publication of her stunning debut,Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam—in which she reflected on her Presbyterian upbringing, investigated the roots of Midwestern abolitionism, and mounted a memorable defense of Calvinism—is respected as a classic of the genre. In When I Was a Child I Read Booksshe returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.
Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our essential writers.
Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Housekeeping(FSG, 1981), Gilead (FSG, 2004), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Home (FSG, 2008), and three books of nonfiction, Mother Country (FSG, 1989), The Death of Adam (1998) and Absence of Mind (2010). She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
The book is available at Monkey See Monkey Read in downtown Northfield.
By Griff Wigley, on April 2, 2012, 11:05 pm
 
Northfielder Hans Muessig is a Director with the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities program at University of Minnesota Extension. Last week, he was the presenter for Doing business online, the first in a series of three workshops on ‘Reaching Customers in the 21st Century’ that’s sponsored by the NDDC, the EDA, the NEC, and the Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce.
See Ross Currier’s posts on his NDDC blog:
By Griff Wigley, on March 31, 2012, 11:33 pm
 
Carbone’s Pizzeria, a chain based in Minnesota, will soon be moving into 620 River Park Mall, most recently the home of 620 Grill. (Source: Norman Butler, leaseholder of the space.) When I was in high school, Carbone’s Pizza on Randolph Ave. in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul was one of my main hangouts. It’s not part of this chain, however. History here.
Their WordPress-based website looks like it’s done well. I mostly like how they’re using their blog and their Twitter feed, too.
Question #1: What are the names of Northfield’s other pizza ‘operations?’
Question #2: What are the names of the Northfield pizza places that have closed over the years?
Question #3: What other businesses in Northfield serve pizza?
Question #4: What are the names of the other restaurants that have been at the 620 River Park Mall location?
By Bridgette Hallcock, on March 29, 2012, 6:09 am
Saturday March 31st, 2012
10:00 Bunny Crafts
10:30 Easter Egg Hunt (inside if inclement weather)
This is a free event, so please join us!!
Premier Bank
112 E 5th St
Northfield, MN 55057
By Griff Wigley, on March 28, 2012, 8:13 am
 
Gooter’s opens today in the strip mall next to the Subway in Dundas. According to the Feb. 28 Dundas Messenger:
Owner, Terry Gutowski, decided to expand his ‘dough to go’ operations and start a store in Dundas. The new store will be inclusive of their huge inventory of frozen dough items, including over 50 Flavors of cookie dough, holiday cut out cookies for EVERY occasion, 40+ types of frozen bread and bun doughs, turnovers and puff pastries, natural fruit pies, pot pies, calzones, pasties, and frozen pizza dough.
For those cake decorators and bakers from scratch the store will offer a full line of cake decorating supplies, baking ingredients & over 100 bulk spices. Gooter’s buys most of their products locally, will have an Amish dry food, candy and snacks selection along with featuring one of Minnesota’s largest Gluten Free selections.
Looking for the Gooter’s website? A Google search on the words [Gooter's Dundas] has a not-so-helpful suggestion.
Update 4/7: Gooter’s Dough to Go website is now up. Nfld News article: Dundas store to offer variety of foods
Update 4/11: Robbie and I stopped by last Saturday to shop and met the owner, Terry Gutowski, and his parents, Pete and Jeanie Gutowski. Pete told me that the name ‘Gooter’s’ is one of the nicknames that Terry’s had over the years, variations of ‘Gutowski:’ Gute, Guter, Goot, Gooter. He and his wife Jeanie have owned the mall where Gooter’s is located for several years.
  
  
By Griff Wigley, on March 27, 2012, 7:14 am
  
The Holiday gas station on N. Hwy 3 has a sign that’s outlined in blue neon. A local business owner recently remarked to me that he found it offensively bright. For comparison see the adjacent Amcon gas station.
I checked the City of Northfield’s municipal code on Signage, Section 3.7 and found this:
3.7.9 Design Guidelines. The following standards are intended to direct the design elements of signage outside the downtown historic district. Each guideline shall be applied for each sign application based upon review by the city planner:
(A) Neon lights are permitted for messages and symbols, but shall not flash.
 While the neon isn’t flashing, it’s not being used for messages and symbols either, like the coffee cup neon sign in the window of Goodbye Blue Monday.
Is this a problem or much ado about nothing?
Update 7 am 3/28:
Sean Hayford O’Leary’s comment below prompted me to take photos of signs for Northfield businesses that appear to be out of compliance with Northfield’s ordinance that prohibits flashing neon lights: Tobacco Field on Hwy 3; Downtown Tobacco on Division; and the HideAway Coffeehouse & Winebar on Division:
    
So I’ve changed the blog post title from:
Is the Holiday gas station sign outlined in blue neon in compliance?
to:
Are some of the neon signs by Northfield’s businesses out of compliance?
Here’s a 27-second video clip of the flashing/animated neons signs:
By Griff Wigley, on March 25, 2012, 11:23 pm
  
 Three weeks ago, I stopped by the Angry Catfish Bicycle and Coffee Bar in south Mpls on my way to the Cuyuna Lakes Whiteout. I wanted to take some photos so that I could promote this week’s Big Ring: 2nd Gear Art Auction that’s hosted there. The event, a benefit for SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education), features many Northfield-area artists among the 17 and is being organized by Northfielder Bill Metz.
I met the owner, Joshua Klauck, and the general manager, Ben Rogowski, who graciously posed for a photo with the poster for the event.
You can see some of the artwork that’s been donated by the artists on the event’s Facebook page where Bill has been busy posting updates and photos.
By Jerry Bilek, on March 25, 2012, 7:54 pm
Finding Our Way Home
“The book is an enthralling read that made me both laugh and cry. I literally couldn’t put it down. I suspect you will feel the same way.”
—Midwest Book Review Bookwatch, reviewer Alma Bond
 When the road home becomes daunting—a very capable girl on a bicycle can help find the way.
Beloved writer Charlene Baumbich turns her pen to the topic of unlikely friendships and lavish grace in her newest novel. Set in small-town Minnesota, the novel’s warm humor and small town feel will resonate with Baumbich fans. Meanwhile, the ballet backdrop provides an exciting glimpse into the world of dance.
When principal ballerina Sasha Davis suffers a career-ending injury at age thirty-eight, she retreats to her recently deceased mother’s home to recover. Reluctantly accepting that she can’t recover alone, she hires nineteen year-old übercapable Evelyn Burt. As the wounds begin to mend, the women form an unlikely alliance and discover the astounding power of even the smallest act done in the name of love.
Charlene Ann Baumbich is the author of the Dearest Dorothy series,Stray Affections, and Divine Appointments, as well as several nonfiction books of humor and inspiration. She is also a popular speaker, an award-winning journalist, and lives with her husband in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
The book is available at Monkey See Monkey Read in downtown Northfield.
By Griff Wigley, on March 23, 2012, 7:19 pm
 
The revamped Northfield Target store will include a Starbucks coffeeshop (Nfld News article here, Nfld Patch article here). They plan to sell a lot of coffee, evidently, because earlier this week, oceangoing containers filled with coffee arrived in the north parking lot. Jeesh.
By Griff Wigley, on March 20, 2012, 8:48 pm
After my confrontations with Northfielder David Hvistendahl over the weekend, I emailed him a request to be a guest on his KYMN Law Review radio show this week. He replied:
U R hereby invited to a verbal smackdown, 6 pm, KYMN. Will B War of the Worlds II. Will expose U as a royalist and rumor monger.
 We did the show tonight. KYMN emperor Jeff Johnson was on hand to moderate (he used a digital referee whistle) but only had to use it a couple times.
The audio of the show is now available in this mistitled KYMN blog post by Jeff:
Law Review | SMACKDOWN! Wigley cries UNCLE!!
(For the culturally deprived, see the Wikipedia entry for Uncle Wiggily.)
By Griff Wigley, on March 19, 2012, 6:27 am
 
The space at 300 S. Water St., most recently a photography studio, is undergoing a build-out. Guess what current Northfield business is moving in there?
 
Likewise, the space at 209 S. Water St., formerly Erbert & Gerberts, is undergoing a build-out. Guess what two businesses are moving in there? Hint: they are not retail and they are not currently Northfield businesses.
Bonus question: Will Northfield Patch or the Northfield News be the first to run stories on these developments?
By Griff Wigley, on March 16, 2012, 8:31 am
   
Northfield Assistant Fire Chief Tom Nelson stopped by my corner office at GBM yesterday. We mostly argued, hence the scowls in the left photo. (Feel free to sort through the 180+ comments to my blog post to find my criticisms of the Northfield Fire Department. More to come?)
But one thing we did agree on (hence the smiles in the right photo) was that the two versions of the Northfield News stories about the firefighters’ pension contained some misleading information. In the March 6 version, Northfield firefighters: paid or volunteers?, reporter Suzy Rook wrote:
According to a state auditor’s report for 2009, the city’s firefighters, who also serve the Northfield Rural Fire District, have $7,500 apiece placed in the fund annually;
In the sidebar:
$7,500 — Northfield’s annual pension contribution per firefighter
After the March 6 story appeared, Tom’s email to me and Suzy included this:
Northfield Fire Relief is presently at $7500/yr of service. This is not to be confused with “The City pays each member $7500/year” as was stated in the Northfield News e-edition last week. The impact on the annual budget is only the Municipal Contribution amount. For this year, the impact is slightly more than $900/fire fighter.
Likewise, in the comment thread attached to the March 6 story, firefighter Aramis Wells argued with her about this issue. But to no avail, as this week’s March 13 version, Northfield’s firefighter wages, pensions among highest in state, contained the same text and sidebar.
My take
Individual firefighter pension obligations DO NOT cost the City of Northfield/taxpayers $7,500/year, as the Northfield News’ stories indicate.
Rather, if they stay on the job for 20 years or more (and past the age of 50), the pension fund pays them $7,500 per year of service. Big difference.
The amount in the fund fluctuates with the stock market and so the City’s annual contribution to the fund fluctuates. Back in 2008, the City contributed nearly $100,000 to the fund. In 2009 it was half that. This year, Tom says it’ll be about $29,000.
I think the City of Northfield and we citizens get a good deal with this arrangement because the pension encourages firefighters to stay on the job. Lack of turnover is generally a good thing when it comes to firefighting and I think we’re better served by having so many firefighters with so many years of experience.
But we need not worry too much that the current turmoil with the City and the Northfield Fire Department will cause many firefighters to quit. Fire Chief Gerry Franek’s attorney David Hvistendahl, Northfield Area Rural Fire District administrator Jerry Anderson and others are wrong to, um, fan these flames.
Why?
The firefighters get a good deal, too. If they stick with it for 20 years, they get a decent lump sum payout of $150,000. A few are going get twice that as they been on the job for nearly 40 years. Plus, they have an interesting and challenging part-time job in which they get to make a real difference in people’s lives, contribute measurably in the community’s quality of life, and earn our respect for doing so. Not many $21/hr part-time jobs offer all this.
I’m glad the Northfield News did the story because it has helped raise awareness of the issue. But I think they owe it to the firefighters and to the citizens to run a correction.
By Griff Wigley, on March 16, 2012, 8:10 am
 
I took this blurry photo (I had too much wine, evidently) of proprietor Norman Butler on the deck of the Contented Cow last night, holding my smartphone with the poster for tomorrow’s St. Patrick’s Day parade that Jim Bohnhoff sent me.
Take a close look at the poster, as the parade route is different this year.
Norman said they have post-parade festivities planned at the Cow but I don’t see any info about it on the Cow’s website. Anyone have details?
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I’ve done four fire department/association-related blog posts since January (here, here, here, and here) as well as a three more on attorney David Hvistendahl (here, here, and here) who’s representing the fire and rescue squad associations. It’s a complex and constantly evolving issue. 
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