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See the Winter Walk albums for 2002, 03, 04, 05, 06, and 08. (I missed ‘07). See the album for 2009, the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:
It’s the first Friday of the month, so this week’s memo (PDF) also includes the Boards & Commissions report (PDF) for May. I admit to colossal failure as this is the third consecutive month for which there is no report from the Planning Commission. I think that’s been remedied for future, i.e. it will be handled by someone other than me. You can find the Friday Memo and the Boards & Commissions report on the memo page for the week. Items of note in the Friday Memo include:
It’s a busy week at City Hall, including a City Council work session on Tuesday (which includes the next segment of the new LDC from the Planning Commission), and an open house (PDF) to review the preliminary draft of the new stormwater ordinance (more on that to follow in a separate post). You can view all upcoming City meetings on the City Calendar.
This week’s memo consisted mostly of business as usual (ongoing projects, etc.) Engineering gave a heads-up about construction at the intersection of 4th and Division which will take place this spring. There is a special closed meeting for review of the City Administrator will start at 6:00p, with a regular City Council meeting to follow. You can view all upcoming City meetings on the City calendar.
Land Vista also has a blog, a Facebook page, and a Twitter feed.
Some items of interest in this week’s memo include various engineering/infrastructure updates, timeline for the business park(s) master plan, work with the MPCA on remediation of the underground storage tank at the Safety Center, and lighting options for the Riverside Trail. NOTE: There will be a City Council meeting tonight, beginning with a closed session at 6:30 to discuss litigation against the City, and a regular meeting at 7:15p. You can view all City meetings on the City calendar.
Most significantly, at least in my mind, he notes that a “liveable city” means different things for different people. It’s all about your priorities: access to freeways or access to wi-fi. His evaluation system uses the following categories: size, density, sensibility and attitude, security, chaos and danger, human scale, parking, boulevards, mixed-use, and public spaces. I don’t agree with everything he says, I certainly value parking more than he does, but he definitely raises some interesting ideas. One of his thoughts was extremely appealing to me, “In my perfect city there would always be something going on nearby.” However, I’ll admit, from 1977 to 1987, one of my priorities was the Talking Heads.
Hope y’all have a very Merry Christmas today. We’ll be back with goodies tomorrow.
This post may become an annual thing; I must confess that it’s 50% local business boosting, 50% laziness (so I can benefit from other people’s ideas when my creative well runs dry). So – who’s got cool stuff? Who has good ideas? Creative options for recessionary times? Feel free to review some of the fabulous suggestions in last year’s post, but I closed comments on that one in order to redirect everyone back here to post suggestions or information about what’s new. Kathy Cooper, Rice County Safe Communities, alerted me to the new DWI task force, called the MOD-Squad (“Modifying Driving Behavior”).
I blogged last year at this time about Rice County’s dubious distinction of being among the deadliest counties in the state for DWI-related deaths and serious injuries. I guess it didn’t do any good because…
We’re planning to have Silkey and Smith on next week’s Locally Grown radio show/podcast. See the Rice County 11/22 press release High Visibility Enforcement Scheduled and the press release of arrests made on Thanksgiving eve titled Coming Soon . . . To A City Near You: Rice County MOD Squad Initial DWI Enforcement Effort Successful in Making the Rice County Roads Safer by Arresting 8 Impaired Drivers. 11:30am update: I’ve added the poster above, as the announcement was just made that Rice County went from 11th to 8th deadliest county in the state. Here’s the email from Deputy Smith explaining the program: Continue reading The Mod Squad now has DWI arrest zones here in Northfield
A three-year study of more than two dozen cities has found that there is a relationship between civic pride and economic growth. Paula Ellis of the Knight Foundation, the group funding the study says, “This is a new way of looking at how engaged residents create successful communities”. For the Minnesota cities studied, the findings indicate that a city’s offerings for social life, how welcoming residents were to others, education and community aesthetics were the qualities that most inspired loyalty and passion. There’s a significant correlation between this loyalty and passion and the gross domestic product growth over the past five years in each of the 26 cities studied. A vibrant social life, welcoming environment, quality education, and community aesthetics…could this be the conceptually elusive “sense of place”? Tom Friedman wrote in his NY Times column yesterday:
Don’t like Friedman? How about Ben Stein’s recent economic view? Or William Kristol’s? Or my recent favorite (thanks for the tip, Tyson) on our economic meltdown, Peter Schiff (AKA Dr. Doom, Wikipedia entry here) who predicted it with uncanny accuracy in this 2006 speech to the Mortgage Bankers Association. It’s a great education to watch the speech. Here’s the first of 8 videos (each about 10 minutes): Schiff’s recent columns include his Nov. 21st column titled The Truth About Bailouts in which he says (bold italics mine):
New Oxford Dictionary’s 2008 Word of the Year finalists include ‘frugalista’ — “a person who lives a frugal lifestyle but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying secondhand, growing own produce, etc.”
Robbie and I decided this weekend that it’s time for us to ratchet back our consumption and work harder at being frugalistas, even though we’re not in any immediate financial danger. Her first suggestion was to find free or inexpensive entertainment, both locally and in the Twin Cities. So on Saturday, we spent the afternoon exploring the new Minneapolis Central Library. (Among the treasures: the PostSecret exhibition. Amazing.) Her second suggestion: do more adventurous cooking at home. The recipes category of the Just Food Co-op blog was a good place to start. Do you have suggestions for how to be a frugalista in Northfield? Attach a comment. (No economic policy comments here, please. Hop over to the Our nation’s financial crisis blog post for that.) Jaci Smith, managing editor of the Northfield News, has been getting hammered by citizens who were offended by her Broadening the Field front-page headline in the Nov. 5 edition of the paper, announcing the results of the city council elections. See the letters to the editor in this week’s paper. Her column in last Saturday’s paper was titled, Defining a ‘broad,’ and a race in which she wrote:
We joked about ‘broads’ vs. ‘chicks’ on this week’s Locally Grown podcast… a show where Ross and I regularly turn to Tracy and say, “Tracy, you ignorant slut!” ala Dan Akroyd-to-Jane Curtin in SNL’s Counterpoint. I thought Jaci’s headline was clever. If the term once was offensive, it no longer is, just like the phrase “that sucks” used be offensive but no longer is. Even old timers from Frank Sinatra’s day might remember that he used ‘broad’ as an affectionate term for a girl or woman with sex appeal. Jaci should not have (weakly) apologized, but rather should have defended herself by citing none other than Eve Webster, president of the League of Women Voters Northfield-Cannon Falls, who was quoted by Suzi Rook in the Northfield News in October:
Last week, I spoke to a friend of one of Northfield’s alleged heroin dealers. Since she is 15 years old and talking about a sensitive matter, I decided to keep her name and the name of her friend anonymous, even though she gave me permission to use her name.
The League of Women Voters Northfield-Cannon Falls (LWVNCF) teamed up with the Northfield News this year to host three candidate forums. The first was a Northfield City Council primary forum in August.) This week on Thursday night, the forum featured the Northfield City Council candidates. Here’s the video that’s posted to the LWV blog.
On Oct. 18, other local candidates were featured in a forum. Here’s the video that’s posted to the LWV blog.
Click play to watch. Dundas City Council (05:25), Dundas Mayor (12:56), MN State House Distrct 25B (24:22), Rice County District 5 (41:39), Rice County District 1 (58:46), Dakota County District 1 (74:47), and MN State House District 36B (79:36).  Freeway CF
The author goes on to explain how our built environment has stacked the deck in favor of the individual automobile, at the expense of community, human health, and the environment. He points out, “Cities and suburbs throughout Western Europe have proven for decades that people will choose walking, bicycling and public transit over personal cars if the price is right and the trip is pleasant.” But unlike more militant voices, he doesn’t take a hard line against cars per se, instead focusing what we can regain by re-thinking the design of our cities and towns.
He concludes with the point that the way things were built prior to the mid-20th century may also make good sense in how we handle the increasing cost of oil and the fact that it’s a finite resource which is running out. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Northfield is the fact that most of it was built to what has come to be called “human scale”, without the speed and enclosure of automobiles to skew our sense of distance. This community is geographically compact, which gives us several advantages IF we make wise decisions about transportation and land use going forward. What do you think of this whole idea? How is Northfield better or less prepared than other parts of the country to embrace changes like this? Read the full article here, and come back to comment.
I blogged a straw poll here on Locally Grown on Oct 20 that asked:
Results: Yes (56%, 76 Votes) The Northfield News ran a similar straw poll on Oct 25 that asked:
Results: No 61.4% I was surprised at the difference until I noticed that the paper’s question included the phrase “vote to approve an increase in the sales tax to…” Could it be that LoGroNo site visitors didn’t realize that voting ‘yes’ means voting for an increase in the sales tax? If not that, then what’s the reason for the discrepancy?
Last weekend’s Nfld News contained their 2008 Northfield Area Voter Guide supplement. It’s now available as a PDF on their website. And tonight, the paper is teaming up with the League of Women Voters of Northfield & Cannon Falls to host a City Council candidates’ forum at City Hall. See the press release on the Nfld News site here or on the LWV blog here.
In the coming week we’ll be talking with the authorities to learn more about the arrests, get a better sense of what problems our community still faces, and learn how police intend to continue combating problems with heroin. We’ll be speaking with police in other towns that have had similar bouts with heroin dealing to gain perspective on how a community can fight the problem. If you know more about Northfield’s opiate scene, and are willing to speak, please contact Bonnie or me at RepJNorthfield@gmail.com or haynorb@carleton.edu.
And then we’ll invite you, the citizens of Northfield, to also chime in over the next ten days or so. Here are some links to find out more about the candidates: Candidate web sites:
Northfield.org (includes their answers to a dozen questions from citizens) Northfield News:
L to R: Joe Gasior, Rhonda Pownell, Victor Summa, and Lynn Vincent are running for Northfield City Council, At-Large, a 2-year term (remaining years from Noah Cashman’s seat). We’ve invited them to interact online with us (the LoGroNo Triumvirate) here in the message thread attached to this blog post for the next few days. And then we’ll invite you, the citizens of Northfield, to also chime in over the next ten days or so. Here are some links to find out more about the candidates: Candidate web sites:
Northfield.org (includes their answers to a dozen questions from citizens) Northfield News: Northfield East Side Neighborhood Association
Dana Graham and Kris Vohs are running for Northfield City Council, At-Large, a 4-year term. We’ve invited them to interact online with us (the LoGroNo Triumvirate) here in the message thread attached to this blog post for the next few days. And then we’ll invite you, the citizens of Northfield, to also chime in over the next ten days or so. Here are some links to find out more about the candidates: Candidate web sites:
Northfield.org (includes their answers to a dozen questions from citizens) Northfield News: Northfield East Side Neighborhood Association
And then we’ll invite you, the citizens of Northfield, to also chime in over the next ten days or so. Here are some links to find out more about the candidates: Candidate web sites: Northfield.org (includes their answers to a dozen questions from citizens) Northfield News: Northfield East Side Neighborhood Association
Paul Hager and Mary Rossing are running for Mayor of Northfield. We’ve invited them to interact online with us (the LoGroNo Triumvirate) here in the message thread attached to this blog post for the next few days. And then we’ll invite you, the citizens of Northfield, to also chime in over the next ten days or so. Here are some links to find out more about the candidates: Candidate web sites: Representative Journalism (RepJ) Northfield.org: Northfield News: Northfield East Side Neighborhood Association
It’s not really a forum in the traditional online sense, eg, message board, email discussion list, real-time chat, etc. Rather, it’s an asynchronous Q&A — questions submitted via email by Oct. 10 will be forwarded to candidates and responses will be posted to their web site by Oct. 20. |
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