Note: This is a story in progress. You might want to join the existing conversation on this topic. I’m excited to read about what people have to say! Please email me directly at RepJNorthfield@gmail.com if you would rather not post publicly.
Paul Hager, president and founder of Northfield’s public access television station (NTV), emailed me last week with some more information about the city government’s financial relationship with his non-profit organization. The full text of his email is below, with a comment in brackets from me.
“Maren Swanson, the city attorney, heard of a law change that disallowed a city from having a contract to fund a non-profit, but a city could contract for services from a non-profit. There is a difference. The law must have been passed in 2002 or 2003, Maren could tell you those details.”
[Swanson has told me in the past that she does not answer questions from the general public unless a member of Northfield's city government staff asks her to respond. Members of the city's staff told me the details of financial dealings between the city government and NTV could be found in in the city's files.
I submitted a written request to see any NTV-related documents having to do with contracts or finances. Only one of the documents seemed to refer to the law Hager mentions. That document, dated July 21, 2003, is titled "Resolution 2003-211: A Resolution by the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Northfield, Minnesota, relating to agreement with NTV 26."
The part of the resolution that references a state law reads "It is important that the legal status of NTV 26 as an independent non-profit corporation be confirmed before August 1, 2003, so that it is clear that NTV 26 and the city are not required to comply with the requirements of Minn. Stat. 465.719, which might otherwise apply."
I still have to find out from Hager if he met that confirmation deadline. I could not find "NTV" or "Northfield Television" on the non-profit listings on the Minnesota Secretary of State's Web site.
The resolution shows the City Council unanimously approved an interim financial agreement between the city and NTV in 2003. The interim agreement read "NTV 26 will continue to provide services to the City and the community as it has recently been providing, without further compensation from the City." NTV had typically received anywhere from about $10,000 to $85,000 in the previous 17 years.
The resolution also states city government staff would work toward negotiating "the terms of an on-going contract with NTV" and present it to the council by Oct. 31. The staff requested multiple deadline extensions and the council did not approve any significant changes to the interim agreement until 2005, when NTV's money reserves began to run out. NTV received $3,000 at that time.]
“We had the option to dissolve NTV, become part of the city, or contract for services, which is what we did. By mutual agreement, NTV and the city terminated our agreement (in 2003) to provide public access services and agreed to a new contract (in 2005) to provide access services as an independent contractor.”
“Starting in 1985, our funding had always been somewhat secure, but the possibility remained that the funding by the cable company could evaporate overnight and the city could direct the franchise fee to other purposes and public access would go dark. So I saved money and built up a reserve to fund operations in the event of a funding failure. I built a reserve large enough to buy us time to operate the channel for up to a year during which we would either reorganize or find a new funding source.”
“With a new franchise agreement with Charter Communications and a new agreement with NTV, the city wanted to come up with a new idea for public access. Until that idea was in place, NTV would spend its reserve and not receive any funding from the city. All PEG and franchise fees would go into the city’s cable account. (See more information about franchise fees and fees for programming for education and government).”
“Susan Hoyt, then city administrator, proposed a new model for access: Hiring a new “cheerleader” of public access to encourage people to produce programming. Susan also contacted the public schools to see if they (the school system) would be interested in taking over public access, but the schools declined. Susan left her position at the city and the city did not come up with a new idea for access.”
“I submitted my proposal to the City in October 2005. The council asked Scott Davis to convene a committee (task force) to address the issue of public access, media and my proposal. The history of that committee is documented, I believe, but the item of note for this discussion is that the future of public access was not resolved in the meetings of the committee.”
Note: This is a story in progress. Please see my bulleted questions in green and help me move the story forward. I would like commenters to write the question(s) they are addressing into their post. You might want to join the existing conversation on this topic. I’m excited to read about what people have to say! Please email me directly at RepJNorthfield@gmail.com if you would rather not post publicly.
Three leaders of public access stations in other communities talked to me about what their jobs are like on Friday and I hope the information will reveal some possible ideas for Northfield Television (NTV).
Little Falls is about an hour-and-a-half drive northwest of Northfield and has less than half Northfield’s population. Northfield has nearly 20,000 people, according to city-data.com. Burnsville and Eagan are suburbs of the Twin Cities, about a 40-minute drive north of Northfield, and have a combined population of about 130,000. Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina, has a population of about 50,000. The Little Falls public access station is a for-profit company, the city governments of Burnsville and Eagan run their station and the Chapel Hill station is a non-profit.
Of the three stations, the one in Little Falls operates on the smallest budget—about $90,000 a year, which is money that comes mainly from the cable company’s franchise-fee payments to the city government. Governments can use franchise fee revenues for any public purpose. The 2,800 cable subscribers in Little Falls pay that fee. NTV receives just $30,000 in franchise-fee revenue yearly. I am asking Charter Communications, Northfield’s cable provider, to let me know how many subscribers are in Northfield. Each of the stations is 23 years old and operates two channels.
Of the $90,000, Abraham pays himself about $48,000 a year and works full-time including “quite a bit of evening and weekend” hours, he said. He employs three part-time videographers who earn about $10 an hour and he sometimes supplies pizza to volunteer members of a youth video club. Paul Hager, NTV’s executive director, pays himself $17,946 and works part-time at that job in addition to a full-time part-time * job as the technical director of cinema and media studies at Carleton College. He has no employees and about 10 people consistently volunteer, he has said.
Should NTV receive more money from Northfield’s Cable TV Fund? If so, how much?
The $90,000 is still a “shoe-string” budget, Abraham said. He buys used camera equipment on eBay.com and builds his own television sets. The station now has four cameras that stay in the studio and three that members of the public may borrow. NTV has one camcorder to lend. Hager said his station’s camera is used less and less because many people own their own camcorders now.
Two-and-a-half years ago, Abraham moved his station from the public high school to a space in the Great River Arts Association building, which is on the main drag in downtown Little Falls. The move, he said, is one step toward his goal of expanding the station. One day, he would like to take on the task of branching out into other communities to help them begin or expand their own public access television stations. NTV’s station in Northfield’s downtown is hardly visited by members of the community today.
The Little Falls station has begun to attract more and more participants since Abraham extended an invitation for people to record their own monthly, half-hour show at the station. The mayor, local sports analysts and senior citizens telling stories about the past are the most popular.
While Abraham seemed excited about what is happening at the Little Falls station, Hotchkiss said he grew disappointed with his station after the city governments of Burnsville and Eagan took over in 1998. The cable company now known as Comcast managed the station previously, and the city stepped in when the cable company no longer wanted to manage it.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Hotchkiss said of the shift, and pointed out that the city government can pay employees much more than an independent organization can.
He employs nine people, broadcasts to 32,000 subscribers and has a budget that fluctuates between $850,000 and $1.2 million, he said.
Burnsville and Eagan governments consistently disagreed about the management of the station, Hotchkiss said. So, as of this week, the station is splitting to give each city its own programming. That programming, however, is not the kind Hotchkiss would like to see on the station. The government-approved shows can seem one-sided, with documentaries about street-side curbs and bituminous concrete, Hotchkiss said, laughing.
Hotchkiss said he believed the ideal management could be if a cable company franchised with the state instead of individual cities and towns. That model already exists in some states. Hotchkiss believes it would reduce the conflict of interest he sees with government or local cable company management. In addition, he said the fees a cable company pays to support educational and government programming (PEG) should go directly to the public access station instead of routing through the government as it does now.
I asked him what he thought about PEG fees going to other organizations that disseminated educational and governmental information, such as community Web sites. Hotchkiss said the idea seemed reasonable, but that cable companies might be reluctant to support content that would be available to people who aren’t cable customers.
As for advice that NTV could possibly use, Hotchkiss said he believed it’s important for public access stations to network with other stations through organizations such as the Alliance for Community Media or the Minnesota Cable Communications Association. He also said a station should have plenty of shows that are consistently popular with viewers such as children’s concerts and high school sports in order to “sell” local-government and nationally produced public programming.
In North Carolina, a cable company now franchises at a state level, but Johnston said that has only resulted in less funding for his Chapel Hill station. His budget is $123,000 and he employs two full-time staff members and several part-time workers.
Johnston said that as a result, he has had to find ways to raise additional revenue by charging service and member fees and selling advertisements. He also barters with local businesses by exchanging advertising space on television for, as an example, food for volunteers.
Johnston also collaborates with other non-profits to work toward common educational goals. For example, the station partnered with an arts center to offer classes in media arts. That kind of teamwork has been especially helpful, he said, in gaining the support of local government officials.
Update 12/20 4 p.m.: I corrected several grammatical errors in the story, removing the word “moved” from the first sentence and removing some extra words from the paragraph third from the bottom.
Update 12/22 3 p.m.: Griff Wigley filled me in on the following info: While Northfield’s official 2000 census is 17,000 and recent estimates place it near 20,000, that includes the 5,000+ college students. So for this NTV story, I think a population estimate of 13,000 is more relevant for comparing us to other cities since none of the college students are potential cable subscribers.
*I indicate corrections with a strikethrough mark through the mistake, followed by the correct text.
By Bonnie Obremski, on December 16, 2008, 10:26 pm
Note: This is a story in progress. Please see my bulleted questions in green and help me move the story forward. I would like commenters to write the question(s) they are addressing into their post. You might want to join the existing conversation on this topic. I’m excited to read about what people have to say! Please email me directly at RepJNorthfield@gmail.com if you would rather not post publicly.
“With the number of people who care about the city, and with the educational resources available, you’ve got a lot of potential for doing good work,” Mike Wassenaar, of the Saint Paul Neighborhood Network, told me on Tuesday.
Wassenaar said he learned Northfield Television (NTV) is operating on a bare-bones budget by reading the article about the matter posted on LocallyGrownNorthfield.org. Wassenaar is an individual member of the Alliance for Community Media and he volunteers some of histime to help other public access stations around the nation.
“It’s important for us in Minnesota that places like Northfield actually do well,” Wassenaar said. “If they don’t do well, people start saying, ‘Oh well, this isn’t really worthwhile, so it isn’t worth investing in.’ And that can lead to changing the laws so that these types of resources aren’t available anymore.”
Wassenaar said he wanted to talk to Paul Hager, NTV’s founder and president, and come up with a few ways to improve the station, with or without additional funding
After I talked to Wassenaar, I called Hager, who said he would be willing to speak with Wassenaar about those ideas. Hager agreed that Wassenaar’s offer to help seemed like good news.
Wassenaar said he believed NTV could use more than the $30,000 a year it receives now from the city-managed Cable TV Fund to make significant improvements its facility and potentially hire staff.
Wassenaar said he acknowledges, however, the differences in size between the Saint Paul network and NTV. His network, he said, has 52,000 subscribers and receives $2.5 million in cable franchise fee revenue a year. The network also receives $800,000 a year from the fee cable companies pay for communities to produce educational and government programming.
Wassenaar said Hager’s proposed model of creating a pool of money to provide “micro-grants” to citizens to produce content for the station has worked in other communities. He said he could also share some other ideas about business models.
“It’s awfully hard to run something that only has a virtual presence,” Wassenaar said, referencing the little-used NTV station on Division Street and lack of paid staff. “You need a place for people to go to.”
As one way to attract more people to visit the station, Wassenaar said he might be able to connect NTV with larger stations in the city suburbs that could donate equipment. Wassenaar said NTV might develop its presence in places around Northfield where people regularly visit to participate in community events, such as a recreational center or at Saint Olaf or Carleton colleges.
Wassenaar said he would also help NTV explore the possibilities of asking people to support the station as members.
In one of our earlier conversations, Hager said it could be difficult asking cable TV customers for more money than they are already paying in subscriber fees to support the station.
Wassenaar said the larger community, not just cable viewers, directly benefit from the services his network provides, however. For example, he said, the network once produced a show about a local clinic, and then gave a copy of the show to the clinic to use as an educational tool. He said the network also provides youth programming.
As another funding source, Wassenaar said, the network has sought grants from other organizations.
I wonder what organizations or individuals would consider becoming members of NTV?
Wassenaar said he would also be willing to help inform government officials and the general public about what a well-supported public access station can offer to a community.
What would it take for NTV to thrive in Northfield?
Note 12/17 9:45 a.m.: I corrected the spelling of the word “network” at the bottom of the thirteenth paragraph.
Note: This is a story in progress. Please see my bulleted questions in green and help me move the story forward. I would like commenters to write the question(s) they are addressing into their post. I’m excited to read about what people have to say! Please email me directly at RepJNorthfield@gmail.com if you would rather not post publicly.
Photo by Josh Rowan. A letter "N," once part of a downtown supermarket sign, now stands for "NTV" in the entryway of the station.
Paul Hager, who is NTV’s founder and president, told me on Thursday that Northfield Community Television (NTV), which is an independent public access station on Channel 12, is operating on a “lights-on” budget these days.
I asked Hager what “lights-on budget” meant. He replied, saying NTV receives $2,500 a month from the franchise-fee revenue sitting in the city’s Cable TV Fund. That amount, which totals $30,000 a year, is enough to pay rent, insurance, utility bills and a modest salary for him to produce some content and air some governmental meetings. He has no employees and about 10 volunteers who regularly produce content for the non-profit organization.
The station is on the second floor of 309 Division Street View Larger Map, which is under the relatively new ownership of JB Enterprises. Hager said he is optimistic the new owners will repair the building very soon. In the past two years, he said, the station has been uncomfortable to use because of heating and cooling problems. But, he said, most people now produce video at home and give him a digital file. The station houses the public access channel’s video equipment. Hager does not keep regular hours at the station, but the public can contact him via NTV’s Web site. Phone: 507-645-6917. Email: NTV@charter.net.
As an example of the kind of programming NTV airs daily, the schedule for Dec. 15 included:
I wondered why the city government isn’t allocating as much money to NTV as it used to.
I also wondered what the general public thinks of NTV.
What does the station bring to the community?
Could NTV do more, even with its small budget?
Should the community show more support for the station?
Have other forms of information sharing, such as the Internet, replaced the need for public access television?
What is the Cable TV Fund?
Cable systems have offered access channels to the public since the 1970s so that people could make programs for others in their own communities, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications Web site.
I first learned the basics of the Cable TV Fund by reading an article Jaci Smith, managing editor of the Northfield News, wrote on Nov. 28., which had the headline, “Cable fund holds wealth of possibilities.” Smith said city governments collect two kinds of fees from cable television companies and that money flows into the Cable TV Fund. The cable company serving Northfield is Charter Communications. There is currently about $766,000 in the Cable TV Fund.
One kind of fee is called a franchise fee. Time Warner Cable’s Web site gives a brief overview of the rules of the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984.
“The franchise fee is intended to compensate a community for the cable operator’s use of the local rights-of-way, and to offset any costs associated with administering the local cable franchise,” the Web site reads.
A city government can use the franchise fees to pay for any public service. According to Smith’s article, cable companies pay Northfield about $100,000 a year in franchise fees.
In addition to franchise fees, cable companies also pay a fee that a city government can use only for purposes of public education and government (PEG) programming. Smith reported PEG fees total up to $15,000 a year.
Deb Little, the department manager for the City Clerk’s Office, said she could help me find out how much money in the Cable TV fund is from franchise fees and how much is from PEG fees by the end of the week.
Additionally, I asked what PEG fees are paying for now, if anything. Little said she would have to research that, too.
Kathleen McBride, Northfield’s Financial Director, said most recently, the city government used that money to install a new video recording system in the City Council’s chambers. The work on the nearly $100,000 equipment upgrade finished in 2007.
Why does NTV receive less funding than in the past?
The $30,000 NTV receives a year is less than half what the fund used to provide NTV in the 1990s, Hager told me. The station has been around since the 1985. I wondered about the dramatic decrease and how it had affected the quality of the station, if at all. I don’t own a television and so have never watched the station’s programming.
Scott Davis, a city council member who has worked to define the relationship between city government and the station in the past, told me on Friday that changes in state law led to the decrease in funds. Davis did not have time to explain further because I visited him in his photography studio on Bridge Square and he had a client waiting.
I did not find a copy of the Minnesota statue online that could apply to the matter. So I am still searching for more information about how the law changed and how it affected contracts between the city government and NTV.
I did have time to ask Davis if there were any other reasons why the city government might have cut NTV’s funding, such as NTV not providing enough of a service in exchange for the money. Davis said that was not the reason.
Hager told me that all he knew about it was that, a few years ago, the cable company and city government did not renew a contract that outlined how much PEG fee and/or franchise fee revenue could go to NTV. For a time, NTV operated without a contract and ran on savings and the city government paid no funds to the station, Hager told me. In 2005, the City Council decided to allot the $30,000 a year in franchise fee revenue to keep the operation running.
Photo by Josh Rowan. Paul Hager stands in one of the station's studios on Monday.
Should we change how public access television works?
Hager had asked for more than renewed funding at that time, however.
He had come up with a four-page proposal to make dramatic changes in the way NTV worked.
The summary bullet points of his proposal are:
The primary attraction of public access television has been erased by changes in technology. It is time to re-think the model for public access.
We could capitalize on the digital technology revolution that has created a visual storyteller in every household that has a video camcorder.
We can and should provide a modest financial incentive to spur production of community programming.
We must create a higher level of visibility for public access and invite local institutions to take an active role in creating programming.
The proposal sounded to me like an interesting model, not wholly unlike the goals of the Representative Journalism project.
Davis said one of the reasons Hager’s proposal never went into action is because the City Council has a lot to do. When the council decided to renew some funding to the station, it considered the situation fixed for at least a little while, he said. Davis compared it to patching a crack in a window. The window still isn’t a good window, Davis said, but you can live with it.
In addition, Davis said Hager’s proposal relied a lot on individuals who would be willing to work as videographers in exchange for a small amount of grant money and there might not be enough people willing to perform such work.
I could see his point, but I’m wondering how many other people would feel the same way.
Davis said the new members of City Council and the new mayor might revisit the city’s relationship with NTV in the coming years, but the struggling economy might now present another obstacle to further funding or attention.
At that, I wondered how many people might deem the station undeserving of any funds in the near future. In tough times, some people might think that $30,000 a year could be better spent on something else.
As a journalist, I shuddered at the thought of another of America’s independent, information-distribution services closing down. However, I also believe that those services do have to learn how to better compete for attention in order to survive.
I put in a request for data at city hall on Friday to take a look at all the contracts the city has had with NTV over the years. I plan to share that information here so we can better see what kind of service NTV has provided to Northfield over the years.
Should the city government control public access television?
Smith quoted McBride in her article about the Cable TV fund, saying, “McBride said she recommends using only part of the money so that if the city does decide to get into the public access broadcasting business it has the startup funds to do so,” Smith wrote.
I asked McBride via email to expand on what Smith reported.
McBride wrote, “It would be a Council decision – and while I’m not close to the process (at all!) – I do think there is interest in starting a public access function – where we would buy the equipment and hire a company or employees to run it.”
I haven’t heard any of the City Council’s discussions on the matter, but I’m confused about why the council would consider making city workers take on the public access station responsibilities. I imagine there could be cost savings but I’m not sure how. I wonder, too, if the city would cease to fund NTV altogether, and what would become of the station in that situation?
Hager pointed out that if the city government controlled the station, and someone produced something controversial, the government would then have control over when to air the program (perhaps during a time when no one would watch it). Right now, Hager has ultimate control of the programming schedule.
But are people producing content that challenges the government, or any other institution for that matter? Would they if Hager’s proposed model were adopted?
Update: 12/15 7 p.m: I forgot to put Kathleen McBride’s full name and title when I first referenced her in the story, so I fixed it.
Also, I wanted to note that you can still borrow a camcorder and tripod from NTV and use the station’s editing equipment to produce video content for the station.
On any given day at the Goodbye Blue Monday coffee shop in downtown Northfield, you will see several people scanning their computers instead of perusing a newspaper, as they nurse their morning coff ees.
The reason is that Northfield has two citizen journalism blogs, LocallyGrownNorthfield.org and Northfield.org, that are highly popular morning reads in town. With a total population of only 17,150, Northfield has two citizen journalism web sites covering local news, events and activities — Locally Grown, which attracts nearly 7,000 visitors a month, and Northfield.org, with a monthly readership of about 9,400.
Unlike their newspaper counterpart, the Northfield News, these websites provide citizens with more than just breaking news and a calendar of events. They also serve as important social and community hubs by providing a forum for civic discussion and a database of comments on articles from readers. They even showcase other local citizen blogs.
In yesterday’s Star Tribune, there was an article titled “Love your city? It might love you back“. The piece suggested that well-loved cities are more economically successful.
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”?
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.
In my e-mail to the councilors- and mayor-elect, I wrote that I think of a “broad” as a woman who is smart, savvy, tough and confident; a woman who can balance work, family and business and still find a way to be involved in the community. A leader. I can’t think of anything we need more for our city. So, in my eagerness to impart that message in three words or less on Tuesday night, “Broadening the field” seemed appropriate.
I am profoundly relieved that our new female leadership took the headline in the spirit that it was intended. But by choosing the headline I did, I managed to sidetrack the momentum and the conversation from all the exciting possibilities before us onto something much less interesting and noteworthy. And that’s what I regret most of all.
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:
Having women and men at the table when determining the city’s course is important, said Thurston, who served two terms on the council. “I think it’s good to have a woman’s voice and a man’s,” she said. Webster, with the LWV, agrees. Decisions about public policy are more wisely made when a variety of perspectives are available,” she said. “It’s a matter of broadening the field.”
KYMN Program Director Jeff Johnson emailed me yesterday morning, saying “Hey Griff, Attached is a news story we ran this morning. Call me if you have questions.”
Our lead story today involves us here at KYMN.
As we approach our 40th anniversary later this month, KYMN radio is being sold and local ownership will return to the station for the first time since 2002.
Jeff Johnson, KYMN’s current Program Director, has signed an agreement to purchase the station from Ingstad Brothers Broadcasting:
KYMN first went on the air on Sept. 27, 1968. Wayne Eddy had had at least a share of ownership and was full owner until selling it to Jim Ingstad in 2002. Most recently, the station has been owned by Ingstad Brothers Broadcasting, who aquired it in 2003.
As far as changes… Jeff says there will be some.
The sale still must be approved by the FCC to be final. That process will take about 90 days. Johnson will take over management of the station on October 1st with a Local Marketing Agreement until the deal is closed.
After he gets a handle on running the business end of a station, Johnson hopes to shift the focus of the programming more to local content and be less dependent on satellite and programming services. Though the type of music and selection of talk shows could change eventually, KYMN will continue to anchor itself in local news, weather and sports, Johnson explained.
I’m wondering:
Will KYMN finally have a web site with audio streaming, podcasting, and digital archives?
Will Locally Grown’s agent be able to negotiate a much fatter contract for the Triumvirate?
Find out more later this afternoon. We record this week’s Locally Grown segment/podcast at 4 pm. It’ll air at 5:30pm.
Drive by Northfield’s car dealerships and look carefully.
At Furlong and Dokmo’s, they’ve reduced their inventory dramatically due to the recession but they’re camouflaging it by spacing the vehicles further apart.
At the Northfield News, they’re expanding the size of the graphics and photos, enlarging the font size in many places, using larger header and footer banners, adding advertising banners to the bottom of the front page, reducing the total number of pages, etc. Compare two recent front pages (left) with the front page of the last issue of 2007 (right).
Here at Locally Grown, we’re having to adopt similar strategies.
We’ve cut the number of fluff photos posted to the blog by 50%.
For those that we do include, like this one of copulating squirrels outside my home office window, we’re reducing the size of the linked popup from 1100 pixels wide to 999. And we’ve expanded the margins around the thumbnail from 5 pixels on one side to 15 pixels on both sides.
I could have used a videoclip of the sex al fresco but that’s just cost-prohibitive these days.
On our Locally Grown podcast, discerning listeners will notice another space-saving strategy, requested by KYMN news manager Jeff Johnson. Our contractual arrangement with station forbids us from blogging about this but we will be able to discuss in on the air today.
And one thing I was never completely confident of was the breadth of the “problem.” I could never really get an answer, even after I began working here, on the veracity of Smith’s numbers. He said that as many as 250 young people were abusing opiates in Northfield. I’m pretty confident now that he was right.
Reporters Suzanne Rook, David Henke and I have interviewed dozens of individuals on both sides of the battle: those who either knew of someone or themselves took or sold heroin and OxyContin (a pharmaceutical opiate) and those who were trying to save the abusers. We’ve spoken with medical officials, school officials, state health officials, county health and public safety officials and statisticians.
Here are the links to the Northfield News ‘Heroin One year later’ series of stories (final six not yet published):
Ross Currier: Griff - Thanks for your kind words. Credit really should go to Streetscape Task Force Member Dan Bergeson, who pursued those repair stands with great vigor. His long-time working relationship with the always excellent T. J. Heinricy...
kiffi summa: Grff: your third paragraph above does not make a succinct argument, MO, in that Kris Vohs was expressing such feelings of being at odds with his council/city role (except for the fine work of the HRA), that he ultimately resigned,...
kiffi summa: Griff: I was dong the LWV observing at the Council meeting you reference above; I do not recall hearing , or seeing in the packet materials, this vote by the firefighters that you reference. I, of course, could be wrong and/or just...
kiffi summa: Griff: regardless of Mr. Madigan’s explanation, the ISO rating is awarded by the insurance company, and yes… it takes into account several factors i.e. response time etc.; however the ISO rating NF residents enjoy does not...
Griff Wigley: Kathie, What are the FFs’ issues that have not been heard? They all had a chance to talk individually to Soldo and long before that, several spoke against the reorganization plan to the Council. They’ve been listened to,...
Griff Wigley: In comment #26 above, Jane Moline wrote: Our fire deparment does not deserve the these attacks that appeart to be motivated by an administration that is empire-building to go along with a Taj-Mahal safety center. Jane, I’ve...
Vicki Dilley: How many lives can we even begin to count that have touched by the Youth Exchange program? Northfield has been involved in Youth Exchange since 1969 when we hosted our first student…since then 100′s of High School...
Tom Durkin: This event supports one of the crown jewels of the Northfield Rotary Club – the Youth Exchange Program. Northfield can be proud that we send out more than fifteen students annually for year abroad study programs. We also host several...
john george: Kathie- I knew I was sticking my neck out on that one!
Kathie Galotti: Geez John. Don’t get Griff restarted on the geese!
john george: Yes, more beaches would certainly accomodate more geese. We have to remember to be waterfowl friendly.
Susan Hvistendahl: I totally agree with you re the need for more beaches in Northfield, having just returned from a week in Puerto Vallarta. Could have had rum punches there but….well, after we visited a local tequila distillery and got to...
Bright Spencer: Oh, you both look so happy! Thanks for sharing. More pics please!
kiffi summa: Griff: whither goest thy right arm if it starts to “whither” (sic) ? sorry; couldn’t resist… stuck at home with a bad knee provides way too much time on computer!
Bright Spencer: i’ve been looking thru a site, crazyguyonabike.com that has lots of journals and photos from around the world.
jane fenton: Congrats, Griff! That’s my son Cliff in the orange hat. He’s revamped the recycling bin prototype. You should see it!
Griff Wigley: Don, I’ll keep ping pong in mind. I’d hate to have my right arm start to whither from a lack of racquetball. In the meantime, I’m trying to excite as many Northfielders as I can about mountain biking. I’ll...
john george: Griff- Iris will have to work real hard to keep you in focus on everything else. I shutter to think where this could go.
Griff Wigley: Name: The Local Joint Description: A handmade and vintage collective in Northfield, MN. COLLECTING.CREATING.COLLABORAT ING. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheLoc alJoint Nfld News: Store to open in former ‘digs’ space
David Beimers: Hmmm… fans? air conditioners? ice cream?
Jessica Paxton: I know. But I don’t wanna spill the (cool) beans!
Megan Tsui: Edward, Sorry you weren’t able to attend. We’ll be posting notes from the meeting on the NEC website and if you send me your email, I’ll make sure you get a copy! If you (or anyone else!) would like to chat about it...
Edward Smith: I wanted to attend this, but was unable. Does anyone know if there will be a summary posted anywhere?
Kathie Galotti: My kid had a pretty decent AP Environmental Science class 2 years ago….he’s not a great math/science student, but this one got him interested in at least knowing enough science to create good policies. I remember...
Paul Zorn: A few years ago one of my daughters spent a year working in Copenhagen, largely in an office setting. All desks in her office could be raised or lowered to permit either standing or sitting positions. I have no idea whether such...
Griff Wigley: In today’s Strib: Office-dwellers stand up to ‘sitting disease’ Dr. James Levine has reviewed the statistics: One in three Minnesota adults is either diabetic or pre-diabetic, and one in four is obese. And he thinks...
Bright Spencer: The All Pro Game last Sunday between the AFC and the NFC was so enjoyable. The stess, the anger, the anxiety all gone…well I didn’t watch all of it, as I rarely do watch an entire game, usually just the beginning and...
Griff Wigley: Today’s Strib: Hockey safety goal expanded to youth In an unprecedented mid-year change, Minnesota Hockey is toughening the penalties for checking from behind and boarding. The change will affect 40,000 hockey players in the...
Bright Spencer: I like hockey and all sports very much. I was a star basketball player in my day. I don’t remember anyone suffering any major injuries in all my hs and college days. I feel certain that coach’s know who does what and...
john george: You are correct. That is why I didn’t allow my children to attack the character of their siblings just to support their position. There do need to be some kind of ground rules in any discussion so as to keep individual...
kiffi summa: The issue could be considered to be: what is “conflict”, and what are two sides of a discussion… see #33 re: the Mayor’s admonition to Peter Dahlen at the joint Council/ChartComm meeting. I don’t see how...
john george: Kiffi- This is a good article, and I agree with most of it. Just thinking about my kids in their youth, there was always some conflict between them, but our goal as parents wasn’t to force them into some weiner form but to help...
kiffi summa: A very interesting article in the Jan.30th New Yorker magazine on the nature of the dynamics of creative discussion; it’s entitled “Groupthink; the brainstorming myth”. Based on studies done by a psych professor at...
Griff Wigley: Kiffi/Kathie, I didn’t have that reaction. But I’ve put up a new blog post to discuss it and everything else related to the Fire Department so let’s shift the discussion there.
Kathie Galotti: I read Betsey’s blog and, like most of Betsey’s blog entries, found it well-written and making a very good point. Though I agree that geographic districts aren’t the only way to represent different constituencies,...
john george: Griff- The NN editorial presents the difference between geographic representation and ideological representation. Right now, the wards establish geographic representation. With this approach, depending upon the voter turnout, a person...
kiffi summa: I hope that people will use the link here on LG to read the current posting by Councilor Buckheit on her blog, re: wards versus all at-large, and take the opportunity to comment. Once again, the NFNews has not given a very well...
Griff Wigley: Nfld News editorial: Keep the current ward system intact
Sean Hayford Oleary: In any case, this issue doesn’t seem like it needs to be another opportunity to dis/agree with the current council. Regardless of how focused on the downtown (or not) they are, it’s clear this change would not...
Griff Wigley: In today’s NY Times: Turning to Kettlebells to Ease Back Pain Kettlebells, cast-iron weights that have been used for centuries to train Russian soldiers and athletes, appear to be a promising therapy for back and neck pain, new...
Sandy Vesledahl: UPDATE ON RHONDA: We are very happy to report that Rhonda was adopted over the weekend by a local family. Rhonda’s new mom is a Family Counselor and Rhonda will be going to her office with her and helping with her clients. So...
Megan Tsui: Griff, The NEC is moving forward with the idea of a non-profit Coworking Incubator/Accelerator space. Megan
Megan Tsui: What do you think? Come to the Community Dialogue and tell us! January 31st from 2 to 4 pm at the Archer House lower level conference room. Share your ideas, thoughts, and dreams about a Coworking Incubator/Accelerator space in...
kiffi summa: I would hope the City’s Historic Preservation Commission would explore this option, and the appropriateness/allowability for use on properties within the Historic District. Thanks, Jim.
Jim Haas: I was reading a story by Porter Fox about his visit to Copenhagen. He mentioned in passing that the city is vigilant about removing graffiti using high-pressure washers with ice crystals as a mild abrasive. I did a little rudimentary...
It was just me and Tracy yesterday as Ross was prepping for the Action Steps for Infill and Redevelopment open house at the Grand. We spend part of the show talking about topics related to next week’s NCO/Northfield.org annual meeting where they’re having a panel discussion titled Beyond Letters to the Editor: How everyday people can be heard in Northfield. Related to that, of course, is the Council’s current effort to review all aspects of public input/engagement. Councilor Erica Zweifel is participating in the discussion thread here on LoGro attached to the blog post Public engagement for the City of Northfield: Councilors want to know what should be changed and she’ll be a guest on our show next week to talk more about it. Continue reading Podcast: 2/3 of the Triumvirate on public input
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