While the Northfield City Council struggles with budget cut issues, the Northfield Police Department decided to be proactive this week. It announced a program to reduce department payroll called Police…
Locally Grown (LoGro) Northfield Posts
I was surprised to learn that the Northfield EDA voted 6-1 last week to have a $38,000 video made “to create a short promotional video highlighting the distinctive characteristics and qualities that make Northfield an attractive place to live, work, attend school, start a business, or simply visit and play.” The EDA will contribute $15K towards the cost. See pages 11-19 of the EDA packet for 5/27 and this week’s Nfld News: EDA to pay for video that promotes city.
Over a year ago, the City approved the making of a series of promotional videos by CGI Communications, funded entirely by advertisers, called the Northfield Video TourBook. It’s been sitting on the left sidebar of City’s home page since then. For your viewing convenience, I’ve combined all 5 videos into one below.
I blogged about the videos last May, critical of the fact that the embed code wasn’t being made available.
It may be that the quality of a $38K video will put the freebie to shame. But a few questions:
- Is this a good time to spend this money, in the middle of a recession, with a budget in tatters and a $14.4M police/fire facilities bond soon to pitched to taxpayers? Yes, yes, I know, it’s money from separate silos. But it’s all taxpayer money and it sends a mixed message to the citizenry. “$43K for laserfiche? No problem! $15K for a promo video? No problem! Sunday library hours? No way! City interpreter? No way!”
- What has been tried with the current Northfield Video TourBook to promote the city? Why isn’t it promoted on the EDA website? Why isn’t it promoted on the Chamber’s website or the Chamber’s Visiting Northfield website?
- Why is an expensive video better than the EDA using a free blog, free Twitter account and a free Facebook page, in which real people are available to interact? The Chamber/CVB is doing a pretty darn good job with their CVB Facebook page and CVB Twitter account. Why not the EDA?
Here are the 5 Northfield Video TourBook videos, all rolled into one. I’ve deliberately captured the screen area around the video window since the advertisers who helped to pay for it are displayed there:
We split our time between A) discussing the process by which the City of Northfield is approaching budget cuts; and B) the upcoming June 15 public hearing on facilities financing:
NDDC Board Chair Keith Covey’s letter to the Mayor and City Council last week (Nfld News here; NDDC blog here) notes that …given the size of our financial challenge and…
Rumor has it that there’s a public meeting on June 15, something to do with the City budget. As Kiffi pointed out, as of today there’s no information available on…
City Administrator Joel Walinski writes in the June 4 Friday Memo:
Downtown Recycling Cans, Oh! They’re so ugly! 20 temporary recycling containers were put in place Friday June 4, 2010 along Division Street. Street Supervisor TJ Heinricy has been working with Waste Management staff to develop a test-recycling program for the downtown area over the past several months.
Our interest is in the assessing the recycling waste stream and how much use there is or could be. This information will be used in the cost analysis and consideration of the return on investment for allocating future dollars on more permanent (eye-appealing) recycling containers in the downtown area.
Seems like downtown recycling bins and newspaper vending racks should be a project for the Streetscape Task Force.
Left: I like the ones used in Montreal near McGill University.
Center: the ones in Missoula, Montana aren’t bad
Right: even better are ones in Toronto that serve another purpose – Art:
If you’re concerned about the Cannon River watershed, Spring and Heath Creeks, the health of the Jordan aquifer, and the quality of your drinking water, then you should care about what’s happening with the Surface Water Management Ordinance updates, which will be presented in their draft form this coming Wednesday, June, 9, from 6:30-8:00p in the Community Resource Bank Conference Room. Details after the jump.
Water trail photo slide show. This slideshow requires the latest version of
(slideshow courtesy of the Minnesota DNR)
It was a gray and occasional rainy debut for Northfield’s Riverwalk Market Fair yesterday. See my album of 15 photos, the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:
The “Friday Memo,” written by Northfield City Administrator Joel Walinski, department heads, and other City staff, summarizes the staff activities for the week. The Friday memos are published and archived…