Sheena Basness, Community Service Officer with the Northfield Police Department, alerted me about this year’s Police Association Golf Tournament (4-person best-ball scramble), held on Monday at the Northfield Golf Club.…
Locally Grown (LoGro) Northfield Posts
The 6 am Tuesday gang of sidewalk salonistas at the Goodbye Blue Monday were floundering a bit this week. Anchor Eric Johnson was out of town. I’ve heard occasional objections…
KYMN Radio and the Northfield Historical Society announced today via their respective blogs (here and here) that a webcam would now be streaming live video from Bridge Square. KYMN’s Tim Freeland and NHS’s Hayes Scriven are the geniuses behind this.
You may remember that Tim Freeland and Adam Gurno did a proof of concept last year with the time-lapse video of the December snowstorm which was picked up by MPR. (Nice work, everyone. Have some Google juice.)
However, the moniker “KYMN-NHS-Cam” is kind of lame. How about SquareStream? RiverStream? Should we have a “name-the-camera” contest here on LoGro?
We split our time between A) making suggestions for cutting the budget at City Hall and B) discussing Mayor Mary Rossing’s 5-minute commentary at the start of last week’s Council meeting.
Click play to listen. 30 minutes:
KYMN has the indexed video of the 5/18/10 Council meeting so you can go right to the video of the Mayor’s Opening Remarks. (KYMN News Director Scott Peterson mentioned her remarks in his news update on 5/19.)
There are a couple minutes of dead air at the beginning, plus the approval of minutes etc. so her opening remarks don’t begin till the 3:45 minute mark. If you’re in a hurry, here’s an audio excerpt. (Click play to listen. 5 minutes.)
Late last week the City website put up notice for tonight’s Green Step Cities Presentation meeting. The notice doesn’t say what it’s about, who it’s for, who’s making the presentation,…
Northfield City Councilor Jon Denison held a Ward 4 meeting on Saturday morning at 9 am in Tyler Park. Over the course of the 90 minutes, 7 citizens attended. In…
Filings for local public offices began last week. Open seats include three on the City Council (1st and 4th Wards, one at-large) and two on the Rice County Board (Districts 2 and 4). It closes next Tuesday, June 1, at 5 pm. More info on the home page of the League of Women Voters of Northfield. See the Northfield Ward and Precinct Map (PDF) and the Rice County District Commissioners Map (PDF).
As Tracy reported on Friday, Councilor Rhonda Pownell has filed for her at-large seat and Councilor Jon Denison has filed for his Ward 4 seat. Suzie Nakasian has filed for Jim Pokorney’s Ward 1 seat. He’s decided to not run for re-election. Nathan Kuhlman has filed for Ward 4. Since then, Galen Malecha has filed for his District 2 county board seat, according to the Nfld News.
Two years ago, these were the people who filed for the 4 City Council positions:
I met Carmen Sevcik a few weeks ago during the controlled burn of Hidden Valley Park. She had just moved into one of the Valley Pond townhomes where we live.…
Over a month ago at a City Council meeting, City Finance Director Kathleen McBride reminded the Council that the City’s general fund subsidizes the Northfield Community Resource Center (NCRC) building to the tune of $200,000 every year. (This does NOT include the debt service on the building.) Here’s a 30-second screen capture of the video of her remarks:
As far as I know, no one on the Council has said anything more about it and I don’t think City Administrator Joel Walinski mentioned the NCRC in his budget cutting-related remarks to the Council earlier this week.
It’s no easy task to understand the financials surrounding NCRC, given its complicated origins and ongoing negotiated leases with the various agencies and programs housed there. (Some historical resources/links below.)
But it’s time to bring the details of these NCRC financial arrangements out into the open so citizens can help staff and the council rethink what the City’s role should be, given the $200K annual subsidy and budget deficits looming this year and next.
I’m not necessarily against the subsidy. Many cities evidently do something similar as a way to help support programs which are not part of the city but that add value to the community. I just want to have the discussion.
And it’s not just the budget deficit that should compel us to have this discussion. It’s also the proposed new police facility that’s possibly relevant.
I’ve been asking people what the pros and cons might be of locating the police department at the NCRC, given the $200K annual subsidy, its central location, ample parking, ample room to construct a secure garage/sally port, and ample office/meeting space (assuming one or more agencies move out).
I’ve not heard many arguments against the idea but without knowing what the financial arrangements are with the current tenants, it’s difficult to know whether this option is viable.
So let’s see what relevant documents can be brought to light and have a discussion about it all. In the meantime:
- See the transcript of the Jan. 1998 online panel discussion on the NCRC referendum
- See the Council minutes for April 4, 2005 when the leases were renegotiated, including this: