I woke up from my nap to the smell of smoke yesterday afternoon. A crew hired by the City of Northfield was doing a controlled burn of Hidden Valley Park. (The park is surrounded on three sides by the units of the Valley Pond Townhome Association where Robbie and I live.)
See the album of 16 photos (8 fire, 8 post-fire), the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:
It’s never pretty when Ross bails on our radio show/podcast and yesterday was no exception.
Tracy put on her Chair of the Northfield Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals (PCZBA) hat and after exchanging pleasantries about sidewalk dining, we went toe-to-toe on the planning process for the business park(s). She played the ‘nice’ card and then ended with a lecture till we ran out of time. I was unhappy. I’m mostly over it.
I don’t partake myself but the local college students I talked to this week say today is a still a significant day. I don’t worry about it. The movie, It’s…
(Originally posted on my CityCommons.net blog.)
Thanks to the City Council, the Planning Commission, and especially to Tim Freeland of KYMN Radio and City Councillor Betsey Buckheit for making my job easier.
First, a quick update on the LDC from this morning’s KYMN Radio newscast.
Next, the video of last week’s presentation to the City Council on the Land Development Code as it relates to existing (“built residential”) neighborhoods:
The “Friday Memo,” written by Northfield City Administrator Joel Walinski and various department heads and other City staff, summarizes the staff and department activities for the week. The Friday memos…
I noticed that the HideAway Coffeehouse and Winebar put out its tables and chairs this weekend so it seems a good time to revisit the issue of sidewalk dining in Northfield (that’s a Tag link to all our blog posts on the subject since 2006.)
Plus, there are two more Division St. eating/dining establishments opening this year.
I blogged last November that “Northfield’s sidewalk dining ordinance has been in effect since early 2008 but only one establishment has taken advantage of the alcohol clause: the HideAway Coffeehouse and Winebar. Five others have not. It might be helpful to find out why.”
Ross sent me a link a week ago to a blog called cooltownstudios that has a series of posts on outdoor cafe districts. (The blog is part of the bigger CreativeCrowdSource project.)
One of those blog posts is titled How to crowdsource an outdoor cafe district and it links to a forum thread on related attempts. The overview of how to do it:
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Ross and Tracy and I performed a set at the Contented Cow last night while the rest of the New Moon Trio took a break. We were hoping for a…