I sat in for the part of today’s meeting of the City of Northfield Economic Development Authority (EDA) and the first 30 minutes of the agenda were devoted to whether…
Locally Grown (LoGro) Northfield Posts
Five items to suggest that the City hasn’t yet learned the importance of communications and transparency:
Posted to the Nfld News at 7 pm yesterday: City may have violated Open Meetings Law. “Five City Council members have now confirmed that they met individually with the city administrator to discuss withholding tax reimbursements from Waterford Township, an apparent violation of state Open Meetings Law.” - Wed. Nfld News: Fighting words arise over 30-year-old annexation agreement: “The city’s decision to review the agreement at next Tuesday’s city council meeting is “unethical,” since it doesn’t provide enough time for Waterford to weigh its legal options, Dudley said after discussing the issue with city officials at the township’s regular meeting on Monday night.”
More dollars are going to be flowing out the door at a time when the City of Northfield can least afford it.
Jane McWilliams, observer for the Northfield League of Women Voters, has blogged her report on Tuesday’s City Council Work Session. The last paragraph (links are mine):
MPR has a page listing “aid organizations accepting donations for earthquake relief for Haiti.” Two of them have a Northfield connection:
Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) has been the focus of Northfield-based 5th Bridge. See the FMSC Haiti Earthquake Response page. - Northfield native Gary Dahl works for the American Refugee Committee Int’l (ARC). He’s the Country Director for Thailand and was the project leader for the Fishing Boat Project “which distributed more than 360 boats to fishermen in Thailand who lost their fishing boats in the tsunami.”
Also, Jane McWilliams has a Haitian Relief blog post on Northfield.org. Northfielder Paul Miller recommends donations to Partners in Health, as does book author Tracy Kidder whose op-ed piece in today’s New York Times is titled Country Without a Net:
Our guest this week was Northfield Second Ward City Councilor Betsey Buckheit. We discussed her reflections of her first year on the Council, which she wrote about on her blog last month in a post titled What I’ve learned so far.
Click play to listen. 30 minutes:
Sunday was a perfect day for cross country skiing in the Carleton Arb. Sunny, light wind, about 15 degrees F. It ended with a fabulous sunset.
See my album of 18 photos, the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:
The “Friday Memo,” written by Northfield City Administrator Joel Walinski and various department heads and other City staff, summarizes the staff activities for the week. The Friday memos are published and archived in PDF form at the bottom of the City Administrator’s web page. The first memo of each month usually includes an update on the actions and activities of the City’s Boards and Commissions.
Friday’s memo can be found on the memo page for the week. Items of note include:
To avoid frequent government closures on Federal holidays, many of which fall on Mondays, the City Council has changed their regular meeting dates to the 1st and 3rd TUESDAY of…
Workers at Schmidt Homes Remodeling, a division of Steven Schmidt Construction, have been bearing down hard at the Archer House in recent weeks. It’s partially the result of the…