The Wed. Nlfd News had this editorial, Don’t forget that alcohol is a drug, too, which referenced last weekend’s story, Teens arrested at party: Northfield Police charged 18 area teens…
Locally Grown (LoGro) Northfield Posts
Adam Gurno’s one-year anniversary blog post on Northfield.org prompted me to do the same. Here are my favorites of the photos I took that day: L to R: the fog…
A group of young people gathered on Bridge Square this afternoon to protest what they say is the unfair profiling of youth by the Northfield Police Department. (Profiling is when…
There’s some spiffing up for Defeat of Jesse James Days (DJJD) apparent downtown. Left: new (aren’t they?) wooden hitching posts in front of the NHS bank museum site. Right: new…
The City of Littleton, CO has pioneered a different sort of economic development strategy for the past decade. Known as “economic gardening”, this strategy shifts the emphasis from “economic hunting”, i.e. recruiting companies to relocate, to helping a community’s existing businesses and entrepreneurs grow into healthy, vibrant companies with a strong employment base.
Historically, small businesses have accounted for about 75% of all job growth, plus half to two-thirds of the nation’s innovations and inventions. According to the NY Times, small businesses accounted for more than half of all private-sector jobs created last month. And of 150,000 new jobs, 91,000 of them were in businesses with fewer than 50 employees. (Large businesses, however, cut 4000 jobs in June.) And the SBA (U.S. Small Business Administration) has determined that companies with fewer than 20 employees created 85 percent of the new new jobs over the most recent 14 years of available census data (up to 2003).
Given facts like these, it simply makes sense to cultivate and nurture entrepreneurial activity and our existing businesses, rather than putting all our economic eggs into the recruitment basket. However, as Ross pointed out in an earlier post Northfield does not have a reputation for being “business-friendly”.
But why not? And what does that mean, anyway? (The most vocal sector of the “be more business-friendly” contingent usually uses the term as code for “developer-friendly”, which isn’t the same thing at all.)
Our studio guest today was Hilary Ziols, Outreach and Development Coordinator, Cannon River Watershed Partnership. Ross and Tracy abandoned me so I enlisted KYMN station manager Jeff Johnson to fill…
According to the weather database at Carleton, we’ve gotten 8.39 inches of rain since Aug. 10. Areas in the Cannon River watershed have received much more, so the Cannon is…
In today’s Nfld News: Rental code passes first read: Ordinance faces final approval Sept. 10
With a 5-2 majority, the Northfield City Council approved the first reading of a long-awaited rental ordinance, leaving it just one vote away from final passage… Among other things, the ordinance as passed Monday would mandate the following for rentals:
- No more than 20 percent of the homes in a block would be allowed to be rental properties. This would not apply to housing now owned by the colleges, and blocks with higher densities would not be affected until a rental property is sold. Rental licenses would not be transferable to a new owner.
- No more than three unrelated adults would be allowed to live in one rental unit, unless the owner obtains a conditional use permit for up to five occupants where the building inspector deems there is space. Already established college-owned housing would be exempt.
- Contact information for the owner and/or rental agent of each property would have to be clearly posted within close proximity to the main entrance.
- A rental housing board of appeals would be established.
- Administrative fines would be established, in addition to any other legal remedy.
Councilmen Jon Denison and Jim Pokorney cast votes against the ordinance. Denison expressed concern about the negative impact it could have on renters, while Pokorney was uncomfortable with controlling the number of rentals per block.
See P. 25 of the council packet (PDF) or the text below. The draft of the 39 page ordinance does not appear to be available on the City’s website.
Hi, I’m the Petty Grammarian and I’m here to help you. Actually I’m neither. But with Ross being out of town this week, I thought I’d step up to the…