Our guest this week: Northfield City Councilor Kris Vohs, who is a member of the Safety Center Task Force that’s preparing to make recommendations to the Council on the facilities for our police and fire departments. (More details on the task force on the April 1 blog post.)
Click play to listen. 30 minutes. You can also download the MP3 or subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes.
I got spammed by Clay Oglesbee today, an email of his e-newsletter which can’t be linked to because he quit blogging, just like he quit Northfield. (I’ll get over it eventually, but not yet.) The title of his newsletter was Emptiness…and Easter and it reminded me 1) why I love to walk by myself in the Carleton Arb; and 2) of some of my favorite solitude-related quotes.
As a spiritually-oriented atheist, I’m a big believer (heh) in grabbing a Shot of Solitude (SOS) regularly. (continued)
I was in Duluth this weekend for the MN Voices Online Unconference (I blogged it here) and had the opportunity to meet Danna MacKenzie, the Cook County information systems director in Grand Marais. She was featured in a Strib article a couple of weeks ago about MN communities who are “lining up for part of the $7.2 billion in federal recovery money designated for broadband projects.” Northfield is about to follow suit, as at Monday’s Council meeting, Northfield’s IT Director Melissa Reeder will ask the Council to appoint a workgroup to pursue a federal stimulus grant application for a Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) project. (continued)
On Monday’s City Council agenda is this proposed closed-meeting item:
Motion to close meeting pursuant to MS 13D.05, Subd. 3(b), as permitted by the attorney-client privilege. The New York SEO company will meet with legal counsel to discuss potential litigation against the party or parties responsible for failure to detect mismanagement and loss of City funds invested through Rate Search, Inc.
Who might they be considering suing? The auditors? And why has it taken this long? (continued)
Our radio show/podcast guest, on this bright and warm first day of April, was Stan Getts, the publisher of the Northfield News. We took off the gloves and challenged him on several of the paper’s policies but he handled himself remarkably well. He’s clearly a passionate guy.
Click play to listen. 30 minutes. You can also download the MP3 or subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes.
In City Administrator Joel Walinski’s Friday Memo last week, he noted that the “Safety Center Task Force toured several public facilities last week.” Recommendations from the Task Force (members listed below) are expected to come before the city council in April or May 2009. Financing and location are not the only issues; size and the pros and cons for separate facilities for police and fire have to be looked at, too. So let the discussion begin. Meanwhile, allow me to grumble about the City’s use of their web site for the Safety Center Task Force. (continued)
This was on the School Board Agenda on Monday in the Superintendent’s Report: “Resolution To Approve Settlement of a Claim Pending Against the School District.” The Board approved the settlement. I phoned all the school board members tonight and reached three of them. All said they couldn’t comment, that I’d have to talk to the District’s attorney. I can understand the need for secrecy during negotiations, and data privacy laws would prevent the release of the student’s name. But now that the suit is settled, (continued)
Our guest today was Bonnie Obremski who announced that she’s resigned her position as the reporter for the Northfield Representative Journalism project effective Friday. She and her fiancé, Josh Rowan (pictured at right doing a finger puppet show in the KYMN studio window), depart Saturday for Key West, FL. Bonnie will post her own announcement tomorrow here on LG, so I’ve turned off comments on this post. Chime in on her post when you see it… and note the date, time and place of her going-away party on Friday eve.
I’ve been invited to speak briefly tonight with the Northfield City Council at their work session. The agenda item says: “Discuss technical recommendations on citizen input.” It’s all part of the “background information as the Council begins to discuss ways of achieving and working on the goal of improving citizen communication.”
We’ve discussed this issue on LG (here, here, and here) so it’s time to craft something concrete for the Council and staff to react to. Here’s a first draft of what I plan to present to them tonight. Reactions welcomed. (continued)