It’s been a little over a year since the City of Northfield and Greenvale Township signed an annexation agreement for 530 acres of undeveloped farmland. The concept plans are for the park are now being proposed. I got this alert about the upcoming open house from Randy Jennings:
Category: <span>Gov’t & Policy</span>
While digging through my photo archives, I stumbled upon photos from two public meetings in late fall of 2003: the Hospital Reuse Open House in November and a presentation by Hospital Reuse committee members Alex Beeby and Meg Hargreaves to the City Council in December, with photos of citizens (primarily 
Way Park advocates) speaking at open mic. (Those links go to my blog posts at Northfield.org.) I’ve combined the photos from both meetings into one album.
There are some familiar faces in this album. My favorite: downtown mail carrier Tom Kotula, showing his ability to handle more than the mail.
See the album of 38 photos, the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:
Mill Towns Trail representatives Peg Prowe and Glenn Switzer and Northfield City Administrator Joel Walinski presented at yesterday’s NDDC downtown forum at the Archer House. Lots happening this year!…
I got an email from someone saying that the Rice County Sheriff’s Dept had issued a request for certified search and rescue volunteers to help find Brittney Landsverk who’s been missing since last Friday (Nfld News story here). I wrote to Sheriff Richard Cook to verify this and he emailed me back:
Not true. We have plenty of resources we haven’t tapped into yet. We are doing this in a coordinated and methodical manner eliminating one stretch of the river at a time while doing daily patrols up and downstream as far as Northfield in case something comes up. Here is the latest press release. I will add you to the list.
Our guest this week, Northfield City Councilor Kris Vohs (At-Large), with two of his grandkids in the audience.
We asked him to explain his vote in favor of the plan to reuse the existing Safety Center location for a new fire station and to build a police station at a new location. The surprising short version of his answer: getting ‘political’ support to build a single building would be difficult in this economic climate. More surprising: he doesn’t support going to the citizens on a referendum to fund the facilities.
The rest of the show we spent discussing the trees on 4th St. which again comes before the Council tonight.
Robbie and I had our first experience with bubble tea on Saturday. Yum. (The rumors continue to swirl around Northfield that’s a bubble tea restaurant that’s going into the into…
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…
Census 2010 banners and posters are appearing around town so send in those forms. The City of Northfield has a Census PDF on its site with details on where to…
The City of Northfield’s compost facility is not due to open for two more weeks, April 13, despite the fact that spring has arrived 2-3 weeks early. Normally, I Ross Tracy would be bitching whining about the City’s lack of flexibility or poor “customer” responsiveness.
But this year’s budget woes compel me to approach it differently. I don’t know how much the City spends each season to have a part-time people staff it but let’s assume it’s approximately $15, 000 (40 hrs/week * 30 weeks * $12/hr).
The City could save money by cutting back hours and telling people to pay Waste Management or use the Rice County Recycling Center (see the 2010 compost site PDF).
Or it could ask its citizens to volunteer to help keep services at their present level. (Imagine this scenario happening with many other services that the City provides.)
Here’s a straw poll that’ll give city fathers and mothers an indication of citizens’ appetite for cutting vs. volunteering in order to save money: