Our guest this week: City of Northfield Planning Commission member Alice Thomas. After our usual time-wasting fluff segment, we talked with her about the current process for revising the Land Development Code (LDC), AKA development ordinances, now that the 2008 Comprehensive Plan is finished.
Click play to listen. 30 minutes. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes.
In the March ‘09 issue of Atlantic Monthly, urban theorist Richard Florida has a cover piece titled How the Crash Will Reshape America. It made me wonder what the long-term impact of the economic crash on Northfield will be. The lead-in to Florida’s piece:
The crash of 2008 continues to reverberate loudly nationwide—destroying jobs, bankrupting businesses, and displacing homeowners. But already, it has damaged some places much more severely than others. On the other side of the crisis, America’s economic landscape will look very different than it does today… Which cities and regions can come back strong? And which will never come back at all?
This may be a question for Susan Hvistendahl. Or perhaps Hayes Scriven knows a guy or gal with a story. At any rate, where did the name “Dahomey” come from?
What is generally referred to around town as “Highway 3” is, in a deep-mapping world, known as “Dahomey Avenue”. I first discovered this fact while reviewing the March 10th, 1997 “Summary of Findings for Design of the Highway #3 Center Section” (prepared by the Ad Hoc Highway #3 Design Committee) as I helped to prepare the March 10th, 2005 “Final Report of the Mayor’s Ad Hoc Task Force on Safe Crossing of Highway 3“.
The Friday Memo, written by interim Northfield City Administrator Joel Walinski and many of the department directors, managers, and supervisors, summarizes many of the staff activities for the week. Although…
Ed Lufkin, an increasingly active blogger for 3 Northfield area organizations, posted to the Rotary’s blog last week a photo of Jesse James Bike Tour (JJBT) chair Neil Lutsky presenting a check for $20,000 to Peggy Prowe of the Mill Towns Trail. Today I noticed that construction on the bridge has visibly progressed. The bridge was supposed to have been constructed last year. (continued)
City crews are replacing many historic-looking pedestrian light poles downtown on Division St. The lights glow white, in contrast to the orange color of the light poles installed last year on the Water St. parking lot and Sesquicentennial Legacy Plaza. I know zilch about street lighting and even less about smart streetlights but in this week’s Friday Memo, TJ Heinricy, Supervisor of Northfield’s Streets & Parks Department, writes: (continued)
Federal dollars might soon funnel into communities across the nation if the Senate passes the $789 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and many people are already speculating about how the bill might affect their communities. This week, State Senator Kevin Dahle (D-Northfield), Christopher Richardson, superintendent of Northfield’s public schools, and Michael Hemesath, chairman of Carleton College’s Economics Department, talked about their understanding of the bill and what Northfield citizens might expect if it becomes law, which could happen as early as Friday night (update 2/14/09 8:15 a.m. the Senate did pass the bill).
A pesky citizen approached me last week during my morning office hours, wondering why the liquor store roof was not replaced after the big hail storm in 2006. The store’s roof is now targeted for replacement as part of the store’s $55-65K upgrade(Nfld News article). We discussed it briefly on our podcast with Mary Rossing and this roofing contractor, and I followed up with Interim City Administrator Joel Walinski. Joel wrote in an email: (continued)
Our guest yesterday was Hayes Scriven, Executive Director of the Northfield Historical Society. He’s leading a group of Northfield institutions (so far, they’re collaborating) that’s creating an audio walking tour of historical Northfield using some new-fangled technology called podcasting. In true Jesse James fashion, he stole the idea from New Ulm and their video podcast.