The Representative Journalism Project has a core goal of revealing the journalistic process as it happens, from beginning to end, and beyond. By creating “Bonnie Obremski, RepJ,” I am striving to meet that goal in a better way than I have been. LocallyGrownNorthfield.org will be a place for me to publish my finished work. (continued)
A recent letter to the editor in the Northfield News told the tale of injuries sustained while sledding on the hill below Old Main. A Strib article titled Sledders hit icy slopes – hard chronicled the serious sledding injuries that have been treated at Hennepin County Medical Center.
But there’s an upside. “Hospitals are hurting right along with most other businesses in this recession,” said Northfield Hospital spokesman Scotch Richmondson. “But our ER revenue has been 20% ahead of last year thus far this winter and most of that is due to sledding injuries on the local hills that got iced up a couple weeks ago. It’s been a real godsend for both us and our Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic. Icy sidewalks are our bread and butter, of course, but Northfield just doesn’t have enough sidewalks to make it lucrative for us.”
Some local attorneys were looking to capitalize on the trend. St. Olaf quickly put up a warning sign on the Old Main hill that reads, “Persons engaged in sliding, sledding, or other hazardous activity, do so at their own risk.” Dave Hviscerate, an attorney with the local law firm of Ludefisk, Hustler, and Hviscerate LLC, said (continued)
Representative Journalism (RepJ) creator Leonard Witt (professor at KSU in Georgia, Public Journalism Network blogger) arrived in Northfield last night for a series of meetings (through Saturday) on the Northfield RepJ project at its six-month point. We tried to find him a set of long underwear last night before dinner at the Rueb ‘N’ Stein, but alas, the entire state is sold out on that item for some reason. Luckily, his room at the Archer House has a hot tub.
Len and RepJ reporter Bonnie Obremski were having breakfast at The Tavern this morning. We’re having boxed lunches from The HideAway today, meetings in John Schott’s Cinema & Media Studies department at Carleton this afternoon, and as Bonnie blogged earlier, there’s an open meeting that y’all are invited to at the Bittersweet Eatery Saturday morning at 10.
Update 1/17 at 11 am 3pm: new photos – yesterday’s RepJ/LoGroNo mtg at Carleton; RepJ feedback session this morning at Bittersweet Eatery; RepJ lunch at Chapati; Len Witt, paparazzi (continued…)
Click play to listen. 30 minutes.
It was just me and Tracy yesterday as Ross was prepping for the Action Steps for Infill and Redevelopment open house at the Grand. We spend part of the show talking about topics related to next week’s NCO/Northfield.org annual meeting where they’re having a panel discussion titled Beyond Letters to the Editor: How everyday people can be heard in Northfield. Related to that, of course, is the Council’s current effort to review all aspects of public input/engagement. Councilor Erica Zweifel is participating in the discussion thread here on LoGro attached to the blog post Public engagement for the City of Northfield: Councilors want to know what should be changed and she’ll be a guest on our show next week to talk more about it.
In this 8-minute video, Dr. Charles “Charlie” Reznikoff, addiction medicine specialist, answered my questions after talking to an audience of about 24 people on the subject of heroin addiction during a public presentation at the Northfield Hospital on Monday night.
Indiana Jones: Meet me at Omar’s. Be ready for me. I’m going after that truck.
Sallah: How?
Indiana Jones: I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.
I’ve made up my mind to try auctioning local ads here on LoGroNo. But those pesky details! Here’s my current thinking… and questions.
Northfield 4th Ward City Councilor Jon Denison voted against the appointment of Andrew Berglund and David Geist to the Rental Board at last Monday’s Council meeting, even though he abstained on a similar vote last September. According to Jane McWilliams’ LWV Observer report:
Councilor Jon Denison had requested that the second reading amending the Rental Housing ordinance be removed from the consent agenda, and placed on the regular one. At a previous meeting he had opposed the first reading, and now said the membership should be increased to 7, rather than reduced to recommended 5 (in order to avoid potential tie votes). His concern at this meeting was there were not sufficient stakeholders, specifically tenant’s represented. He later requested that the council take action separately on the mayor’s nominees for membership on the board (Andrew Berglund, landlord and David Geist, contractor) because they were not tenants. Councilors Denison and Zweifel voted against the appointments of those candidates.
If things look like they’ve gone to hell in a handbasket, they have. It’s late Sunday night (10:50 pm) and we’re whacking away at some big changes. Give us till…
Melissa Reeder, Northfield’s Information Technology Department manager, has set a goal to begin uploading streaming videos of the City Council meetings to the Internet in 2010, so long as there is money in the budget for the $8,000-$10,000 upgrade.
With streaming videos, image files flow to a video player on a Web site in a continuous stream and play when they arrive. Before streaming technology, a Web user would have to download an entire file before watching a video, which could take a long time. Reeder referenced Burnsville’s Web site as an example of a nearby community that uses streaming video.