Longtime local landlord LaVern Rippley, Professor of German at St. Olaf, is evidently opening an office at 1300 Bollenbacher Drive, an office building that he owns just south of the ice arena. He’s calling it Rippley Rentals and Construction. No blog or Facebook page yet. Heh.
Tag Archives: LaVern Rippley
Hey LaVerne, don’t forget to shovel your sidewalk
The Ole Café closed on Feb. 20, the same day southern MN got hit with a big snowstorm. I noticed yesterday that the sidewalk in front of the store has not yet been shoveled. Believe it or not, LaVerne Rippley owns the building.
The City of Northfield’s policy on the shoveling and clearing private sidewalks reads:
By city ordinance (Ch. 70 Article I, §70-2) property owners are responsible for removing snow and ice from the sidewalks adjacent to their property within 12 hours after snow or ice precipitation has stopped. If snow and ice are not removed, it may be removed by authorized city personnel, and the costs for snow removal will be assessed against the property. Residents may report uncleared sidewalks to the Public Works office (contact information listed on the right side of this page).
I guess I’ll have to tattle on LaVerne to TJ so something can be done before next week’s big snowstorm hits.
Ole Cafe opens; grammar protest filed
The Ole Store has reopened as the Ole Cafe.
I stopped by early Thursday morning, its second day of operation. Their coffeehouse opens at 5:30 am on weekdays, which I think is the earliest of any in Northfield. Owner Angie Perez was there (left photo, on the right) whipping things/staff into shape.
The About Page on their almost-ready web site says they offer four concepts in one:
- A cafeteria style eatery that offers a wide variety of soups, salads, build-your-own sandwiches, panninis, and during dinner hours – build-you-own-pasta bar.
- A retail bakery that offers a wide range of cakes, cheesecakes, cupcakes, cookies, bars and breakfast pastries.
- A pizza bar that offers a selection of freshly baked pizzas and a fine menu of beer and wine.
- Finally, a coffee shop that offers a large selection of espresso drinks, blended coffee drinks and fresh brewed coffee that will start anyone’s day off right.
I noticed that the stage is gone from the coffeehouse, so they evidently don’t plan to offer live music.
Landlord and St. Olaf German professor LaVerne Rippley has changed the parking sign at the entrance to the lot (left photo from December), prompting the grammar police in the St. Olaf English Department to file a formal protest.
Jane McWilliams has blogged her breakfast experience there on Northfield.org. Unfortunately, the Northfield.org aggregator won’t be able to do its thing either on their blogosphere page nor in the homepage right sidebar box for local businesses because the attractively-designed website (right image above) doesn’t have an RSS feed.
Lavern Rippley rips the monied elite of the east side
You’d better have your historical and metaphorical wits about you if you’re going to decipher Lavern Rippley’s guest column in this weekend’s Northfield News titled The rental situation calls for drastic measures (membership not required to read it online). Rippley is a professor of German at St. Olaf and owns numerous properties in Northfield, both rental housing and commercial.
Northfield’s rental ordinance-in-the-making is turning into Marxist-Cromwellian, Postvillian class warfare. No open street brawls, no physical injury yet but plenty of hurt. Mass legislation is proposed to blanket our whole region to skirt a local scene of class warfare – guillotining members of all three estates, lords, clergy and peasants. Badly needed in the proposal though absent from the approach thus far is a dash of ordinary common sense.
Hence my proposal: Acknowledge that Northfield’s class warfare can be confined to a local region – the East Side Neighborhood. Unlike the class warfare of medieval Europe, this one is different. Here the first estate is comprised not of kings but of the monied elite of the east side neighborhood. The second estate is best labeled not as scholarly monks but as members of the fifth finest college in the nation, perhaps in the world. The third estate more accurately delineated this time is comprised of the intellectually gifted students at that highly endowed and richly acclaimed fifth best. Thus for the first time in history we have elites of whom the first is striving to cannibalize the other two. Let’s not waste our time legislating for all of Northfield. Let’s cut to the chase with a solution.
I got Cs in history but I’m pretty sure Rippley opposes the proposed change in the rental ordinance. What else is he saying exactly? East side homeowners and some Carleton students are snobs for wanting more controls on the rentals?