Driving past the new Fairfield Inn & Suites building site on Hwy 3 it hasn’t looked like much work has been going on lately.  I spoke with Community Development Director Chris Heineman who said they ran into a “dewatering issue”.  Due to the land it sits on, the developer has used something called geo piers for footings, it’s the same type that were used on the condo project.  Rather than a concrete slab, these footings go down to bedrock and are 7 to 10 feet apart across the entire building pad. (more…)

The Northfield City Council had a presentation concerning the 2016 financials.  Mayor Rhonda Pownell explained this is a yearly process that entails plenty of staff time to do “checks and balances”, giving them a picture of where the City is at as compared to other comparable cities.  Some of the items they compared were the amount the City taxes per person, the level of the City’s debt.  She said, “we’re right in line, sometimes below what are comparable cities are”.  She said the City is in great (more…)

President and CEO Steve Underdahl discussed the state of health care last week on KYMN.  He said, “the lack of certainty and the lack of a cogent direction in some ways grinds things to a halt”.  As a healthcare industry they can respond to policy changes as they happen.  But now the signals are unclear.  Immediately after the election, Underdahl said the “healthcare intelligencia” were saying they thought there would be some changes but the trajectory of healthcare policy will be somewhat similar.  The analysts are now unsure.  Underdahl said, “and so I’m a little afraid, (more…)

A late night ride through Lonsdale on a dirt bike came to an end after the man crashed into a utility box in a neighborhood. 36 year old John Thomas Schultz was riding the mini dirt bike with no lights on around 11 o’clock last Wednesday night. A Lonsdale officer spotted him and activated his emergency lights. According to the criminal complaint, that’s when Schultz looked back at the squad car and then took off. He blew through 3 stop signs and then cut through a vacant lot at 2nd Ave. NE and Cottonwood. He then crashed into the utility box, flying over the handlebars and landed on a mailbox. He then tried to run from the officer. (more…)