Land purchase on hold for Mill Towns Trail
The Northfield City Council discussed the possible acquisition of 2 properties for the Mill Towns Trail. They are 1700 and 1900 Dundas Blvd between the river and the RR trax behind Perkins Transportation. Mayor Dana Graham said there is a local trail there but it crosses over the RR tracks and is in disrepair. The proposal from the Mill Towns Trail group, is for the City to purchase the land and the DNR to build and maintain it. Staff wanted Council to go into closed session to discuss price, as that’s all they can discuss in a closed session. Graham felt there was no need for a closed session as it will be
voted on by the new Council not this one. “It doesn’t make sense”. Graham’s understanding was that the City would buy the land and then the DNR would reimburse them up to the appraised amount and then the Friends of the Mill Towns Trail would pay the difference. The DNR has no money to buy it or build it. When asked by Ludescher if the City loaned them the money, would they back it back, DNR Representative, Scott Haugen said, “on rare occasions we’ve been able to do that on very rare occasions. There are instances when that’s occurred, however, depending on the funding source it can become challenging for one public agency to acquire from another public agency because it’s almost like the public is paying twice for the same property”. There’s certainly broad support for it, Councilors Zweifel and Nakasian are on the Trail Board. Ludescher caught the Council by surprise by making a couple of motions to buy the properties. They failed. A motion to extend the meeting to go into closed session failed. There was much back and forth on procedure till they tabled the whole thing until further notice. This will come back to the new Council. 2-1900-dundas-blvd 1-1700-dundas-blvd-1
Dundas has banner year and 2017 looking good
Dundas has had a good year! Mayor Glenn Switzer said they had over $6 million in development investment in 2016 and Switzer they’re on track for the same in 2017. He says they made a lot of decisions years ago to provide infrastructure to allow for growth so that every time they add something it goes, “straight to the tax base and it doesn’t cost us anything so it’s pretty exciting there”. The K-Mart site is being considered for retail spaces and an 8 to 10 screen movie theater. They’ll spruce up the front too. A group from Red Wing, that’s converted a k-mart before, are completing the purchase with the current owners. They have 2 outlots with the potential for 3 or 4 more buildings but that’s a future phase.
Winter parking and Winter Walk
Police Chief Monte Nelson reminds residents that the winter parking ban is on now through March 16th. You can’t park on city streets between 2am and 6am. A permit can be obtained under “extreme circumstances”. He said there have been too many given out in the past and that has created a real problem for plow drivers, “so this year we’re being much more particular on those permits and we have some unhappy customers unfortunately, but it is supposed to be reserved for extreme hardship not just convenience”. And today is Winter Walk where downtown is closed off for parking. No parking signs have been posted. Last year he saw someone, “completely oblivious”, manage to drive around a barricade and wind up driving right through downtown during Winter Walk. He says consider dropping people off and dress appropriately. It’s going to be cold! Be sure to listen to Lisa Peterson talk about all the fun stuff going on downtown! Lisa on Winter Walk
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