There was courtroom drama at the Northfield Charter Commission meeting last week when 2 attorneys, the Chair of the Commission, David Ludescher, clashed with Greg Colby. Appointed as at-large-Councilor this January to take over Rhonda Pownell’s seat when she became Mayor, Colby applied to be on the Charter Commission but bypassed the Chair and sent his application directly to the District Judge. The Charter is the ONLY board or commission where a Judge is the one to appoint the positions. According
to Sec. 2.3 of the Charter, which was amended in 2012, the chairperson of the charter commission will oversee the process for receiving, verifying eligibility and forwarding applications of qualified applicants to the Chief Judge of the Third Judicial District Court who will make the appointment(s). At the meeting, Ludescher told Colby that he could have a seat at the table but could not vote. Lance Heisler suggested they just ratify it and move on. Scott Oney agreed and called it a valuable learning experience. Adding that it has been like pulling teeth to get a quorum. Ludescher remained unmoved and wanted an apology from Colby and Judy Schotzko, the other appointee. (who was not present). Colby disagreed. Administrator Martig commented yesterday , “this is an example where there’s the statutory pieces too. You can’t just read the City Charter as it stands alone. Charter talks about that process but Statutes grant three ways that applications can be processed. One is through nominations of the city council, one in direct submission to the Judge and then the third is through the Charter commission appointmens”. The Judge was made aware of the language that states applications go through the Charter Chair by Ludescher. Martig said the Judge, “responded and said no, I’ve read it , I do have the authority to do this directly. So to me the Judge made an order basically making the appointments”. Martig said this process will be discussed at the next Council meeting. The next question is, without enforcement, what happens to the Charter?
Wornson named permanent Director at Arcadia
For the last year, Arcadia Charter School has been led by Interim Executive Director Barbara Wornson, a longtime charter school director and teacher. From a pool of 16 candidates, the search committee recommended Wornson to be the permanent Executive Director, the Arcadia School Board unanimously approved the recommendation on Tuesday, May 30th, which Wornson accepted. Reporter Logan Wells says Staff, Parents and Students are excited to accept Barb into the Arcadia family for the long term. She is also a founding member of Arcadia and her son graduated from the school in 2008.
NHS celebrates June History month
June is History Month and Northfield Historical Society’s Interim Director Cathy Osterman has a lot planned locally. Tonight there’s a tour of Northfield’s historic downtown with Barbara Evans at 6:30. Other activities abound including a how-to on researching genealogy, a free day to take a last look at Carleton’s sesquicentennial exhibit, an Open House debuting their first Malt-O-Meal exhibit on Toys, Tools and Special Offers. These are some of the premiums Malt O Meal gave away over the years. Osterman says “we may have some samples!”. The biggest exhibit will open on June 29th and will focus on Northfield’s reaction to WWI. An 18 month exhibit that will change out a few times during that time. Find it all online at northfieldhistory.org.
