A man was airlifted after crashing his motorcycle yesterday evening. Rice County deputies responded to the intersection of 45th St. W and Kanabec Avenue in rural Lonsdale around around 7 last night. The victim, 48 year old Joel Quaintance of New Prague lost control in the curve, went in the ditch and was thrown from the bike. Lonsdale Rescue and North Ambulance were on scene. Quaintance was flown to North Memorial with serious injuries. Sheriff Troy Dunn reports that
Quaintance was not wearing a helmet and alcohol may have been a factor. He remains in serious condition. Dunn also said August has been a bad month with 2 fatalities and 3 serious injury crashes. Three of the five are confirmed alcohol was involved.
Body cams are a complex issue
Police Chief Monte Nelson discussed body cams at the Northfield Council work session on their budget last week. Those cameras aren’t as simple as just clipping them on. Administrator Ben Martig said,”you have to capture the data, be able to redact people’s image from that. So you can imagine, redacting on paper is one thing where you do a cross out but with video you have to actually have to have software that can blur the faces out and then someone to actually manage it”. Administrator Ben Martig also said they need servers to store the data and likely a dedicated staff person to manage it. Between the equipment, software, etc. the cost is somewhere between $80 to $100,000. There will be public hearings as well. There was discussion about civil rights at the Council level. Considerations include when the cameras are turned on, when they’re turned off if entering someone’s home. Martig says it’s not as simple as buying the camera and calling it good, there’s a lot of complexity to it. The soonest they would look into implementing body cams would be the end of next year.
Leather recliners and laser projectors for the best experience
The new movie theater coming to Dundas is a welcome feature to the surrounding community. Red Wing Cinema owner, Chris Brown, along with his wife, Amber, bought the old K-Mart building and have been renovating it ever since. Brown says the 10 screen movie theater is set to open in November. Some features include leather recliners and laser projectors. Adding that you get a better picture and better lighting. Behr’s USA, a carpeting store, has already moved in, Canvas Church will have space there as will MGM Wine And Spirits. The Browns bought the MGM franchise, transitioning into yet another type of business. Brown believes there’s room enough for Firehouse Liquor, Northfield’s Municipal and MGM as traffic continues to grow in the area. There are 2 more spaces to fill out the complex. Out of 90,000 sq. ft., 60,000 is leased. There are also restaurant pad sites out in front of the building.
