The new Fairfield Inn & Suites off Hwy 3 has been rising up in quick fashion. Northfield Community Development Director Chris Heineman says they’re on target for a late summer opening. Other commercial projects include the Northfield Hospital and Clinic’s Express Clinic on Division St.. EconoFoods has submitted a building permit for renovation of their $2.5 million project to completely revitalize the interior of the store. They expect to be complete by DJJD. Construction will be starting soon along Hwy 3 near Clinton Lane for a Farmers State Bank, a small chain bank expanding
to Northfield from Dennison and West Concord. Additional development on that outlot is scheduled to begin later this summer. The largest project is the Senior Housing project across from the hospital. Heineman said the development agreement should happen in April with building permits issued in early May and construction to begin in early June. The Carleton Science Center project, started in 2017, will exceed $100 million. Completion date is set for 2019.
Hillmann pleased with bipartisan support of Pensions bill
School Districts rely on the State Legislature for the majority of funding. Northfield Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann shared that he’s, “really pleased to see bipartisan unanimous approval in the Senate of the Pensions bill”. It included a number of things including a longer term fix for TRA, the Teachers Retirement Association. Changes will take place over the next 6 years. Part of that includes, lowered assumption on the return rate, part of it employers will pay a little bit more, part of it will mean that current retirees will see their cost of living adjustment slightly reduced over the next several years and, 6 years from now, current employees will have their contribution increased modestly. Pensions have become problematic in many other states but the unanimous approval of the Senate was important.
Dayton’s bonding bill and the MNLARS mess
The 2nd deadline for legislative bills is tonight. Finance bills need to be cleared through their committees. Representative David Bly said the Governor has put his bill forward. Bly calls it “robust” and that it includes dollars for wastewater treatment plants, money for University construction and “other much needed funding”. The House and Senate DID approve an additional $10 million for the beleaguered MNLars which includes oversight the House wanted. Bly says the Governor got most of the money he asked for. Bly said the revamp of MNLars has been going on for years, ” and the first provider they worked with botched the deal, they fired them, they got rid of them. Then they had to start over, then they had a product they thought was ready to launch, I think, back in October. They launched it and it turned out to be not in good order. So they hired some independent contractors to come in, who are experts at making these systems work and fix them”. The original funding was running out and the independent contractors were getting pink slips. Bly said they feared losing more of these “experts” and wanted the additional funding. As to why they weren’t hired the first time, Bly said they had to have a product in place for the independent contractors to fix it because there wasn’t the expertise in the State’s department to do it. A Fox 9 investigation that aired Feb. 18th, revealed problems years ago. In 2012, DVS, the state’s Driver and Vehicle Services division first hired Hewlett-Packard to overhaul the computer system. By 2014, there were issues and DVS shut down HP. They brought in MN IT, the state’s Information Technology Department to see what was going on. MN IT gave some of the development work to its own state employees, who make about $50 an hour. But it also hired four times as many outside consultants and paid some of them over $300 an hour, creating a conflict of interest. In the meantime, the system has created a huge backlog of issues for citizens so that many have the wrong registration on vehicles, which can be problematic when stopped by police. In Northfield, transactions like renewing your tabs have been simple. The problems arise when purchasing a vehicle and transferring titles.
