Last week, 33 year old Taylor Peter Bossmann pled guilty to 3rd degree drugs and possessing a dangerous weapon on school property. In January, Faribault police found him sleeping in his vehicle in the staff parking lot of Faribault High School. Bossmann was unresponsive in his running SUV. A meth pipe was visible. An officer retrieved a gun near him, without waking the man. A search of the vehicle produced, among other things, a large Bowie style knife. In his wallet were 6 counterfeit $20 bills. The gun was a BB gun made to look like a real weapon. His sentencing is scheduled for May 22nd. Bossmann 68
Standing room only support at Nfld Council for Ice Arena
After years of sitting on a shelf, the Ice Arena discussion with Northfield Council nets standing room only crowd of about 100 supporters. An advisory board, chaired by Brett Reese and Public Works Director Dave Bennett, presented the findings and recommendation to the Council last night after 19 months of study. They looked at 4 options, landing on a 2 sheet arena at a cost of just over $21 million. Bennett told Council that during the prime-time, which is October through March, about 1300 hours is used. That’s 100{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} capacity. He said, when meeting with the user groups, high school, NHA, Learn to Skate, they could fill up 50{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} of a second sheet. As for economic impact, hockey tournaments bring in the biggest bang for the buck. Northfield could see 7 tournaments a year which includes two tournaments of 16 teams. Bennett said a conservative impact, which doesn’t take into account inflation, was estimated at $1.3 million. That number, he says, moderately now would be $1.8 million economic impact. That number includes estimates of hotel stays, restaurants, snacks at the arena, etc. Bennet went through the options, listing cost and how they came to the recommendation. St. Olaf is in the process of building an arena right now, the opportunity to work with them for one sheet would be costly as they require a new road built to keep traffic off the campus. The estimate is $17 mil and no prime hours available. Calling the current arena “substandard”, Reese said it would take $7 mil to remodel it and it still wouldn’t support a 2nd sheet of ice. Seven acres of land just south of Upper Lake Foods behind Kwik Trip off Honeylocust Dr. has been donated to the Northfield Hockey Association. Several financing mechanisms were brought up including a ½ cent sales tax, which would have to go before the voters. They want to move on this because it must come up in 2018 or wait till 2020. This will be on Northfield Council’s agenda for a vote of approval to move forward next week. The Advisory Board will present to the Dundas Council at their April 23rd meeting. Their hope is to get full approval to put it on November’s ballot in mid-May. We’ll be hearing much more about the possible Ice Arena in the coming weeks. Click on the link for their full presentation: 2018_4_10 City Council Supplemental Agenda Background Memo for April 10, 2018 No. 1
2020 Census presentation
The 2020 census is coming. Mayor Pownell said the League of Women Voters is sponsoring a presentation on April 16th at 7pm at the Northfield High School. She added that it’s important to ensure an accurate count for our organizations that rely on federal grant funding such as Healthy Community Initiative. It’s also important to maintain our seats for representation in the Legislature.
Sidewalk detour at 5th and Division to last all summer
The sidewalk and parking stalls on the south side of Fifth Street adjacent to 501 Division will be closed starting at 6 o’clock tomorrow morning due to work related to the remodeling project at the old RuebNStein. A pedestrian detour will be posted. Construction crews expect the detour to remain until early September.
