By Teri Knight, News Director
A Dundas man is in jail after topping out at 119 mph on his sport bike on Highway 3. A Northfield police officer spotted 30 year old Abraham Rocha traveling southbound on Hwy 3 from Hwy 19 passing vehicles between lanes. He was clocked at 50 mph in a 30 over the bridge. Near Clinton Lane, Rocha reached 82 mph. When the officer activated his lights Rocha sped up to over 100 mph. Faribault Police department, Rice County Sheriff’s Office, and Minnesota State Patrol joined in the pursuit. At the intersection near 30th St. NW in Faribault, he couldn’t make the turn. Rocha finally dumped his bike and attempted to flee on foot. A trooper was able to catch him and took him to the ground, where he
continued to resist until he was tased. Rocha was transported to the Rice County Jail where they found a knife on him. He’s charged with two felonies fleeing an officer and bringing contraband into a jail. Bail’s been set at $10k with his court appearance on May 5th.
Stronger Together – LBSA/CAC team up to provide services
In our continuing series, Why Community Matters, a look at care providers, in particular Laura Baker Services Association, and the community relationships we share, today I talked with Scott Wopata and Anika Rychner from the Community Action Center. Wopata explains they meet basic needs for the community from food to emergency shelter to helping people get jobs and more. Their goal is empowering the community. As for their partnership with LBSA, “the way we think about it is, Laura Baker’s just a really wonderful micro community within Northfield that we have an opportunity to support in a really innovative way with the same supports that we’re doing everywhere else”. Many of the leaders of service providers in Northfield share information and needs with each other. Rychner said they hired a Community Advocate that’s dedicated to providing services for Laura Baker employees. She said while they invite people to COME to the CAC, “we’re really trying to think differently about providing better access to people without making them come to us, because it can be really hard to ask for help, it can be scary if you don’t know CAC, you don’t know the organization or you weren’t sure”. With insufficient government funding creating staffing issues, Wopata and LBSA’s Sandi Gerdes wanted to see how this pilot program would work, “I think both Sandi and I have hopes that the outcomes will almost show a return to help keep the program sustainable”. The power of relationships, in particular between staff and clients at Laura Baker, is very important, highlighting the importance of staff retention. This program started just a few months ago with investment from the CAC. Rychner added, “one thing that we know is that the clients are at the center and at the heart of what Laura Baker is all about and so providing supports to those people that care for the clients is incredibly important to build that trusting relationship”. The full interview is HERE. Tomorrow, the final segment entitled “Share Your Talents”, will highlight volunteers offering ways to enrich LBSA clients lives through their art. That’s at 9am tomorrow.
Arcadia Charter School held their 4th innovation day
Logan Wells has the story: Schools may be distance learning for the rest of the year but that didn’t stop Arcadia Charter School for having the last of their four Innovations Days yesterday. Here’s Executive Director Laura Stelter “We originally we were going to have a sort of like a field day lots of team building activities and community interaction, a sort of celebration of the year.” Instead, of a field day students and staff were split into teams and used Google Meets to complete fun activities, like recreating The Brady Bunch theme song or make a Rube Goldberg machine to score points for the team. Along with the team building activities, students got to write two postcards that they were encouraged to send to either friends or family to connect. Additionally, students wrote a postcard to go with gift baskets that Monarch Gift Store is making for Three Links and NRC residents. For the last activity of the day, students received a piece of a mural that they can paint in their own unique way. Later each piece of the mural will be reassembled. “as sort of symbol of our togetherness even from a distance.” For KYMN News I’m Logan Wells
Spring Creek Rd. closed
Spring Creek Road in Northfield will be closed starting today as construction on the Bridge Replacement Project resumes. The detour will use Jefferson Parkway, Prairie and Woodley Streets. Work is expected through mid-May.
