By Teri Knight, News Director
A crash involving a police squad at the intersection of Hwy 3 and Jefferson Pkwy late yesterday afternoon had the area closed for about three hours. In a press release from Deputy Chief Mark Elliot, he said, the squad was responding to an emergency medical call at the time of the crash, about 5:25pm. Both drivers were transported to Northfield Hospital with injuries. The Northfield Officer was treated and released. The driver of the second vehicle is still hospitalized with unknown injuries at this time. The Minnesota State Patrol is investigating the crash and will be responsible for sharing additional details and information on the investigation. Chief Nelson noted this morning that this type of crash is one of an Officer’s greatest fears, “we don’t want to see something like that happen because, obviously, we don’t want to see anyone injured whether
it’s our own officers or someone else. Our thoughts are with everyone that was involved”. For those that drove by, he said, it looked really bad. The scene was rather chaotic. Nelson added, “when you do happen upon an accident scene like that, I was a little discouraged because, I know everyone’s interested but, I saw people getting out of their cars to take video and photos and/or stopped in their vehicle and taking photos, please try and resist that urge because that is a dangerous scene”, he added, “the safety of our officers, our medical responders, our firefighters and just other people in vehicles can be negatively impacted if you’re not paying attention”. It happened yesterday with a couple of other drivers that weren’t paying attention and there were a couple of close calls. Squad Crash 05.06.20
“Strong financial management” keeps City afloat
The Northfield City Council heard an update on how Covid-19 is affecting the City’s financial situation. Administrator Martig commented that, overall, the City is in a good position, explaining, “and the City’s been very diligent about having strong financial management practices including have good reserve funds”. He reports they have six months of cash flow in the General Fund. States finance their cities differently. In Minnesota, cities receive Local Government Aid, LGA. Those dollars fund 74% of Northfield’s budget. More monies come from property taxes. Martig said they will be more sensitive to levies as they look to find ways to trim department budgets, adding that they don’t want to make emotional decisions, “we want to take a future-looking response out, so not only immediately, not even in 2021, but on a recovery situation down the road we don’t want to do things that put us in a bad position”. In the forecast from the state on Tuesday, the comparison from 2008 when we went into the great recession, was dramatically different. Martig commented, “where as now, they believe the recovery could be much more swift, it’s all an unknown, it’s a projection”. Finance Director Brenda Angelstad gave a presentation that is here: Financial COVID Update 050520 FINAL. As for a local sales tax option, Mayor Pownell had commented that Legislators are not inclined to approve any of those right now, as cities relying on those dollars are not doing well. As for a council push for it, that would appear unlikely at this point. Their full interview is HERE.
Nfld Cleanup Days May 9th and 16th
If you’ve been home cleaning out your garage or home, the City of Northfield will hold their clean-up days this Saturday, the 9th and the following Saturday on the 16th from 7am to 11am at the City’s Street shop at 1710 Riverview Dr. C. DeLong explained items include, “household junk, bulk items, construction debris from all those do-it-yourself projects; but no paint, no batteries, no tars, sludge, fertilizer”. The list is on the City’s website. Due to covid, you will be the one tossing your stuff into the DSI dumpsters.
