By Teri Knight, News Director
As the City of Northfield continues to grapple with how to assess property owners for street repairs, the Council has been pondering franchise fees for some time. Last week they had a lengthy discussion in a work session. Very basically, an additional fee would be placed on gas and electric bills, for most of us, that would be Xcel Energy. Administrator Martig said, “we all use streets, it’s much cheaper to do it, it’s less time. We (staff) can spend our energies on more design and productive work than coming up with these complex formulas for fees”. Should they follow through, right now, they would consider a 3.7% charge, approximately $6 a month. Martig added, “council could, policywise, choose to increase it for some other types of use but what we’re really focused on primarily is just replacing that revenue”. They’re looking at generating $1.2 million a year to replace the assessment income the City receives. It would have to be voted on as an ordinance. Martig encourages residents to look into this further. The
presentation is on the City’s website under City Council meeting. Those who already have special assessments would be exempt from paying the franchise fee until they have fulfilled their assessment payments.There will be another work session on this in July with a possible ordinance consideration ready for August, with implementation next year. Our property taxes pay for the rest of the street work. Note that there are many tax exempt properties, but everyone pays utilities. This is the presentation Council saw at their June 9th meeting: 1- Northfield – Franchise Fee Update – 6.9
Covid consideration for Downtown parking/pedestrians/businesses
As local restaurants start opening up to indoor dining, some are choosing to continue drive through only. While there are rules put forth in the Governor’s Executive Order, Northfield Chief Monte Nelson said they are looking to restaurants and bars for compliance not enforcement, “for downtown especially, is the sidewalk areas because some of our restaurants allow people to sit outside and eat and the emergency ordinance that we passed last week had some clear language in there that there has to be 5 ft of clear space”. That includes sandwich boards. They must be able to keep the sidewalks open for pedestrians which includes ADA compliance. The City continues to encourage people to wear masks and keep your distance. Parking is a hot button. As downtown gets busier, Nelson said they’ve already had complaints from businesses with people parking too long in one spot. There is a 2 hour limit with some spaces at 20 minutes. As council considers closing a street to allow for more dining space at Bridge Square, Nelson pointed out that does NOT include alcoholic beverages. The street closure is the last item on council’s agenda tonight, one option that is more palatable for businesses and emergency responders is to close the small stretch of Water St. between the post office and the Chamber office, which would lengthen Bridge Square west to the River but leave access to all the businesses and the bridge. They will also consider painting a walking path on the bridge. You can comment online at the city’s website or email City Clerk Deb Little until 4 o’clock this afternoon at deb.little@ci.northfield.mn.us Here is the 2nd supplemental memo put out by the City just after 1pm today. City Council Supplemental Agenda Background Memo for June 16 2020 No. 2
“It’s a benefit to the system”, Fossum says, for AG and BCA to handle Officer-involved cases
Remarking on the decision to have the Attorney General prosecute the case of the former officers involved in the killing of George Floyd, Rice County Attorney John Fossum said there is a proposal before the legislature to, “make a change in the laws for the Attorney General’s office to prosecute all Officer-involved shootings and for the BCA to investigate all of those”. The County Attorneys Association came out 2 weeks ago in support of that legislation and Fossum agrees, saying, “part of the reason for that is that we have to avoid not just what is a direct conflict when we’re considering ethics we have to look at what looks like a conflict”. He said it’s a benefit of the system to have those outside agencies responsible for those types of cases. But it will cost money. He cited a case he’s prosecuting for Mower County and a Rice County case that is being prosecuted in Mower county, both involving accusations against 2 police officers. Having the neutral party takes away the appearance of possible conflict.
