By Teri Knight, News Director
Last week’s Northfield Council split decision to close the Water St. Bridge received blowback from the businesses that would be affected and the community let them know in the e-comments section and on social media. Administrator Martig suggested closing the small section of Water St. between Bridge Sq. and the dam. This would allow for citizens to spread out more and utilize the area west to the river from Bridge Square for eating. The vote was 6 to 0 for Option A to close that small section, C. Nakasian was absent.
Then came the question of dealing with the bridge itself. In a 4 to 2 vote, Council chose Option B which C. PetersonWhite moved forward, saying, “my primary concern as I think I was clear about this last week, is to solve the pedestrian safety issue on the bridge. If I had understood that in order to close the bridge we would also have to close the portion of 4th street on the north side of the square, that was not clear to me until the meeting last week, which I think is a huge drawback”. However, she did vote for the full closure last week. Although, apparently it was unclear whether they voted for staff to move forward or to look into it further. For now, walk paths will be in the roadway over the bridge to still allow fishing off the bridge. There will be “channelizers”, with a ramp, to guide pedestrians either onto the roadway or the sidewalk. PetersonWhite called this a “good compromise”, adding, “there may be longer term solutions to this problem because it really is not a problem that will end with the pandemic. We have a lot of people who like to hang out on the bridge, we want to encourage them to do so and the sidewalks are too narrow for people to walk side by side with people also hanging out on the bridge”. C. Zweifel commented that she heard from her west side constituents 6 to 1 in favor of closing it. C. DeLong countered that there’s plenty of riverfront for the fishermen, they don’t need to be on the bridge. This morning, Mayor Pownell commented that when she was observing, “on two different occasions I saw a woman in a motorized wheelchair. There is no way with the number of people that were fishing that she could safely cross the bridge on the sidewalk when you have people standing there fishing”. As to the question about moving the fisherman, the Mayor said this morning on KYMN, “no we’re not asking people to not fish from that spot and I think I was clear there, a lot of people are fishing not just for pleasure but for food”. This was not mentioned during the meeting last night, she said, “from my standpoint I feel like this option B with the pedestrian lanes is a nice compromise and meets the needs for pedestrian safety which is my primary concern, while also meeting the needs of the business community”. C. Ness voted against it citing Fire Chief Franek who said the closure was a safety issue, Martig said Franek told him the 9 ft. driving lane was fine with the 5 ft. walkways. The closure and walkways will be installed as soon as possible and remain in place through August 7th. Council will look at the issue again on Aug. 3rd. [The fishing ordinance was a hot topic in 2016 but never went anywhere except for signs to go up, then had to be taken down because it was unenforceable] Click on this link for the presentation on their plans: City Council Supplemental Agenda Background Memo for June 16 2020 No. 2 (1)
Four Nfld School Board seats open
There are four Northfield School Board member positions up at the end of this year. Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann said, “we’ve had a few of our incumbents that have served for a long time have said that they’re not going to run this time around. We have the seats of Noel Stratmoen and Dr. Ellen Iverson, Dr. Rob Hardy and Amy Goerwitz are up and we don’t know how many of them are going to file to run again”. There is no primary for School Board positions. Candidate filing for those seats is July 28th through August 11th. As we get closer to that date there will be more information on the schools website.
Riverwalk Market Fair will not open on Bridge Sq. this year
The RiverWalk Market Fair will not be opening at Bridge Square this year. The Board of Directors voted yesterday afternoon to abandon the idea of starting it up. In a press release, April Kopack wrote, “The health, safety and well-being of our community, customers, staff and vendors are our priority”. Due to COVID-19 and the guidance provided by many respected sources they chose not to use Bridge Square but do hope to return in 2021. They will continue to operate to support our vendors as a “virtual” market this year.
