By Teri Knight, News Director
August 11th is the Primary wherein three or more candidates on a ballot are narrowed down to two. In Northfield, the Mayoral race includes incumbent Rhonda Pownell, Jon Dennison and David Ludescher. There are four people on the ballot for Rice County Commissioner District 1 which affects the southern portion of Northfield, the City of Dundas, and townships to the south. Those candidates are Joe Adamek, incumbent Jake Gillen, Bill McDonald and Jim Purfeerst. Northfield City Clerk Deb Little explains that there are some changes due to Covid-19, “they’re joining the Secretary of State’s office and many other local elections officials, county officials and really encouraging people to vote by mail, vote from home this year. I’ve had, starting in March, a lot of phone calls, how can I vote without going to the polls”. Absentee voting has been available in Minnesota for many years. You can go onto the MN Secretary of State website, mnvotes.org and get a ballot sent to your home.
Little said, “fill it out, send it back. Those ballots are counted with all the rest of the ballots and the numbers reported at the same time. It’s just like voting in the polls except you’re voting from home”. You can also go online and check the status of your ballot. There will be in person voting but there have been some changes with two polling places moving to other locations. If you voted at the First UCC, this year you’ll vote at St. John’s. If you voted at the Northfield Retirement Center, you’ll be voting from Bethel Church this year. Those affected will receive a postcard directly from the County to make you aware. Early voting will start tomorrow. Little said you can do that at City Hall but expect it to take a longer time as they disinfect. The General Election is on November 3rd. Preparations are still in flux at this point, however, one issue Little says they WILL have is Election Judges. There are a number of judges who have already let her know they can’t serve right now. They are looking for more judges, there is an online form on the City’s website, you can contact Little at City Hall. There is some training involved both online and in person. If you’re 18 or older and eligible to vote in Minnesota, they’d be happy to have you. A reminder if you haven’t registered to vote, pre-registration is very helpful. To vote in the August primary, your deadline to preregister is July 21st. Other links from Deb Little:
https://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/120/Elections-Voter-Information
https://mnvotes.sos.state.mn.us/ABRegistration/ABRegistrationStep1.aspx
Update on those injured in ATV crash
We received an update from Rice Co. Sheriff Troy Dunn on the victims in Wednesday’s ATV/Dump Truck crash in Shieldsville Township. 76 year old Mary Lemieux is in serious condition, 57 year old Scott Pineur is stable and 54 year old Christine Pineur was released. Just before 6 o’clock Wednesday evening, Rice County deputies responded to the crash on the 20000 block of Geneva Avenue. The ATV was traveling southbound on the west shoulder when it attempted to make a left turn into a field approach in front of the dump truck. The dump truck attempted to pass the ATV and tried to stop but struck the ATV in the roadway. The driver of the dump truck (33 year old Travis James Semmann, of Morristown) was not injured. An investigation continues.
Video shoot in downtown
Heads up there’s a video shoot coming to downtown Northfield. Police Chief Nelson confirms a one day shoot will take place on Tuesday afternoon, June 30th, on Division St. He said, “we won’t shut down the street for the whole afternoon. We’ll maybe shut down a block for ten minutes, they’ll film and then take time off to reset their cameras and people and everything and we’ll open traffic back up”. There will be only a few places where they’ll have No Parking signs up and should affect few businesses. You’ll see some shoots on St. Olaf in the morning with a much lower impact.
Adventures in Stardust and SGNN
There is a great article in the Northfield News about Kosmo Esplan, Northfield’s 12 year old whiz kid, local actor and the co-creator of the KYMN radio series, “Adventures of Stardust” with Pauline Jennings. Esplan also has a youtube channel where his show SGNN is modeled after John Krasinki’s, Some Good News, but centers around Northfield. This is a LINK to his first episode. He has 8 episodes so far! If you have an act of kindness that you know about and want it to be featured in future episodes email it to Kosmo: planetwhizkid@gmail.com
