By Teri Knight, News Director
Faribault Fire and Police responded to a trench collapse yesterday afternoon. Around 12:30, they received a call to 1340 Matteson St. in Faribault on report of a man buried up to his chest. Co-workers had cleared the dirt away from the victim’s chest and he was conscious and breathing. Fire crews had to shore up the trench walls before getting in there to dig him free. They worked for nearly two hours. The victim remained alert and once freed, walked to the Ambulance. Both Faribault Fire and Police performed an initial investigation and documented the scene. An OSHA investigator then took over. Fire Chief Dustin Dienst stated, “Trench rescues are a low-frequency, high-risk operation. Thankfully, we have the equipment and
the training to perform this type of rescue. We don’t get calls like this very often and I am very happy with the results of this operation, as most trench collapse emergencies don’t end this well.” Rice County Sheriff’s deputies also assisted. Trench Collapse Press Release
City gets less than 1% interest rate on bonding sale – leads to reduction in assessments
The City of Northfield had nine bidders for the $5.4 million bond sale for 2020 street and infrastructure improvements which includes the roundabout project at Hwy 246 and Jefferson Pkwy. Administrator Ben Martig said, “couldn’t really have asked for better news related to our financing last week and it’s going to reduce our debt service expenditures by about 5% from what we had anticipated”. Nick Anhut with Ehlers and Associates shared that the City’s rating through Standard and Poors is AA. The City has come “unscathed” so far in the pandemic, Anhut said, and they’re “very pleased” adding that the sale Tuesday morning attracted bidders from all over the country, “with the winning bid coming from Piper Sandler here in the Twin Cities. Bonds are going to be paid off over a ten year term at below 1% interest cost”. Additionally, “there will also be some savings to the assessment payers as the rate that they are assigned is benchmarked off of the bond issue and so they will be seeing a lower level of payments than were anticipated“. The Council also approved increases for council members and Mayor. As Mayor Pownell put it, their compensation, “helps people to be able to cover their costs to sit in a council meeting for 3 hours at least 3 times a month in addition to the numerous hours that you spend engaging with the general public, sitting on boards and commissions or even just studying the background material [for their meetings]”. The ordinance increased council members yearly pay to $8776, that is $172 a year more and for the Mayoral position, a raise of $229 to $11,702.
Court trials resuming as zoom hearings continue
While zoom hearings are helpful, they do take longer, said Rice County Attorney John Fossum, as the courts ease into reopening, “there’s a lot of information that needs to be digested, there tends to be sometimes a little bit of a lag for people and sometimes technology isn’t up to the needs of moving things along”. It’s not going to go away any time soon. As these are public hearings, they are accessible to the press and public. As for trials, Fossum said,“we’ll have a couple of court trials, I think, this month and we might start having jury trials at the end of August or sometime in September”. Fossum’s full interview is HERE.
NDDC gets Accredited
The Northfield Downtown Development Corporation announced it has been designated as a 2020 Accredited Main Street America program for their revitalization efforts, strong public-private partnerships and actively preserving historic buildings. Executive Director Greg Siems highlighted some of the projects the NDDC has done over the past two decades including Welcome banners and holiday decorations, benches, bike racks, a Gateway corridor improvement plan and newer initiatives such as Artists on Main Street, Riverwalk design amenities and business succession planning. The full press release: NDDC announcement 7-1-20
