By Teri Knight, News Director
A Northfield woman was killed Saturday morning when she drove into a construction zone. 51 year old Michelle Dawn Burwell was driving west on Hwy 99 in Montgomery Township around 7:45 when she drove into the construction zone and a hole in the road. The State patrol reports that she was not wearing a seatbelt and alcohol was involved. Montgomery Fire and Ambulance assisted, she died at the scene. A segment of Highway 99 has been closed since June 30 after heavy rains damaged a culvert east of Highway 13. MnDot is in the process of replacing.
Nfld Council considers extension of road closure, channelizers
The Northfield City Council will consider extending the closure of Water Street at Bridge Square for picnic tables and also the continued narrowing of the 4th St. Bridge with channelizers at their meeting tomorrow night. On June 9th the City Council approved the closure and narrowing of the 4th St. bridge ostensibly to allow for pedestrian enhancements and physical distancing. The changes are set to expire this Friday. The consideration is to leave it all in place into November. You have until 4pm tomorrow to leave an eComment on the City’s website. This LINK takes you directly to the comment section. You can also contact your individual council member or Staff at City hall. Also on the Consent Agenda is an item to continue to keep $100,000 available for legal fees to fight Bridgewater Township’s consideration to incorporate. The council approved the funding in 2019 to take $50,000 each out of the Wastewater Fund and Water Fund. The annexation agreement between the two expired at the end of 2019. None of those dollars were used as the entities chose to extend the agreement through 2022. This item will likely be removed from the Consent Agenda to discuss it in public. This also could be considered a formality to keep open the option to pursue legal action. 1 – Resolution Budget Amendment Legal Fees (1) 2 – Resolution 2019-083 (1) Meetings are streamed live from the City’s website and begin at 6pm.
Mayor says Accountability in Police reform offers opportunity “to become better”
A sticking point in the police reform bill was accountability. District 20b Representative Todd Lippert was in studio last week explaining they added reforms to the Post Board,“so the Post Board’s the Licensing Board/Standards Board for police officers and we wanted to make sure there was a strong citizen voice on the Post Board as well as a centralized database”. Previously there was no way to track reports on disciplined Officers in a centralized way. Those with red flags. Another change deals with arbitration, which an Officer can use if they’re fired, “currently in Minnesota, roughly 50% of Officers that are fired can get their jobs back and so we want to make sure that we put some reforms in these places that will help with accountability so that an Officer that has an excessive use of force incident, that Officer can be fired and not get the job back”. He added that Legislators also heard from Police Officers across the state who told them, “they’re deeply concerned with what happened with Officer Chauvin and said that’s not who we are and Officers who are acting this way need to be held accountable”. Sheriff Dunn, the President of the MN Sheriff’s Association, has also said that on KYMN. He also reiterated how fortunate we are in Northfield with the Police Department we have. Mayor Pownell added, “when I look at gathering data or accountability, I don’t like at it necessarily from a punitive standpoint, you can gather data to help identify where they’re might be issues so that you can do additional training or provide additional support to help an individual Officer become better”. If you don’t gather the data, she said you don’t know how or where to help.
