By Teri Knight, News Director
No vote means no extension of the Water St. closure at Bridge Square and narrowed lanes over the 4th St. bridge. The Northfield Council meeting had gone long by the time they got to the item regarding extending into November the temporary configuration. A vote to extend past the 3 hour meeting limit failed. While Councilors Grabau, Zweifel and Nakasian were “excited” about extending the design, C. DeLong and Mayor Pownell were interested in alternatives that would allow for 10 ft. driving lanes rather than the current 9 ft. with this configuration. Many drivers are uncomfortable driving over it with
another vehicle. City Engineer, Dave Bennett told them to get 10 ft. driving lanes, the sidewalks would have to be 4 ft across but, “if you wanted to go to a walkway on one side of the street you would have about a 7 1/2 ft. wide walkway on one side of the street”. Pownell and DeLong were interested in a walkway on one side of the bridge. DeLong took the time to observe the cameras 
in that area over eleven occasions at various times and days with the final count, “over the course of my observations, 214 people used the old sidewalk, only 13 used the new one. It’s not necessary”. He added, if you don’t want to ban fishing from the bridge then put up a sign, do not obstruct the sidewalk. He said, “all that ramp does is allows kids on skateboards and bicycles to go up the ramp and jump it. I’ve also observed one kid hurtling over the channelizers”. Ness was 50/50 on the whole thing and Peterson White was absent. The temporary barriers are leased, right now at a cost of $8,000, a consideration would be for the City to purchase more attractive, smaller barriers. Those could be used elsewhere. That cost ranges from nearly $10,000 to nearly $29,000. The barriers are to come down sometime on Friday. Administrator Martig said this morning, “though I don’t know exactly the timing whether we’ll do it at the end of the day or earlier but we’ll be working on a press release to inform the public on that”. Pownell said they’ve received a lot of good feedback on the closure of Water St. for the picnic tables, adding, “the solution for the bridge has some mixed opinions on whether or not that’s really necessary or whether it should be one side or whether we really need it at all”. The City has conducted a survey via Polco regarding a possible permanent closure of Water St. Martig said the item will be on a budget review, “and also with the bridge to see if there might be some ways to extend the width of the sidewalks on the bridge a little bit permanently. That has been planned to put into their budget review”. Their full interview is HERE. Councilor DeLong sent an email this morning regarding the rest of the information he gathered: What I didn’t mention last night was the 1654 vehicles that were inconvenienced by the narrowed driving lanes caused by the temporary sidewalks as opposed to the 13 Pedestrians that were not not blocked or inconvenienced on the northside of the bridge. I’ve also added the photo he sent of the information gathered. 
Case by case, the numbers determine how school will open
Still trying to figure out exactly what the 20/21 school year will look like, Northfield Schools Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann reported the determining factor will be Covid cases within Rice County. There are 5 different levels the Public Health Dept. is saying will drive the decision schools make. Hillmann explains, “so if you have 0 to 9 cases over the last 14 days per 10,000 in the county of residence, that would be in person learning for all students”. He said that really means a lot of Minnesota, in particular north of the metro area. He added, “when you get to 10 to 19 cases per 10,000 over 14 days, that’s in-person learning for all elementary students and a hybrid model for secondary students”. That’s where Rice County is right now. There will be a regional support team that will include State and County public health officials and the Dept. of Education to help them determine their opening but that data won’t be available for a few weeks. He added, “to finish the table, if you get to 20 to 29 cases per 10,000, you’re at hybrid learning for all students. 30 to 49 it’s hybrid for elementary and distance learning for secondary students”. At 50 or more cases per 10,000, the guidance would be distance learning for all students. He emphasized that how the community responds to the health protocols will determine how school opens. Wear a face covering, wash your hands and social distance. And stay home when you’re sick. Hillmann asked for the community’s grace and patience as they work to sort it all out and noted that, depending on the Covid data, it could change very quickly. His full interview from July 31st is HERE.
