By Teri Knight, News Director
An area woman is seriously injured and a Northfield woman cited for Driving after suspension after a crash yesterday afternoon. Just before 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon, Rice County Deputies were dispatched to an injury crash at the intersection of 130th Street East and Baseline Road in rural Forest Township. 34 year old Cassandra Black of Northfield was driving north on Baseline Road, 70 year old Colleen Soukup of Northfield was driving West on 130th Street E. According to the Sheriff’s report, Black failed to yield to Soukup causing that vehicle to hit Black’s in the passenger side where 30 year old Stephanie Lineman of Faribault was seated. She needed to be extricated from the vehicle and was flown by Air Ambulance to a metro trauma center with what appear to be non life threatening injuries. Black and a rear passenger were not injured. Soukup and her passenger were
transported to the Hospital by Northfield Ambulance. As result of the investigation by the Sheriff’s Office, Black was cited for Driving after suspension, No insurance and Failure to yield the right of way. Rice County Deputies were assisted at the scene by the Northfield Fire Department, Northfield Ambulance and North Memorial Air Care. Media Release08262020- Motor Vehicle Crash (1)
Third St. “Arts Corridor” westside construction
Third street on the west side of Hwy 3 in Northfield, along with many neighboring roads, was a project slated for 2019. With Council additions of bumpouts and other amenities to expand the “Arts Corridor”, including seating and a sculpture area in front of the NAG Theater and a center plant divider at the Railroad tracks, the cost of the project skyrocketed when the bid went out late. So the job was rebid early this year and has been under construction since April. Mayor Pownell commented, “that’s a major corridor for the NAG and St. John’s, Longfellow, Three Links, so just getting this finished up and in place, it will make it so much better for everybody that lives around that area”. The idea was to connect that “corridor” to the east side. While there was a lot of infrastructure involved as well, the company worked to clean the areas up enough each day to allow homeowners to get to their driveways at the end of the day throughout most of the construction. A company is now sodding and a second layer of bituminous will be laid.
Nfld Schools welcome 16 new teachers, workshops/logistics begin
The Northfield School District has 16 new teachers starting this week. Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann said it will be a mix of virtual and in-person work for them to get started for next week, which starts their workshop. He said, “people will be really focusing on training and preparing for the school year. What are the logistics for each building, how each building will work in terms of what is the traffic flow, what are the expectations for things like lunch, which is going to be different this year, prioritizing using the cafeterias, but again limiting student access, making sure there’s enough distance especially at the secondary level”. They’ll go over the covid protocols and work to anticipate what needs may come up and the ability to shift learning models if and when it’s necessary. The first week of school, starting on Sept. 8th will be the family visits be it in-person, over the phone or by zoom. Classes will start September 14th. There will be two cohorts, maroon and gold, for the secondary students as they begin the hybrid model of learning. Benjamin Bus continues to work on routing. Hillmann added that, “anybody in a family is going to be assigned to the same cohort. So if you have a 2nd grader, a 7th grader and a 10th grader , your 2nd grader will be in that same cohort SHOULD elementaries have to shift to a hybrid model at some point due to the public health conditions”. They normally transport about 3,000 students per day. That will be reduced to 1650 to start this school year. Jenna Dardis, of Benjamin Bus, is feeling confident that they are working this all out including disinfecting in between each drop off. They hope to get the timing down and to families by next week. St. Dominic’s will be using their own transportation as they will have their students in class full time.
Maintenance on Ames Mill dam
Post Consumer Brands will be conducting routine maintenance and repair work on the Ames Mill dam and portions of the Malt-O-Meal building foundation now through September 30th. The public can expect to see activity adjacent to the river including the use of equipment, such as flashboards for re-routing the water to one side of the dam. This allows teams to conduct maintenance work on the dam and also facilitate the use of coffer dams for construction activity along the building foundation and adjacent to the river.
