By Rich Larson, News Director
State Senator Rich Draheim said that he and his senate colleagues spent the bulk of last at the capital unpacking the federal Covid-19 relief package that is coming to the state. Draheim said about $3 Billion dollars is coming from the federal government to aid with education, vaccine rollout, housing relief and jobs programs, among other things.
He said the elected members of the legislature are depending on the non-partisan staff employed by the state to help them understand where the money should go and why. The law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump is one of the longest and most detailed bills in history, somewhere between 5 and 6,000 pages according to Senator Draheim, and there is quite a bit of information to absorb along with the relief dollars.
As the chair of the Senate Housing Finance Committee, much of his focus has been on the approximately $375 million allocated to housing. Draheim said that a large percentage of those funds will pay for isolation units – which he characterized as hotel rooms for homeless people who have been exposed to the Coronavirus – but, he said, he would like to see money from the housing pool put toward sorting out issues surrounding the eviction moratorium.
“[We need to] try to find that balance between workers that are unemployed and landlords that haven’t been receiving money from their tenants. We’re trying to get them relief, too, because that will be the next problem. All the people who haven’t been paying rent are still liable for it. Every month the percentage of people behind on their rent has been increasing, even though we’ve been doling out… we did $100 million for that program this last year, and then part of that $375 million will go toward that as well. But the program has a lot of red tape and we’re trying to cut through that.”
A highlight of last week at the capital was the appearance of office Arik Matson of the Waseca police department. Matson was shot in the head just over a year ago while investigating a report of a suspicious person, and against high odds is making a recovery. Senator John Jasinski of Faribault has introduced a bill strengthening the penalties for those convicted of attempted murder of a police officer, judge, prosecutor, or correctional officer. Senator Draheim said he supports that bill.
“A lot of attention has been on the other side of law enforcement. And it works both ways. Violence doesn’t solve anything, and we don’t condone violence. But part of our problem is we don’t enforce the laws we have on the books. And we should review all laws, and this is one law that we are reviewing. We need law and order, and we need to do everything we can to protect our police and hold them to a high standard and I think Senator Jasinski is trying to do that.”
Draheim also expressed a sense of urgency in speeding up the rollout of the Coid-19 vaccine. He said despite changes made by the federal government last week in how to dispense the vaccine, the program is not working fast enough.
“They lowered the age down from 75 to 65, which is where I thought they should have been in the first place. But it’s still rolling out slower than anyone would have anticipated. We have testing sites all over, and we were pushing to convert some of those sites {to be vaccination centers as well]. But we’ll see what the governor wants to do there.”
After the usual organizational start-up time, Draheim said this week he is looking forward to hearing new bills that have been introduced and getting to the work of legislating.
Senator Draheim’s full conversation with Jeff Johnson can be heard here.
Hillmann praises Northfield charter schools
The Northfield Public School District takes its first steps toward resuming in-person learning this morning by welcoming pre-k through second grade
students back to the classroom. If all goes according to plan, all students will either be back in the classroom full time, or in a hybrid learning model by the beginning of February.
Northfield Public Schools Superintendent Matt Hillmann said the area charter schools, Prairie Creek Community School and Arcadia Charter School, are also welcoming students back, but they are doing things slightly differently.
“Remember that charter schools are public schools, so they have to follow all of the same rules, in general, that public schools do. There are a few minor things. Just by example, Prairie Creek has a multi-age program, so they have kindergarten and first graders in the same classroom, second and third graders in the same classroom, fourth and fifth graders in the same classroom. With a potential rolling start, as was one of the state recommendations, they obviously can’t do only three grade levels, so on the 19th, they are going to bring back kindergarten through third grade, where we’re only brining back kindergarten through second grade, but that’s just because of the special circumstance that that school has.”
Dr. Hillmann said that the Northfield Public School District is the educational authorizer of both charter schools. He said that both schools do excellent work and are in good shape financially, which is not the case right now for many charter schools. Hillmann said he puts high value on the educational choices offered in Northfield. “Good education is in our DNA,” he said, “and Northfield has an abundance of excellent educational institutions.”
Dr. Hillmann’s full conversation with Jeff Johnson can be heard here.
City Council meeting tonight
And the Northfield City Council will meet at 6:00 tonight. Among the items the council will consider in the consent agenda will be the rezoning 
approval of the areas around the Community Action Center’s Hillcrest Village Development and a resolution supporting federal legislation to impose a fee on carbon in fossil fuels.
Items on the regular agenda include approval of street projects, some staff position modification and the need for a new city strategic plan.
While the council is still meeting in a virtual environment, the city still asks for the public comment on all matters on the meeting agenda. The easiest way to voice an opinion is through the eComment page on the City website. To find that page, click here.
