By Rich Larson, News Director
After a tumultuous few weeks, and an even more tumultuous year for the owner, The Alibi at Froggy Bottoms will open its doors at 4pm today. The
restaurant will be open for food and non-alcoholic beverage service, but they will not be serving beer, wine or liquor.
Last week, the Northfield City Council declined to issue a liquor license to the owner of Froggy Bottom’s, Lisa Monet Zarza. Zarza has received widespread attention over the last 5 months after she opened her establishment in Lakeville, Alibi Drinkery, in direct violation of Governor Tim Walz’s shutdown order. After a series of restraining orders and injunctions were issued, Zarza’s liquor license for Alibi was revoked by the Department of Public Safety and the Minnesota Department of Health declined to issue Alibi Drinkery a Food Service License for 2021.
Last week, after considering Zarza’s request for a new liquor license, the Council denied that request based on her actions with Alibi and a recommendation from Northfield Chief of Police Mark Elliott. Zarza said that she disagreed with the characterization that she was not a person of good moral standing, and was disappointed that the city council saw things that way.
“It wasn’t a moral character judgement. It was fighting for our staff and fighting for our restaurant. And it was disheartening to know that that’s considered morally not approvable by the City of Northfield, I guess.”
Zarza said she is pushing forward by opening Froggy Bottom’s with or without liquor sales, because her staff of six needs to work. She said due to the constraints of the past few months, the menu will be limited, but she believes the atmosphere, and especially the outdoor seating they offer will be enough to attract customers.
The Alibi at Froggy Bottoms will be open today from 4-10pm, 11am-10 pm on Saturday and from 11am-8pm on Sunday. They had originally intended to open at 11:00 this morning, but found they have some kitchen equipment that needs repairing before they can open.
Elliott pleased that body worn cameras have been approved
Last week the Northfield City Council approved the purchase and implementation of a body worn camera program for the Northfield Police Department. Northfield Chief of Police Mark Elliott said that he is glad that the city is moving forward with body cams, and he thinks it will help the department and the community in a number of ways.
First, he said, it is going to provide another layer of transparency in the work that the police do. Elliott has said many times over the last few months, while working with the city’s police policy review task force, that he has come to understand how important it is that the community know how the police do their job, and body cameras will help with that. In the same vein, he said it will also help to document the work done by police officers.
The cameras will also help in a supervisory role, as they will allow superiors to review how an officer handles police work, giving them an opportunity to offer training where needed, or praise or discipline an officer when appropriate.
Finally, he said it is an opportunity to help police officers help themselves to improve.
“It doesn’t get talked about a lot, but within law enforcement it does. Y’know, all athletes from college, even high school to the pros, they all watch film to see what they can do better. And we see that as a big advantage of body cameras so we’re very excited to have them.”
Last year in the budgeting process, the city council set aside $100,000 to purchase camera equipment and put the program together. The NPD, working with a company called Axon will only spend about half of that this year. Elliott said they have a signed purchase agreement, totaling about $51,000 dollars, that will cover the equipment, installation and implementation of the program, and data storage for the balance of the year.
Chief Elliott said they expect to take delivery of the cameras within the next three months.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Police Chief Mark Elliott can be heard here
Prairie Creek Community School presents to Northfield schoolboard
And on Monday night, the Northfield School Board heard a presentation from Prairie Creek Community School reviewing the school’s contract with the Northfield Public School District.
The Northfield School District is one of two school districts in the state that serves as an authorizing agent for charter schools, and the current five-year contact between Prairie Creek and the district is up for renewal. School Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann said that the district is working with Prairie Creek Director Simon Tyler and Board Chair Ben Miller to process a new contract.
Hillmann said that both of Northfield’s charter schools, Prairie Creek and Arcadia, are excellent public-school options that operate at a very high level, so the terms don’t change very much from contract to contract.
“The contract itself is very similar to the previous contract, in terms of the governance and those parts. There are some things that do have to be updated, including the goals and those kinds of components of the contract that can’t stay static. But a lot of the contract is very similar to what it was before.”
Dr. Hillmann said he is proud of the relationship the district has with the two schools, and it is an example of how Northfield is a community committed to excellent education for its children.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Dr. Matt Hillmann can be heard here
