By Rich Larson, News Director
The Northfield City Council met last night in the Council Chambers in City Hall for the first time since March of 2020. After the initial excitement of
having everybody in the same room, they took up a wide and varied agenda, including the consideration of assistance to the Community Action Center’s Hillcrest Village project.
This is something the city has been both supportive of and excited about, because it will supply emergency housing to those experiencing homelessness in Northfield, will redevelop city land, and is being built with some of the most up-to-date climate friendly materials and techniques. Last month, CAC Executive Director Scott Wopata contacted the city asking for aid in six specific areas. The city staff estimates the total amount for the aid requested would come to approximately $203,000. This would be in addition to the forgivable loan in the amount of $250,000 the project has received from the city Housing Redevelopment Authority.
All members of the council, along with Mayor Rhonda Pownell seemed eager to help, but there were many questions about which city funds would be available to help the various requests, and would such help even be legal. After Councilor Peterson-White made a point about aid given to the Northfield Family YMCA to build their facility that was deemed to be a charitable donation, City Attorney Christopher Hood made the point that Northfield has a unique provision in its Charter that allows the city to make a contribution of this type, so long as it does not benefit a private individual or corporation, adding that it is the only municipal charter he has ever seen that allows such a thing.
In the end, Councilor Brad Ness made the point that the city is going to have to get involved in order to have affordable housing built in Northfield, with Councilor Jessica Peterson-White not only agreeing, but calling the situation an Affordable Housing Crisis. A motion was made instructing city staff to explore the legalities of the contribution, which passed unanimously.
Northfield Public Broadcasting seeks community involvement
One of the positive byproducts of the state shutdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, was how many Northfielders discovered the services provided by Northfield Public Broadcasting.
NPB Station Manager Sam Temple said, in fact, the pandemic illustrated exactly why public media is so important. A free service like NPB can keep the community informed and connected, he said, pointing to the videos produced by the Northfield Public Library that were broadcast during the pandemic with important health information.
The pandemic hit shortly after the inception of Northfield Public Broadcasting. The station’s predecessor, Northfield Television, was winding down with the retirement of manager Paul Hager. At that same time, the City of Northfield was establishing a new communications office, and it was a natural fit for the new office to absorb the broadcast duties of NTV. With the addition of Temple, Northfield Public Broadcasting was born.
Temple said NPB is meant to be a community platform. The station only has so much capacity to produce content, so his hope, with the sheer amount of creativity that resides in Northfield, is for the community to submit programming and content. Temple said that content could take any shape the creator would like.
“My goal is that it can be representative of the community and the community is part of that production. So, if people are into gardening, they can have a gardening video, if people are into history, they can have a little history video. If people just want to show neighbors their dogs, they can show their neighbors their dogs in a fun little video that they film on their phone.”
He said they made use of the down time during the pandemic by getting the public streaming up and running, and installing a decoder for live events, which allows them to carry things like the Governor’s press conferences, and St. Paul Saints Baseball. Temple said the station will present thirty live Saints games this season, including an upcoming series with the Omaha Storm Chasers, June 8-10.
Northfield Public Broadcasting is available on Spectrum channels 180 and 187. All of their programming, including Saints games, can also be seen on their website at npb.ci.mn.us.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Sam Temple
Northfielders can Adopt-a-Catch-Basin
And the Northfield Public Works department is looking for volunteers to help keep the city’s storm drains, and by extension, local ponds and rivers,
clean.
The Adopt-A-Catch-basin program asks volunteers to commit to inspecting a storm drain on a regular basis, cleaning away grass clippings, leaves, garbage and other debris.
During and after a rainstorm, the storm water, that runs across lawns, driveways and streets collecting debris as it goes, enters a catch basin through the storms drains and flows directly into ponds and rivers without being treated. The extra elements collected by the water, along with other nutrients, runs into the ponds and rivers and can cause harmful algae to grow, not to mention the problems it can cause by clogging the pipes.
Cole Johnson, the city’s water quality technician said while the city does inspect and clean the drains, with more than 3000 of them around town, it can be difficult to get to all of them on a timely basis. “We need volunteers,” he said, “to help keep our storm water flowing properly and to keep our ponds and river healthy.”
The program is for individuals, families or small community groups. Volunteers will be able to select a drain convenient to them by using an interactive map on the registration webpage and will even have the opportunity to name their catch basin.
For more information, visit ci.northfield.mn.us/adoptcb
