by Rich Larson
After a marathon three-and-a-half hour meeting filled with passionate statements from a sometimes raucous gallery, the Northfield Planning
Commission voted last night to table a decision on its recommendation to the City Council regarding the Kraewood Development until its next meeting. The anti-climactic decision was made so the commission could form a sub-committee to draft a memo outlining the conditions they would recommend the City Council consider before giving the final approval to the controversial project.
Three developers, Rebound Partners, Schmidt Homes and the Stencil Group have plans to develop the former Paulson Tree Farm, adding 22 single and multi-family homes along with a 100-unit apartment building.
The development has met strong resistance from residents in the area, many of whom have banded together to create an organization called Northfield for Sustainable Housing, Environments and Development, or SHED. The members of SHED, along with several other concerned residents of the area turned out en masse to address the commission during the public hearing portion of the meeting. No less than 32 individuals talked to the commission about their opposition to the development. Many voiced concerns over the traffic such a development would generate, and the danger that would pose to children in the neighborhood, particularly in the vicinity of an elementary school. Others discussed the loss of a rare twelve-acre woodlands area within the city limits of Northfield. There was discussion about potentially destroying a habitat for the endangered Rusty Patch Bumble Bee. Still more talked about how the city Land Development map and the Comprehensive plan do not agree on how the area is zoned. The comments were at times quite impassioned and emotional. However, it was later pointed out that many of them were asking the commission to do things outside of its power, particularly in light of the fact that the city does not own the land.
City staff made a presentation early in the meeting recommending the commission give its approval to the plat, under the conditions that the developers build a sidewalk on the south side of Lincoln Parkway and change the alignment of two of the streets. The commission discussed adding more conditions like narrowing the streets in the development and reducing the right of way, but ultimately tabled the vote to express their conditions to the council in detail.
The item will be back on the Planning Commission’s agenda when they next meet on August 19th.
Northfield police body cams arrive
Northfield police officers are now equipped with and are using body worn cameras on many of their stops and calls.
Northfield Chief of Police Mark Elliott said the department took delivery of the equipment, which also included new cameras for the police vehicles, earlier this month. After some set-up and training, the department began using the cameras last week.
Elliott said the cameras will help the department meet the public’s expectations, as well as their own expectations, for accountability and transparency. The cameras are to be turned on any time an officer has an investigated call or stop, during traffic stops, during self-initiated stops, and any time a contact becomes adversarial. If there is a difference of opinion between an officer and a person who interacted with the police, then the body cam footage will “provide an independent witness” to explain what happened.
Elliott said a high-profile case in St. Paul this week provides an excellent example of how body cameras are useful.
“We all saw an example of that this past week in St. Paul. Representative john Thompson was stopped, and he made a comment about what happened, and the St. Paul police said ‘Ahhh, I don’t know that that was how I would characterize it,’ so the release of that body cam video is a way for people to see that and make their own determination.”
Elliott was quick to point out, however that any footage taken by the cameras is private data that is not accessible to the public unless the subject agrees to have the footage released, or it is deemed to be useful to dispel widespread unrest or rumors.
The department is still working through a few start-up issues with the cameras. The footage takes up quite a bit of server space and must be catalogued. Right now, officers are responsible for the classification of the footage, and the evidence coordinator is managing the footage as it comes in, aided at times by Elliott and Deputy Chief PT Haider. The chief said they have made room for a data coordinator in the 2022 budget, and he is hopeful that the city will confirm that.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Northfield Chief of Police Mark Elliott can be heard here
Summer programming shows return to ‘normal’
Northfield Superintendent of Public Schools, Dr. Matt Hillmann said this week, that the numbers from the district’s summer programming are the
best sign he has seen yet that the community is emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said the majority of the summer programs show robust participation and may of the numbers exceed the participation from the summer of 2019.
The elementary summer school program, Summer Plus, which offers both academic support and enrichment had 253 participating students in 2019. This year, he said, that number is 261. The Middle School equivalent of that same program had 82 students in 2019, and this year has 90.
The Bridges to Kindergarten program has numbers that are eye popping. Bridges to Kindergarten is a two-week program that offers a head start to the youngest students who are transitioning from pre-school, and as Hillmann said, allows the students to acclimate to what a regular school day would look like. In 2019, 76 students took part in that program. This year there 140 students. And a similar program the district has offered to first graders for students who spent kindergarten in distance-learning, and therefore also have not experienced a full in-person day at school has 36 participating students.
Moreover, he said, families have their kids back in youth recreation programs. The revenue from 2019 for youth recreation was $96,000. This year that number has jumped to $126,000.
Hillmann said he believes this is a good sign that things are starting to return to normal.
“It feels like we’re getting back to whatever “regular” is going to be. Not only are our community education summer programs back in full swing, but they’re doing well. So, I think those things show that people are excited to be back out and doing things together.”
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann can be heard here
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
