Last night during the City Council’s work session, Northfield Area Fire and Rescue Service Interim Chief Tom Nelson
gave a detailed presentation about the state of the department, and the changes that are happening within.
Nelson, who took charge of the department on January 18th, was forthcoming in acknowledging the issues identified by consultant Barb Strandel in the organizational report she gave on the department in December. He said there is a certain amount of division and a lack of trust on the board. He said that he agrees the department must become more diverse. And he said, the organization will take time to evaluate the role of the chief in detail before deciding if the position should be made full time.
He also said in looking at the report, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the department is working very well, and that there is, as he put it, “a lot to build on.”
Already, he said, certain changes are being made. The NAFRS board will begin to create a strategic plan for the organization and has agreed to a yet-to-be-scheduled retreat in order to begin the planning process. Nelson has also instituted a restructuring of the organization’s hierarchy.
“In the past,” he said, “the department has always been set up as the Chief, and then everyone else.” There have always been assistant chiefs and captains. But now, he said, those positions will be assigned specific roles, focusing on operations and technology at the assistant chief level and training, fleet oversight, fire code enforcement, and the safety squad at the captain level.
Nelson said the department has many other concepts to consider in the first half of the year, including a better definition of the board’s role, addressing the diversity issues, and becoming a less insular organization. The question of what to do with the Chief positions will be addressed, he said, most likely in the third quarter of 2022.
Northfield High School looking for girls soccer, swimming/diving coaches, more
Like a lot of potential employers right now, the Northfield Public School District is having difficulties hiring people to fill a number of open positions. Surprisingly, several of the empty positions are coaching jobs.
The athletics department is currently seeking two assistant lacrosse coaches, an assistant softball coach, and head coaches for the girls soccer team and the girls swimming and diving team.
Activities Director Joel Olson said some of the postings have been open longer than others, but all of them have been open for a while. Even so, he said, the number of people applying for the jobs has been much smaller than he expected.
Part of the issue is a shifting paradigm in high school coaching. For decades, the ideal coach has been someone who also taught in the district. However, there are not as many teachers who want to coach athletics as there used to be.
“More and more, teachers are moving away from it. And those that do [coach] may not be there for long periods of time. Coaches like Bubba Sullivan, who did it for 32 years, those coaches are no longer the norm. If you can get someone for five years these days, you’re lucky.”
Without teachers stepping in to fill the role, Olson said they have relied on community members to take those positions. However, finding the right person who works outside of the district can be difficult, since most practice schedules conflict with an average workday.
Olson said the worst-case scenario, if they cannot fill these positions would be to cut some of the levels of a sport, possibly as high as Junior Varsity. That would be an especially disappointing scenario, he said. Generally, if a level is removed, it is because there are not enough students who want to play. However, Olson said, in all these situations, there are plenty of kids wanting to participate. There just is not anyone to coach them.
According to Olson, this is not a problem unique to Northfield. It’s happening statewide he said, from smaller, rural districts to larger outstate districts. Even some districts in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area are having trouble filling their coaching ranks.
Olson said if nearly anyone wants to try their hand at coaching, he is willing to talk to them.
“We’re looking for people that may have played a sport, have an interest in a sport, and if it’s something that they think they’d like to try, we’d love to have them give us a call and just see what we have available.”
Lippert says planting trees could make a significant difference for climate change
Aside from his four committee assignments in the Minnesota State House of Representatives, Representative Todd Lippert is also active in
the House Climate Action Caucus. The group looks to push environmentally friendly legislation in the areas of Transportation, Buildings, Utilities, and Land.
Within the Land category, Lippert said he takes a lead role in natural carbon sequestration and resilience, or in other words, promoting climate friendly farming practices and planting more trees.
To that end, Lippert has created a bill that he said would plant 5.7 million new trees, one for every Minnesotan, in each of the next four years. He said planting that many trees would have many different benefits. First, he said, it would be a response to the Emerald Ash Borer crisis that has affected many different areas in the state. Planting trees around homesteads would rebuild wind breaks, act as a living snow fence, and protect the soil around farms.
The biggest reason to implement a program like this one, however, is because it is a very simple, highly effective way to protect the planet.
“We know that planting trees is a significant way to sequester carbon. With planting trees, or climate friendly farming practices, these sorts of natural climate solutions – if we were doing this nationwide, we could do as much as taking every car off the road as far as reducing carbon emissions. So, Minnesota has a big opportunity for this.”
The Representative said he has several other pieces of legislation he is introducing, but this one is first in line. He said he is working on the bill with the Chair of the Environmental Natural Resources Committee, Rick Hansen, and, he said, the bill has the support of Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman.
Lippert hopes the bill will get its first hearing sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Representative Todd Lippert can be heard here
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
[recent_post_carousel slides_to_show=”1″ limit=”5″ slides_to_scroll=”1″ category=”10″ media_size=”medium” dots=”false” show_read_more=”false”]
