During a work session last night, the Northfield City Council began to take a meticulous list at each section of the city budget, assessing
where increases are needed and looking at both sort and long-term plans as they work to determine the tax levy for 2023.
Brenda Angelstad, the City Finance Director, used a portion of the meeting to discuss the changes in the tax base from last year to this year. According to the preliminary estimates from Rice County, Northfield has seen a 15% increase in net tax capacity, vs. 6.1% last year. Just over 11% of that increase, she said, is related to new construction. Median home prices have increased in Rice County by 14.2% vs. 6.7% in 2021.
Whether those numbers bear out remains to be seen. With the estimated tax levy at 15.1%, Northfielders could see a double digit property tax increase in 2023.
Other portions of the discussion centered on the EDA and HRA budgets, the NAFRS budget, the allocation of the remaining funds received from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, and utility rates for next year. The council will pick the rest of the discussion up at their next work session in September.
Legvold to present restorative farming practices at the Minnesota State Fair
Dave Legvold a local farmer and a longtime advocate and practitioner of restorative farming practices, give a series of presentations on conservation issues and solutions in the Minnesota agriculture industry at the State Fair.
Legvold has farmed in Northfield for 40 years and advocates farming practices that keep more water in the soil and prevent runoff from poisoning waterways with fertilizer and pesticides. Legvold found organic farming untenable and instead practices restorative practices including no-till farming, edge-of-field buffers, and limited tiling. He said these practices have cut his fertilizer use by 30%, increased organic matter in his fields, and increased his yields since the increased moisture preserved in the fields helps his crops weather dry spells.
Legvold has partnered with several local friends to present on farming conservation practices at the State Fair for the past several years. This year however, Legvold will present with someone new: Sarah Mayer the Manager of Wolf Ridge Farm.
Their presentation will tackle issues of conservation in farming from two different perspectives. Legvold said, “the great difference is I do not produce food, I produce ingredients: corn and soybeans.” Legvold has been called “the unconventional conventional farmer,” because he grows traditional crops on a large scale, but with restorative practices.
“What I’m going to do is try to give a picture of what southern Minnesota commodity agriculture looks like and some of the conservation issues that we need to take a look at. For example, the emission of CO2 from farming operations is considerable and there are methods of reducing that.”
Legvold’s experience will be complemented by Mayer’s, who grows a variety of organic vegetables used in the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center dining hall.
Legvold will also co-lead a presentation titled “A View from the Tractor Seat,” this time partnering with Malecha Custom Beef, another Northfield farm. Both farms are no-till farms, and the presentation will focus on the specific climate challenges southern Minnesota farmers face and the restorative solutions available.
Legvold and Mayer’s presentation, “You Farm Where? The Real Dirt” is on September 2nd at 10:00 AM and noon, while “A View from the Tractor Seat” will be presented on September 4th at noon. All presentations will be held in the Eco Experience Building at the State Fair.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with David Legvold can be heard here
Local author presents new book about the joys of literary travel
Local author and educator Dan Van Tassel has published a new book that examines the desire to travel, and how other writers have not only
fostered that desire, but in some cases made the reader feel like they themselves have been on the author’s journey.
Van Tassel said he has always loved to travel and has always loved to read tales of traveling in both fiction and non-fiction. As a professor at Pacific Lutheran University, Muskingum University and Cal State San Marcos, he would develop courses on literary journeys that he would call Tales of Travel. The purpose, he said, has been to impart that love of adventure without leaving an easy chair. For him, sometimes reading a about a classic journey, can be as good as taking the journey himself.
“Every time you pick up a book – it doesn’t matter if it’s a novel or whatever – you pretty much leave where you’re sitting. And when there’s a journey, a voyage, or some kid of trip, that’s fun to follow. Whether it’s imaginary like The Odyssey, or something like Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie, fundamentally the meaning and structure and the main purpose of the work is to travel. Not to arrive at a destination, but to enjoy the journey.”
For the last ten years, Van Tassel has been exploring this phenomenon, and has now published a book called Journey by the Book: A Guide to Tales of Travel. The book begins with an exploration of books that center around travel from guidebooks and travelogues to the fictional works of authors like Twain and Steinbeck. From there, he said, the book takes a deeper dive into specific stories.
“There are about twenty chapters where one or two or three key travelogues are explored,” he said. “And we look at what it is that makes them tick.”
The book he said, examines style of writing, selection of subject, and the ability of the author to create what he calls a rapport with the reader. Van Tassel’s book, he said, is going to be accessible to almost any reader, because the stories and writers he examines are well known to most people and will not challenge a reader to find the proper context of the subject.
Mr. Van Tassel will give a pair of readings from his book and discuss the ideas within over the next two weekends. On Saturday, he will be at the Northfield Public Library from 10-11am, and the following Saturday he will give a reading at FiftyNorth.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Dan Van Tassel 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”]
