After the City Council approved a property tax levy increase of 18.5% on Tuesday night, Northfield City Administrator Ben Martig 
Among the factors is, in fact, inflation. The average home values in Northfield have greatly increased over the last year by 11% in Dakota County, and by more than 14% in Rice County. Another reason is the increased Public Safety budget, and still another reason is the increase in wages and benefits.
The Council Chambers was full on Tuesday night with people opposed to the levy increase, and Martig said he listened intently to every person addressing the council to voice their objections. Martig said, after hearing those people speak, he understands that the objection is to the tax burden itself, and not to specific items that are in the budget.
“What I didn’t hear last night was a lot of specific concerns around any of the areas of spending that we were looking at, in the why [people are opposed to higher taxes]. And that’s ultimately – I think that was one good thing.”
The city has ideas on how to best ease the tax burden on residents. In 2021, a goal was set to increase the commercial industrial sector in Northfield, which could greatly affect the individual tax rate. There are new plans on how to do that, he said, and they will be introduced shortly after the beginning of the year.
Another reason the tax levy is increasing so much this year is because this is essentially a deferred increase from years past that is now being addressed. There have been several years when the tax levy was unchanged, he said, and that is simply not practical.
“If you go a number of years at 0%, with no revenue changes, that’s not sustainable. So, I think being incremental with it is probably a [good] approach and doing more planning over time is certainly [a good idea as well].”
Beginning in 2023, Martig has hopes to start the budget planning earlier and allow for more long-range planning. That, he said, could help to manage tax expectations and cut down on some of the surprise people have when they see their November tax statements.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with City Administrator Ben Martig can be heard here
St. Olaf students present mid-term election findings
The St. Olaf College Institute for Freedom and Community is hosting a daylong conference today discussing the recent midterm elections and 
what can be learned from the way people voted in Rice County.
Professor Christopher Chapp, who is the director of the institute, said St. Olaf political science students were conducting exit polling all across the county on election day. With several questions asked during the survey, Chapp said several ideas stood out that he found somewhat surprising.
The issue of crime, which had been a cornerstone of most Republican campaigns, did not, according to Chapp, register as a high concern for most Rice County voters. In fact, Chapp said the data showed that only 5-6% of voters saw crime as an important issue.
Conversely, he said he was also surprised to see one issue in particular stand out as important to a large percentage of voters.
“Sometimes political scientists are skeptical of the effect any one issue can have on an election, but I would say abortion really stood out. A considerable number of voters ranked it as the most important issue, second to inflation. Inflation, we kind of expected would be the most important issue, but something like 40% of voters said it was abortion.”
Still another surprise, he said, was the number of people who did not choose from the list offered to identify a voter’s most important issue. Rather than selecting an issue on the list, many people wrote in “Democracy.”
“That tells you something about the way people are thinking in Rice County,” he said.
Other questions on the survey asked about identity politics and the political polarization of the country. Chapp said that while some people tend to stay away from politics because of all the bickering, it can also generate higher voter turnout.
“Does that turn some folks off? Yes, it does. At the same time, it can be a motivating factor when you see politics as a zero/sum game, and you just want your side to win. So, it’s a little bit of a double-edged sword. But your instinct is spot on [if you think] we seem to like each other less for political reasons than ever.”
Information, Elections, and the Future of American Democracy is a daylong event featuring several student presentations. At 6pm the two Keystone Speakers Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory and Sean Illing a writer for the political website VOX and the host of The Gray Area podcast will each give a presentation and will then have an issue discussion moderated by Chapp.
All of today’s events are open to the public. For more information on the conference and a full schedule visit the Institute for Freedom and Community page on the St. Olaf College website.
Arts & Culture Commission seeking submissions for City Hall Exhibit
The Northfield Arts and Culture Commission is inviting artists to submit artwork on the theme of “Renewal” by Tuesday, January 3, for the 
2023 Art in City Hall exhibit.
A statement issued by the commission said “As we move through this space from the time of the pandemic to the world after, we would like to acknowledge this shared experience through an exhibit of collected works for Art in City Hall. We hope to feature artworks that reflect this sense of movement through this time and lead us to a future time of renewal in Northfield. Artists should feel free to submit work that broadly reflects any aspect of renewal: reclamation, refilling, or repetition.”
The selected works will be on display from January 17th through the end of the year in City Hall. There will be an opening reception on February 13th from 5 to 6pm in the Council Chambers.
For more information on the exhibit or how to submit, visit the Northfield city website at northfieldmn.gov.
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
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