As it does at the beginning of every new year, the Northfield Area Fire and Rescue Service has undergone a re-organization of its 
Northfield City Councilor Brad Ness has been named Chair of the NAFRS Board. This is Ness’s second term as chair having served as chair in 2021 as well. Dundas Mayor Glenn Switzer was named Vice-Chair.
Outgoing Chair Paul Liebenstein has officially retired from the board after 25 years serving NAFRS and the Rural Fire District. Ness praised the work Liebenstein has done for the community.
“He’s been a member of the board since its inception in 2014, when NAFRS first started, so we’re losing somebody that played a critical role in getting this department to where it is right now. We’re proud of his leadership, and what he did to help NAFRS along.”
With Liebenstein and others departing, there are three new members of the board, Jodi Lawson of Merchants Bank, Brian Peterson of Peterson Farms, and former firefighter Mike Stowe. Both Ness and Nelson said they are very pleased to have all three join the board and said their areas of expertise will be greatly beneficial.
Charlene Hamblin, who has served as the department’s part-time Administrative Assistant for seven years, has been promoted to full-time. Nelson said with the work that needs to be done in Community Fire Prevention, she will have no trouble filling the extra hours her position now provides.
“There’s so much back of house work that has to happen around code enforcement and getting every commercial building in town entered into our database. That’s college dorms, apartment buildings, Division Street, commercial industrial, as well as our push for more data. You can’t crank out data reports if you don’t have the raw data.”
The members of the organization did take some time last week to honor the work done in 2022 and even before that at the annual NAFRS Banquet. Ben Simpson was named Firefighter of the Year, and the organization recognized the five firefighters who retired in 2022. Jeff Ostberg and Brian Redfield each chose to retire after twenty years with the department. Nelson praised Pete Jirik and TJ Dvorak as two of the firefighters who joined the Northfeld Fire Department at the same time he did 34 years ago, and former Chief Gerry Franek, who served for nearly 37 years, 24 as Chief was honored as well. Nelson said the chance to honor Franek one more time was appreciated.
Hillmann says technical education curriculum has been made a higher priority
Northfield Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann said the Northfield Schol District is examining its technical education curriculum 
in order to properly prepare students for a career in the trades, and to offer employers the skilled employees that they will need in the future.
Long before the Great Resignation, and even before Covid, there was talk about the lack of skilled labor in the United States. Fewer and fewer new graduates were choosing to go into skilled labor. But now, with the American workforce smaller than it has been in decades, and more open jobs than there are people to fill them, the Northfield School District has identified an important role for its technical education offerings.
Last year, the district convened a task force that was asked to evaluate the technical education that is offered at Northfield High School. Hillman said the 25 members of the task force represented agriculture, law enforcement, construction, health care, catering and many other industries. KYMN’s own Lance Rester, who operates the Northfield Live! Broadcasting company was also part of the task force.
The task force met on three separate occasions. The first thing the group was asked to do, Hillmann said, was identify all of the ways a Northfield student can learn a marketable skill.
“They mapped out all of the opportunities for students to learn these skills in our community. Yes, we teach skills in our school, but there are other ways kids can learn them too, and that might be part of the future of this. How do we leverage some real time on the job kind of training that can also potentially get you school credit?”
At other meetings, the group was asked to identify the skills that employers are looking for, and to make a recommendation on the direction the district should take with its technical education curriculum.
Hillmann said the task force idea worked so well that he intends to create a more formal role for that group.
“We’re also going to take this from just being a task force [to something more permanent.] I’m going to recommend that we create an ongoing career technical advisory committee that meets three times a year so that we can make sure we’re continuing to listen to our local employers and we’re adjusting our programming to the latest needs, so we don’t have an antiquated program when skills and other things have changed.”
Dr. Hillmann said he can see a day when a Northfield student earns school credit for learning a skill that will carry them far into the future, and the district sees this program as something becoming more and more important.
City wants feedback on Wall Street Road project
Community input is being sought for the upcoming reconstruction of Wall Street Road in the Northeast section of Northfield. 
The City of Northfield in partnership with Rice County is seeking to improve the condition and life of Wall Street Road (County Road 79) while enhancing multimodal transportation options along the corridor. This project is a reconstruction from Fourth Street to the eastern city limits, approximately 600 feet east of Rosewood Road.
Improvements to the corridor will include the replacement of Spring Creek bridge, storm sewer system improvements, water main system improvements, an extension of the sanitary system, and the addition of trails throughout the corridor that will connect into the future Mill Towns Trail
A neighborhood meeting was held on January 18th to discuss the project. Another is scheduled for March 15th, where the city will share the draft feasibility report and the preferred design of the project. A third meeting will be scheduled for the fall of 2023 where the city will present the final design and plans for construction. Construction itself is currently scheduled to run from May – October of 2024.
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
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