With less than a week left in the 2023 session, the pace at the Minnesota Legislature is turning from an organized sprint to a chaotic flurry. Although the 
session has produced new landmark laws almost on a weekly basis, there are still several issues to resolve.
The “Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act” is a bill that has gained quite a bit of attention over the past two weeks. The point of the bill is to establish committees in every hospital that would set staffing levels for nurses, with certain ratios in place, including a maximum number of patients for which any one nurse would be responsible. The Minnesota Nurses Association says the bill would establish a higher level of care for hospital patients, while hospitals and health care systems say it would create a cap on the number of patients they could take and could reduce overall hospital capacity by as much as 15%.
According to a CNN report published in April, more than 100,000 nurses have left the profession since the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic. The report went on to say that of the nearly 6.2 million nurses in the United States, more than 25% planned to leave nursing in the next five years, severely depleting a profession that was in need of people before the pandemic began.
The bill is being presented as a solution that could stop the nursing exodus and potentially bring nurses back to the profession.
Hospitals have responded to the bill with skepticism. Northfield Hospital + Clinics issued a statement yesterday saying the bill would not decrease the shortage of health care workers and would in fact keep the hospital from being able to admit patients as necessary.
Speaking in March, Northfield Hospital + Clinics President and CEO Steve Underdahl said there is a complexity to the problem that mandated ratios would not address.
“So, for example, we might have a patient that needs 1-1 care. They may be a very acutely mentally ill patient, as an example, that we really have to staff with at least 1-1 and sometimes 2-1 care. [At the same time,] there may be another patient that’s waiting for a skilled nursing bed [but cannot be transferred to a long-term care facility due to their own nursing shortages,] who really doesn’t require hospitalization technically, and might need very little of that kind of attention.”
Meanwhile, the Mayo Clinic has said if the bill passes it will cancel all plans for expansion in the State. Speaking in response to Mayo, Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman said an exception could be made for Mayo based on their stature and status and because “Mayo has a very good acuity tool that they use.”
NH+C pushed back against Hortman’s statement saying that every hospital must have a very good acuity tool, which measures the amount of care any one patient would require. In its statement, NH+C quoted Dr. Rahul Koranne, the CEO of the Minnesota Hospital Association, who said, “Many health systems across Minnesota have acuity tools like those at the Mayo Clinic, and to leave behind the Minnesotans they serve is unacceptable. Any alternative that works for any hospital and health system in Minnesota must work for every hospital and health system in Minnesota.”
The bill is still working through committees in both the House and the Senate as the authors try to find a compromise with the Minnesota Nurses Association and the Mayo Clinic.
Community organizations partner for Third Thursdays Downtown
The Northfield Riverwalk Market Fair and the Friends of Downtown Northfield are partnering this summer on a series of events for locals that they hope will also attract people from outside of town to come experience Downtown Northfield in all of its summer evening glory.
Third Thursdays Downtown will be a combination of Saturday morning Riverwalk Market Fair vendors and the Bridge Square Block Parties that have run throughout the summer on third Thursdays for the past two years.
Northfield City Councilor Kathleen Holmes, who is also a longtime board member of the Friends of Downtown Northfield (formerly the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation), said the Friends were looking for ways to invigorate the monthly block parties when they were approached by the folks from Riverwalk Market Fair about teaming up.
From there the idea grew to move the event directly into Downtown Northfield. The events will be set up on Division Street between 4th and 5th streets. At least twenty Market Fair vendors will line the street, and the city’s showmobile will be set up on one side for live music performances, as attendees browse the vendor booths and find activities for the entire family.
The first event is scheduled for this Thursday night, and Holmes said the Market Fair vendors will be well represented.
“As the season goes on and we get more produce and those sorts of things, we’ll have those vendors probably later in the season. But early here in May, we’ll have some of them. They reached out to all of the vendors that they have on Saturdays and people were pretty excited about trying something new and seeing what this might do.”
Holmes praised the partnerships that have been made while putting these events together. It has taken participation, she said, from the Riverwalk Market Fair, the Friends of Downtown Northfield, the Chamber of Commerce, and many other organizations. All of them, she said, are coming together to support Downtown Northfield.
“We’re getting back into the swing of things after the pandemic and trying to really increase the economic vitality of our downtown. So, anything we can do to bring in more people, more shoppers to just be in our space and build that sense of community back I think is good for our organizations, for the businesses, and for Northfield on the whole.”
The first Third Thursday Downtown event will be this Thursday and will run from 5pm-8pm.
Reverse referendum could be a topic of interest at council meeting tonight
And the Northfield City Council will meet tonight in the Council Chambers in City Hall.
Among the topics to be discussed at tonight’s meeting, one will almost assuredly be the reverse referendum petition that was presented to City Clerk Lynnette 
Peterson yesterday. Members of the Valley Pond Townhomes Association have been circulating the petition, which seeks to put the funding for the 2023 Northfield street construction projects to a public vote, because they are objecting to a two-lane bikeway that would be built on their property. City statute says that, once the petition is verified, the city must either hold a referendum or table the project without the ability to issue bonds for street repairs for one year. A pair of agenda items on the meeting’s agenda tonight that would authorize feasibility reports for 2024 street projects could be made moot should the city decide to not hold the referendum.
As always, the city and the council are asking to hear opinions and comments from the public. Anyone who wishes to do so is invited to come to the meeting and address the council on any topic they see fit. Those wishing to voice their opinions without addressing the council should email their councilors directly or post a comment through the eComment button on the “Agendas” section of the City Council website.
Tonight’s meeting will begin at 6:00.
