The Faribault Police Department confirmed yesterday that the man found deceased in a local residence on Monday was indeed murdered.
According to a statement issued by the City of Faribault, at approximately 2:15 on Monday afternoon, Faribault Police officers were dispatched to check the welfare of an individual at a residence in the 20 block of Mitchell Drive. Upon their arrival, officers found a deceased man in the home. The Faribault Police Department enlisted the help of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) to further assist in processing the residence for evidence and determining the exact nature of what took place inside.
Evidence recovered at the scene and preliminary autopsy information from the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office have confirmed the man died of homicidal violence. The precise date and time of the victim’s death remains part of the active investigation.
Additional information, including the exact cause of death, will be determined by the medical examiner. The city of Faribault has indicated that they are still awaiting official confirmation of the victim’s identity.
Temple says PEG funding must be addressed
Last night, the Northfield City Council passed a resolution supporting the ongoing work of the Minnesota Association of Community Telecommunications Administrators, or MACTA, to restructure the way community broadcast stations like Northfield Public Broadcasting are funded.
Northfield Public Broadcasting Station manager Sam Temple who recently joined the MACTA Board of Directors said the current model, which was put in place more than forty years ago has become outdated, and that is causing many of these stations to pull back on the programming they are able to offer.
As things stand right now in the State of Minnesota, Public Educational Government, or PEG, stations – which is how community television is classified – receive their funding through franchise fees charged by municipalities to cable companies. Those fees are based on the number of cable television subscribers a cable company has within that municipality. For example, the City of Northfield is able to charge Spectrum a fee for the number of people who subscribe to their television service. Northfield Public Broadcasting, then, receives its funding from those fees.
When that model was formulated, Temple said, it worked well, but it has become antiquated and needs to be addressed. In the last decade, more and more people have canceled their cable subscriptions and are using internet based streaming services to watch television instead, which is a trend that will only keep growing. The funding model does not need to be completely revamped, he said. It just needs to be shifted and retooled.
“First, we want to do no harm to what currently exists and just build on that. Not just to help us catch up to fill the gap, but also to set us up for success. We’re dealing with legislation from the 1980s. So, we’re hoping to do something that will last another 40 years and maybe can avoid some of the challenges that we found in the last piece of legislation.”
MACTA is proposing that the franchise fees be shifted to internet connections instead of cable TV subscribers. He believes this model is going to be agreeable to politicians statewide, and that the law will get changed. There is a need for community television at the hyper-local level, he said, and MACTA is hoping to enlist many of those stations’ partners to illustrate the point.
“It’s not just us asking for our supper. Ideally, we could get high schools in that see the benefit of showing their games on these stations, or organizations like the League of Women Voters who understand the civic importance of having public television. We could get other nonprofits that wouldn’t otherwise have a media footprint if they weren’t able to partner with these nonprofit public access stations.”
During election years, NPB has covered candidate forums held by the League of Women Voters and provided a vast source of information for the members of the community. Temple said, beyond that, Northfield Public Broadcasting will offer well over 400 new videos by the end of the year with programming ranging from church services to historical videos, to sports, and of course all the meetings held by the Northfield City Council and the city’s many Boards and Commissions.
Temple said MACTA understands that this is not exactly a “hot button” issue, but he is optimistic that it will get some attention in the legislative session that is set to begin on Monday.
Library welcomes board game players, will host game nights
Those who love to play board games will soon find yet another great reason to visit the Northfield Public Library.
Beginning mid-month, the library will open its collection of 20 or so board games and make them available to be checked out.
Tyler Gardner, the Library’s Emerging Technology Librarian, said the collection contains mostly modern games that could be unfamiliar to those used to playing Monopoly or Parcheesi. Using the examples of Betrayal at House on the Hill and Small World, he said board games have become more sophisticated in the 21st century, and perhaps even more fun.
Board games, of course, generally use smaller pieces such as tokens or dice, and in some cases many small pieces, which could very easily become lost and not make it back into a box before it is returned to the library. Gardner said they have a plan for that, which includes special containers for the pieces and a special scale to be used when the games are returned.
“It’s a worry, but we bought some nice bags and some nice containers. And for our check-in process we will use a tenth-of-a-gram scale. We’ll be able to just set them on the scale, and if it’s off by a certain amount, then we’ll know that we need to look and see what might be happening inside the box.”
Gardner said the library has yet to determine the duration of time for which games will be checked out. He said it will be somewhere between one and three weeks. It is his assumption that most people will want to check them out for a weekend or so. He also said people will be able to check them out and play them at the library.
The library also intends to start hosting some game nights. Those dates have yet to be announced.
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
