The Northfield School Board took some time during their meeting on Monday night to dig into some real numbers and discuss the tax impact of the various options being discussed for fixing the many problems with the high school facility.
Northfield Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Matt Hillmann said the board discussed six separate options, but fundamentally, there are four ways to go. One would be to do nothing, which Hillmann and other board members have said would not be the responsible thing to do. The second choice would be to spend about $60 million on fixing the school’s infrastructure, which would include replacing the heating and cooling system. The third choice, at $117.5 million, would be to demolish the older sections of the school, and build a multi-story classroom structure. Finally, the district could build a new high school at a cost of $176 million.
Should the board decide to address the problems at all, Minnesota Statute will require that the money needed to fix even the HVAC system, or replace the windows, be approved by the school district voters in a referendum this November.
“School districts are the only entity in Minnesota that are required to go to voters for many things beyond what the things provided through state funding. Other governmental agencies – City Councils or other municipal boards – just have more authority than school boards do. Once the board decides if they’re going to put something on the ballot, and what it will be, the voters in November, of course, will have the ultimate say.”
Historically, Northfield School District voters have been open to increasing operating levies and maintenance budgets, but approval for a new school has always been a tougher case. The new Greenvale Elementary School was approved in 2018 after being rejected in a prior referendum that included a new high school facility. Before Greenvale, the most recent new school construction was the Northfield Middle School in 2004.
Hillmann has acknowledged that the price tags on all options for the high school are large. The tax implications are a wide swing and vary from a little more than $16 a month for a home valued at $350,000 to nearly $69 a month. Hillmann said the district takes these matters very seriously. Every year the district looks at interest rates and weighs the option of refinancing its debt to save taxpayer money. The Northfield Middle School, for example, was refinanced three times over the course of 20 years, saving taxpayers about $4 million on what had been approved. Hillmann said it is simply the responsible thing to do.
“School districts are the only entity in Minnesota that are required to go to voters for many things beyond what they receive via state funding. Other governmental agencies, City Councils or other municipal boards, just have more authority than school boards do. Once our board decides whether to put something on the ballot, and what that would be, the voters in November, of course, will have the ultimate say.”
The situation with the high school has progressed to the point where the problems can no longer be ignored, but the district staff and the School Board also understand what is being asked of the taxpayers. The process of deciding what to ask on a referendum in November has been meticulous and detailed, and Hillmann said they have provided as much transparency as possible through open work sessions, informational meetings, and tours of the high school itself. He said the district is still asking voters to give their opinions.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work around community engagement, and we’re not done. If you have an opinion, please make sure that you let us know. You can e-mail me, you can e-mail the board at board@northfieldschools.org. We want to hear what advice people have for us moving forward.”
The Board will make its decision on how to move forward with a referendum during its regular meeting on March 12th.
Riverside Lions Park masterplan is multi-faceted
On Tuesday night, the Northfield City Council heard a presentation from Bruce Jacobson, the city’s development and landscape consultant, regarding the masterplan for Lions Riverside Park, as it relates to the city’s Riverfront Activation plan.
This is an overall view of a series of projects that will ultimately have several facets and will not be executed all at once. Riverside Lions Park is a heavily used area, with several different stakeholders giving it significant use. Jacobson related it to a house with many rooms and said as the plan was developed each of the stakeholders were involved in the overall process. City Administrator Ben Martig said the list of those stakeholders is a group of important organizations to the community.
“The Lions Club has a pavilion and some park amenities. The Garden Club has some activities with their pollinator garden area. The Veterans Memorial, certainly we had volunteers on that. The Defeat of Jesse James Days committee uses that space actively and Village on the Cannon, too. We invited the neighborhood and community broadly to some informational meetings as those were developed.”
The plan calls for obvious changes and more subtle ones as well. Jacobson said the higher profile improvements would include a new Lions Pavilion, new restroom facilities and new playground equipment on both the 7th Street and 8th Street sections of the park. Some of the more understated changes would include new benches, and Jacobson made a point of recognizing Age Friendly Northfield’s request for benches with side handles on them. The city would like to add more shaded areas to the park as well. He also said areas like the pollinator garden and the pickle ball courts would not be affected by the renovation.
Jacobson said the playground equipment that would be installed on the 7th Street side of the park would reflect its proximity to the pollinator garden. It would be more “nature-based play,” he said with a series of what he called “Discovery Zones,” that could be enjoyed by people of all ages.
He also said there has been discussion with the defeat of Jesse James Organizing Committee about the future use of the area as the home of the carnival during the celebration. Ames Park, which currently hosts the carnival, could be in line for significant development, and Riverside Lions is being offered up as an area that could be utilized sometime in the future. He also recognized the Sundowners Car Club uses Riverside Lions Park for their car show during DJJD, and said conversations and planning are ongoing.
Martig reiterated that the masterplan is an attempt to coordinate several different projects, and all of these ideas will not come together at one time.
“We won’t be able to afford all of these things at once, so again it will be an incremental approach, but having a plan helps everybody. Even if the stakeholder groups want to do some private fundraising or try and work with the city to get some things accomplished, having agreed upon plan really helps us work together in that direction.”
The plans will now go back to the park Board for refining before they make their recommendations to the City Council. Martig said he is hopeful the council will be able to vote on the final plan at the end of March.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with City Administrator Ben Martig can be heard here
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
