The Northfield School Board will meet today in the boardroom of the Northfield School District office building. This will be a special work session in anticipation of a vote next week on what type of referendum, if anything, to put on the November ballot asking voters to approve solutions for the high school facility.
Last week during their regular meeting, the School Board was given the results of a phone survey asking district voters about the different options and the amount of increase to property taxes that they could support. The results were largely positive, although perhaps not quite what some had hoped for. While the voters do seem to believe something should be done to fix the school, the amount of money required to build a new high school was not very popular with the respondents to the survey.
The School Board has been looking at several different options for months, and it now appears likely that the suggestion will be what has been called the “re-imagining” option. The older and problematic section of the high school would be demolished under the plan and would be replaced with a multi-level classroom building. The plan would also replace the building’s problematic HVAC system and make improvements to the athletic facilities, at a total cost of approximately $117 million.
Last week, board members Claudia Gonzalez-George, Corey Butler and Ben Miller seemed to favor some form of the plan, while Jeff Quinnell, Jenny Nelson and Noel Stratmoen did not make their preferences known. Board member Amy Goerwitz was unable to attend last week’s meeting. With a vote scheduled for the regular meeting next Monday, the board members will discuss things today and try to come to some type of consensus.
The meeting is scheduled to begin today at 4pm. Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Matt Hillmann said the reason for the odd time is due to special circumstances.
“I want to just really emphasize the time and the location because it’s a little different than what we’ve done the last few times. This is the night of the presidential primary, so we’re not permitted to have meetings from 6:00 PM to 8:00 pm. We’re having the work session, 4:00 PM to 5:59, and adjourn before 6:00.”
The School Board will always invite public comments from those who live in the Northfield School District. As this is a work session, the board will not hear from the public today, but they ask anyone wishing to voice their opinion to email board@northfieldschools.org.
The meeting will begin this afternoon at 4:00
Nelson says data collected on fire calls has been very useful
Northfield Area Fire and Rescue Service Chief Tom Nelson has been working to reduce false alarms and what his department has labeled “unwanted calls” in order to help the fire and rescue service run more efficiently.
Nelson said when he was named Interim Chief in January of 2022, he instituted a policy of keeping track of calls, the reasons for the calls, where they were, whether they were to businesses or residences, and how many of them were false alarms. Once they were identified and cross referenced, Nelson said the numbers would reveal where attention needed to be given and some investigation would be required. This is important, he said, to preserve the paid on-call firefighter model used by NAFRS.
“One of the goals of my job, from the Joint Powers Board, is to reduce unwanted call responses. Because otherwise you’re calling people from work or from home for calls when they don’t need to be there. After a while, it could get to the point where you end up having to look at doing a duty crew or full-time department. So, we’re coming at it this way to say, ‘Let’s reduce calls.’”
With two years of data to look at, he said the cataloging is beginning to pay off. For example, he said, they were able to identify an alarm that was resulting in monthly calls to Laura Baker Services and determine that a smoke alarm placed too close to a kitchen was not necessary.
Another area that was causing an inordinate number of unwanted calls were the dorms at the local colleges. Nearly 10% of all calls to NAFRS in 2022, he said, were to either St. Olaf or Carleton College, and that warranted some work with the campus safety officials and the students themselves.
“Of our 420 calls in 2022, forty of them were between the campuses. So, we’ve really worked hard in ‘22 and ‘23 to make sure that we say, ‘Let’s find out why and determine if the system is working.’ Because what would be happening was somebody would burn food in a dorm room and then the whole building would get evacuated.”
While some false alarms are inevitable, the work being done in prevention is starting to show. Nelson said in January of 2023, they received 45 calls, and in January of 2024, that number dropped to 25. It makes it easier for firefighters to answer calls when they can be relatively sure that they are actually needed and won’t be driving to the call site only to turn around and go home. That in turn, he said, provides for a safer community.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Northfield Area Fire Chief Tom Nelson can be heard here
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
