The City of Northfield staged the annual State of the City address last night. Northfield Mayor Rhonda Pownell gave her thoughts on the city’s strengths and challenges over the last year and in the coming months.
Interspersed throughout the program were video presentations honoring the city’s award winners for this year. Fred Rogers, a former chair of the Northfield Hospital Board was presented with the Board and Commission Member Excellence Award, Patricia Owusu a senior at Northfield High School was presented with the Leadership Award. Angelica Linder was presented with the Northfield Employee Excellence Award. Community Action Center Executive Director Scott Wopata was honored for having won the Northfield Human Rights Award. Judy Saye-Willis was given the Living Treasure Award.
The mayor’s remarks were both expected and surprising. She discussed the things she feels makes the City of Northfield a great place to live, including the resilience of the people who live here, the Cannon River, Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges, the Historic Downtown, and many of the city’s services.
Among the challenges she discussed were the ongoing housing shortage, systemic problems in healthcare, and inflation. But she was quick to add that the city is addressing issues everywhere it can. Focusing those points through the lens of the city’s strategic plan, she said the city has made strides in adding more affordable housing, singling out the Spring Creek II project. She discussed upgrades being made to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, the stewardship of the city streets, and the renewed emphasis on parks maintenance. There were other points as well discussing the need for more commercial industrial business in Northfield, and the successful efforts to find funding to build the city’s portion of the Mill Towns Trail.
Surprisingly, the mayor also made a point to discuss the tone of civil discourse within the Northfield Community, saying she believes the people of Northfield “can do better.” Mayor Pownell said she is dismayed that the tone of conversation on so many issues tends to be, as she put it, “us versus them.”
“There is no ‘us,’ and there is no ‘them,’” she said. “There is only ‘we.’” She ended with an African proverb, saying “If you want to go someplace fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
The 2024 State of the City Address will be made available on Northfield Public Broadcasting and on the City of Northfield YouTube Channel, in both English and Spanish, in the coming weeks.
Business leaders come together to encourage youth
The Northfield Chamber of Commerce is teaming up today with the Northfield School District and Workforce Development, Inc., to offer dozens of students who are planning to enter the workforce directly out of high school a tour of several local businesses. The students will then gather with local business leaders for a roundtable discussion of opportunities that could be in their future.
The program was brought to the Chamber and to the Northfield School District by Workforce Development, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people who have faced obstacles in life receive the training that they need to find a career and be successful.
Kim Purscell, who is the regional representative for Workforce Development, said the organization offers incentives to businesses to hire youth and train them by paying for them. She said a program called Paid Job Experience asks a company to hire a young person and teach them about that specific industry. But instead of being on the company’s payroll, Purscell said the student is on the Workforce payroll.
“Because they are students, they cannot work full time. They have to still maintain their schoolwork. We allow them to work 29 hours a week or less, but we will pay for those first 200 hours. At that point, then, if the employer is interested in hiring them and it’s a win-win scenario for both of them, then they can roll them onto their payroll.”
Over the past decade, the idea of a recent high school graduate forgoing a secondary education and moving directly into the workforce has gained much more acceptance. Northfield High School Counselor Mark Ensrud said, in fact, the Career Technical Education areas of Business, Technology, Family Consumer Sciences and Ag, Food & Natural Resources, have grown in demand over the years, and that is continuing. Recent discussions about renovation to the high school facility have included the need for more updated vocational training resources. Ensrud said, with so many employers looking for good people in today’s job market, it makes sense for some students to make the jump into the professional world from high school.
“All of our Career Technical Education umbrellas are getting a little bit bigger at the high school which I think is a reflection of this conversation. I think our community, I think our families, and I think our students are becoming aware that there is opportunity to be had. It will be a great time to go from student status to workforce status as we move through the coming years. There will be a lot of great job opportunities for our students.”
Northfield Chamber of Commerce President Jane Bartho said about a dozen local businesses will take part in today’s program, and there is hope to run many more in the future.
KYMN News 3-20-14
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
