The 2024 race for Northfield Mayor took an interesting turn yesterday when Erica Zweifel, a three-term member of the Northfield City Council from 2009 until she chose to not run in 2020, announced that she is a candidate for the City of Northfield’s highest elected office.
Zweifel said as mayor, her priorities would be fiscal responsibility, economic development and community engagement.
“Fiscal responsibility will include prioritizing our capital improvement plan items through budget considerations and tax implications for projects,” she said in a statement. Zweifel said her economic development priorities will include improving Northfield’s housing stock at all levels and increasing the tax base.
Pointedly, she said the third priority in her platform will address an issue that has brought outspoken criticism directed toward the city government over the past year.
“Community engagement,” she said, “must be improved so citizen comments are taken earlier in the process and can be incorporated into our local projects.”
Zweifel said she will welcome any and all dialogue throughout the coming months of her campaign
The announcement calls into question whether Mayor Rhonda Pownell, Northfield’s first two-term mayor in decades, will choose to run for a third term. During their time serving together on the City Council, Zweifel and Pownell’s priorities were often aligned, and the two would appear to have quite similar priorities.
Zweifel represented the city’s Third Ward during her time with the City Council. She is employed by Carleton College as the assistant director for community impact through the school’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement. She and her family have lived in Northfield for more than 30 years.
The candidate filing period opens next week on May 21st and will run through June 4th.
Declining enrollment remains a district concern
On Monday night, the Northfield Area School District Director of Finance, Val Mertesdorf, presented the 2024-2025 General Fund budget to the Northfield School Board.
The school district has a budget of approximately $67.7 million dollars next year, against planned expenditures of $66.9 million. About 80% of those expenditures are salaries and benefits paid to the employees of the district, and Northfield Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann said those employees are worth every cent.
“We hire people to work with kids in a variety of different ways, whether it’s watching them after school in our Kid Ventures program, teaching high school mathematics, teaching kindergarten, coaching softball, all of those things cost money, and we hire people to do good things for kids. We’ve been very fortunate. We have an amazing world class staff and we’ve been able to really recruit and retain high quality teachers, even for positions that are traditionally very difficult to fill.”
Hillmann said the district continues to forecast declining enrollment over the next several years. He attributes the declining enrollment to lower birth rates in Northfield and in Rice County, which, he pointed out, is a trend being seen across the country, and to the housing crisis in Northfield. Housing in the area has been difficult to find for several years, even while the city has sought to improve the situation. Hillmann cited a recent report that showed a grand total of 29 single family homes available in the school district, and of those only 12 had actually been constructed. Many of the homes on the market are priced at or above $500,000 which in-and-of itself is not generally the type of house a young family is looking to buy. So, he said, with fewer babies born in the area, and young families finding it nearly impossible to move into the area, or even stay in the area, the school district expects enrollment to keep declining.
That will, of course, affect the funding that the district receives from the state. Right now, every school district receives almost $7300 per pupil through the state’s basic funding formula. A drop of just 14 students from one year to the next can mean $100,000 less in funding. Hillmann said the decline has been anticipated, which was the reason for the cuts made to the budget in 2022 and 2023, and he said the difficult decisions made over the past two years have made the current situation easier to handle.
“So, we are in a strong financial position thanks to tough decisions that the school board has made. We have a strategic commitment to stewardship, and the school board and our entire district have come together to make difficult decisions over the last couple of years that have put us in this position. We are on guard because we do have a continuing declining enrollment. But thankfully, we’re in a position where we can be thoughtful about adjusting to that.”
The board took no action on the budget on Monday night. They will instead be asked to approve all facets of the 2024-2025 budget at the next board meeting on May 28th.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann can be heard here
Watermain flushing could discolor laundry, caution advised
The City of Northfield announced this week that utility crews will be flushing watermains in Northfield beginning on Sunday and running through Thursday. The statement said the crews will be working overnight, between 9pm and 6am, in order to minimize any disruption in water service.
The city watermains are routinely flushed in the spring and the fall in order to remove minerals and to check the operational integrity of the city’s fire hydrants.
During this time, the public works department is recommending water use be limited, and to check for water discoloration before doing laundry. If laundry is discolored, the community is advised to keep the items wet and pick up a special soap for stain removal at the Northfield Utilities Division at 1101 College Street.
Northfield Public Broadcasting has produced a video in English and also in Spanish explaining why flushing watermains is necessary, and how it will affect the people of Northfield.
For more information visit the Northfield City Website at northfieldmn.gov.
KYMN Daily News 5/15/24
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
