By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
Since the early fall, the City of Northfield has been interviewing businesses in the community to learn about what makes them thrive and their struggles. The interviews have been part of the Connecting Business and Community Program which was launched by the city to see how they can better serve the business community. City staff and volunteers interview business leaders to learn about general community concerns, challenges, opportunities, business operations, and the local economic outlook.
Emery John, the city staff member leading the project, stated that this is more than just a survey but an opportunity to learn about businesses in the community.
“This is usually two interviewers come and interview a business owner instead of just one so there’s a lot of information being taken in written down, and that becomes codified in a part of this project that feels kind of more real than just a survey would right you’re not just filling out numbers you’re really having a conversation.” – Emery John with the Northfield Community Development Department on the KYMN Morning Show
The program is in partnership with the University of Minnesota Extension, which processes all of the data from the interviews to create a final report:
So there’s a brief report that’s compiled with the running collection of data, and It aggregates that data and also gives us strategy recommendations and proposals from the U of M Extension team. And we also hear about a lot of low hanging fruit problems that are local to Northfield that we as city staff hopefully can just work to address immediately.” – Emery John with the Northfield Community Development Department on the KYMN Morning Show
John reiterated that the city is always looking for public input and feedback, but this program, in partnership with the university, is ending at the end of February and that businesses interested in an interview should sign up soon. In total, each conversation takes about an hour to complete, and business responses are kept anonymous in the final report. You can sign up by going to northfieldmn.gov/cbc and completing the form on that page.
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