It was a little over a year ago now when we launched this version of LoGroNo.org. It’s summer again, and it’s time for a new design! So over the month of June, Tracy and I have been working on a new design for the site. The layout is similar, but the look is a bit bolder, and the text is more readable. It also has some special functions built in to tidily present the Representative Journalism stories.

We want your feedback! Take a look at the beta site at http://new.locallygrownnorthfield.org and leave your thoughts below. Note that there are two rusty areas that are not final: speed and comments. The site will load slowly for the time being, and the comment layout needs some more formatting. But let us know what you’d like to see.

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Photo: Bonnie Obremski/RepJNorthfield

The owners of the new “a.renee salon” on Clinton Lane off Route 3 hosted hundreds of beauty-seekers on Thursday evening during its grand opening luau, with a few attendees even arriving in an ebony limousine.

Business partners Amanda Renee Mulligan of Apple Valley and Kim Swanson of Burnsville first opened the business in June. Swanson said during Thursday’s celebration the business offers services and an atmosphere arguably found nowhere else in Minnesota.

The salon’s two European Touch Murano pedicure spa chairs, for example, are likely the only ones of their kind for miles around, Swanson said. The chairs cost about $12,000 each according to Internet sales Web sites.

“We had some trouble getting them to meet building code,” Swanson said of the chairs, smiling on the salon’s rear patio.

Apparently, the luxurious footbaths at the bases of the chairs had fallen into the category of “wading pools,” which could present a drowning hazard for small children, Swanson said.

More than one lei-wearing party guest seemed to look forward to drowning daily worries while reclining in the chairs. Lina Schultz of Farmington, for example, said she planned to schedule a pedicure at the salon soon.

“This salon seems more elaborate and makes me feel like I would be more pampered than others I’ve been to,” Schultz said beside the “nail bar,” which is a manicure station next to the pedicure chairs designed to look like a martini bar.

Photo: Bonnie Obremski/RepJNorthfield; Caption: Lina Schultz examines a glass maraschino cherry in a decorative martini glass at the salon’s nail bar.
Swanson said he believes Northfield’s market is prime for supporting the new business. And, the salon is simultaneously lending a hand to other local entrepreneurs. Artist Barb Matz for one is displaying work there. One of her sculptures of a woman stands in a window facing the entrance sign with her hand raised in seeming triumph.

“It shows how my dream has come true,” Mulligan said of the figure.

For Discussion:

During our conversation, Mr. Swanson wondered aloud why higher-end restaurants in the Northfield area seem to come and go on a regular basis. Is there truly a demand in Northfield for cutting-edge cuisine? Or, for that matter, for a salon that offers (among many other things) a permanent lip make-up service priced at $525?

Photo: Bonnie Obremski/RepJNorthfield Caption: Alisa McCusker of Cannon Falls peruses jewelry sold at the salon.

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Photo: Bonnie Obremski/RepJNorthfield

Weekly mystery object!

Joan Olson, a volunteer archivist at the Northfield Historical Society, is holding an object unearthed from deep within the city’s subterranean vaults. She knows what it is but, do you? Points for both accuracy and creativity. Tune in next Friday for an answer most people might likely never suspect. I might give a mid-week hint. Go!

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Community Videos: Moving to our city?

The link currently goes to a Nov. 2007 memo by Al Roder on the website of company called CGI Communications (their ELocalLink division) that explains the program. I can’t find that memo anywhere on the City’s website or anything else about the program.

It’s evidently all part of a partnership with the US Conference of Mayors, explained here on the CGI Com website. However, I can’t find anything about the program on the US Conference of Mayors website.

The Roder memo is actually a canned memo, using language that CGI uses for other communities. For example, see the CGI ‘partnership’ memo for the City of Madisonville, KY.

The City of Hopkins has this blurb on its website:

The City of Hopkins was contacted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in partnership with CGI Communications in 2007 about providing a video stream promotion Hopkins on both www.hopkinsmn.com and thinkhopkins.com. The promotional video stream is free to municipalities; local businesses and organizations are asked by CGI staff to sponsor the program by purchasing ad space. Completion of the video is not contintingent on a minimum amount of ad space sold.

Since entering into an agreement to move forward with the project, City staff has been working with the company to select specific topics to cover in the video. Video categories include education, quality of life, real estate and relocation, dining and shopping, and recreation. Scriptwriting for the project is currently under way and filming is scheduled for June 18 and 19. In the meantime, CGI sales staff is offering ad space to the community.

A local business owner contacted me this morning, wondering:

I received a call this AM from a guy with e-local link wanting to talk with me about producing a video. He started his conversation by heavily promoting the fact that the city administrator and city itself was behind the project, etc. I could sense fishing for money and cut him off rather abruptly.

A few moments later I received a fax outlining the basics of what he was talking about. It didn’t come through real well, but I scanned it and have attached it. Do you know anything about this?

This probably is all legit but it seems like the City should have something about it on its website if Northfield businesses are going to be approached for ad sponsorship dollars. And why doesn’t the Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce have something about it on its website?

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He now has a Brendon for Mayor web site. See how this grass roots campaign has become a juggernaut by reviewing these recent blog posts:

• Brendon Etter Bestows New Campaign Slogans Upon Northfield  
• Brendon Etter Announces His First Lawsuit against the City of Northfield  
• Brendon Etter Releases Schedule for Future Successes, Failures of Mayoral Campaign  
• Brendon Etter for Mayor Website Webbed! Plus More Slogans!  
• Brendon Etter Unsuspends His Mayoral Campaign  
• Brendon Etter Suspends His Mayoral Campaign 
• Brendon Etter Is Running for Mayor of Northfield

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I wondered how much per hour Lillehaug was charging and what it was he was doing since the Goodhue County investigators had not even talked to Roder yet, according to this June 27 Nfld News story:

Roder’s attorney, David Lillehaug, said Friday that his client has been cooperating with Goodhue investigators for some time and from his review of the facts, Roder has done nothing wrong. Roder has maintained he hasn’t been in contact with investigators.

So I filed a data request earlier this week requesting “itemized invoices of legal work performed by David Lillehaug for Al Roder and reimbursed/paid for by the city.”

I got 30 pages back today (for which I had to pay photocopy expenses of $7.50) but alas, City Attorney Maren Swanson redacted all details regarding what Lillehaug was invoicing for. Under Minn. Stat. 13.43, “personnel data” means, in part, data on individuals collected because the individual is an employee of the city…”

See my photos of the correspondence and some examples of the invoices, one of which I’ve drawn red arrows to indicate where the redactions occurred.

Are Swanson’s arguments for the redactions legit? What could Lillehaug have done for 35 hours if Roder’s not even been interviewed yet?

I’m not sure what to make of all this. It’s easy to be outraged because it’s taxpayer dollars flying out the door and we’re being kept in the dark. But maybe conversation will help illuminate things a bit.

Update 7/18, 9:20 am:

Dave DeLong also requested this information and this morning, he handed me a copy of a related memo (dated July 7) from City Finance Director Kathleen McBride in which she explains how it happened that she paid the $2,068 beyond the authorized $7,500.

The statement was processed for payment by city staff and I attached the supporting invoices (being held) and approved payment — in error. I apologize for my oversight. The previous invoices were routed through Maren Swanson and forwarded to me for payment processing.

So now we know how it happened, but of course the question remains: who was the ‘city staff’ who processed the payment?

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In yesterday’s podcast, my too old for snowboards colleagues talked about using Twitter to “twit” each other. At the risk of suggesting that all I ever learned was from Monty Python, I must say that my definition of twit is somewhat less than positive.

Tracy, Griff, and Bonnie (while there is still time), perhaps you should do a little research about twits. Hopefully, you will be sufficiently motivated to trade your twitter for a saxophone.

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Our guest today: Representative Journalist Bonnie Obremski (that links to her bio page here on LG), the reporter for the Northfield Representative Journalist project (new page here on LG for RepJ).

We talked with her about her background, including why she dissed Northfield and its colleges in favor of attending some rinky-dink school out east that Ross seems to favor for some reason.

Yes, we spent a few minutes on the RepJ project, too.

Click play to listen. 30 minutes. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes. Our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, usually airs Wednesdays at 5:30 PM on KYMN 1080 AM.

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At least one Division Street merchant is worried that middle and high school students in Northfield need more after-school and summer activities to keep them busy. April Ripka, owner of the Sketchy Artist, said youth are frequenting her new establishment to play with her merchandise, not to buy it.

“I encourage creativity, but I don’t encourage loitering,” Ripka said on Monday, adding that some pre-teens have drawn graffiti on her merchandise and refused to obey her requests to behave while in the store.

As one of my first stories as Northfield’s representative journalist, I’m interested in hearing what youth and adult members of the community have to say about this matter. Point me in the right direction so we can discover if the community might do more to meet the needs of its children.

YouthVideo1

I shot this video of volunteer Breanna Clites at the YMCA office on Division Street on Tuesday, July 15 in the late afternoon. Her friend and co-worker Whitney Sannes also commented in front of the camera, but I am still working out a technical snag that would not allow me to upload the part of the footage in which she speaks. (My Sony Cyber-Shot movie files somehow need to be converted from .mpg to .mpeg before iMovie will allow me to edit them). In the complete file, Sannes said she would like to see a local hang-out just for youth that would be an unstructured social gathering place.

Clites, 19, is a rising sophomore at Northwestern University in Chicago, Ill. studying public affairs and a graduate of Northfield High School. Sannes, 16, is a rising junior at the high school

YouthVideo2

I shot this video that same afternoon in which friends Krista Wahlstrom, 15, (left), and Julia Hartke, 15, describe their experiences growing up in Northfield. The girls are rising sophomores at Northfield High School. Again, technical glitches cut the video short. I caught some skateboarders hustling down the block later in the clip. I learned from multiple Northfielders about the “no wheels on sidewalks” law. The young women said the boarders would likely stick to a wheels-allowed skatepark if such a place existed.

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After yesterday’s filing deadline, we now have seven candidates for the Mayor of Northfield, listed here in alphabetical order:

Jon Denison
Paul Hager
David Hvistendahl
Lee Lansing
Mary Rossing
James Schlicting
Eduardo Wolle

(We’ll eventually link to any candidate blogs or websites, but for now, all I know about is Jim Schlicting’s. Contact us if you know of others.)

Northfield citizens, arise! What are the issues that you expect our mayor to address?

Update 11:25a: I’m adding additional website/blog links as I receive them. I have Dave Hvistendahl’s and Mary Rossing’s now and will add any others I can verify.

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Left: SW corner of 5th and Water
Left center: The Crossing at 2nd and Hwy 3
Right center: The Q-Block at 2nd and Hwy 3
Right: Churchill Tire/Grundhoefer Neuville & Ludescher law office building at 6th and Water

(Photo screenshots captured from Google Maps Streetview.)

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When I spoke to some Canadian music lovers about JuneBug, I realized there’s a bit of work to be done. “Northfield, is that east of Crookston?” Well, yes, east of Crookston, and south of the Twin Cities. “South of the Twin Cities, you drove that far?”

The Canadians are always so nice, except maybe on a hockey rink, and the Festival is always so enjoyable, though maybe a little less so in the rain. It was well worth the drive.

Maybe not my absolute first favorite for music but without question my biggest cultural thrill was watching David Grisman perform with his Bluegrass Experience while standing next to none other than Spider John Koerner. Mr. Koerner was dressed more appropriately for the weather with his bright yellow Souwester.

He is, after all, a more experienced bluesman.

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A large pile of brush and logs was set on fire this morning on the vacant land off Jefferson Road between Heritage Drive and Honey Locust Drive.  I called the City of Northfield Streets, Parks & Facilities Division and they informed me that Jasnoch Construction was issued a burning permit for it.

Back in 2004-05, after an ISSUES list discussion on Northfield.org followed by a ten-day web forum, the Council decided to halt routine brush burning at the city’s compost site in favor of chipping.

It’s odd that the City would now issue a permit to burn a big pile like this within the city limits (we had to close our windows this morning because of the smoke) instead of requiring Jasnoch to haul the brush and logs to a facility where it could be chipped.

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As editors, we struggled to find the right balance. In some ways, it has been educational to us all to see the diatribe and the level of racial and ethnic animosity on certain topics. At the same time, nobody wants to condone that type of discussion. I won’t repeat the comments; suffice it to say that many were simply uncivilized. Even the mechanisms we put in place to strike offensive comments didn’t help that much. “That led us to the uncomfortable position of just turning it off” on stories related to crime and safety, said Will Tacy, our managing editor for online.

This week’s Time magazine has a column by Lev Grossman titled Post Apocolypse.

The horribleness of commenters isn’t really a mystery: Internet anonymity is disinhibiting, and people are basically mean anyway. Nor is it a mystery why the people who run websites put up with commenters: the economic model for Internet content is based on advertising, which means it’s based on traffic volume, and comments mean traffic.

They’re part of the things that make online publishing work. (TIME.com enables comments on its blogs, including mine.) It’s just hard to tell whether they’re ruining the Web faster than they can save it.

Realizing that we’ve got a culture of civility here on LG has made us rethink our policy of only blogging about local issues. I’ve said in the past that there are plenty of places on the internet to discuss issues of state, national, and international relevance. What didn’t occur to me was that there are few places on the internet where one can do this where a culture of civility reigns. And of course, there’s a certain attraction to discussing those issues with friends, neighbors, and fellow local citizens. 

The long-running discussions on blog posts Northfielders for Obama, McCain (259 comments since Jan. 27) and Are Northfield area churches waking up to the cognitive revolution? (188 comments since May 28) are evidence that there’s an interest in this. (Very little of those discussions involve Northfield.)  And since the way we’ve set up our LG blog allows you to follow (and subscribe to)  just those discussions that interest you, there’s no worry about any particular discussion thread dominating.

We’ll test this out over the next few weeks with an occasional blog post on an issue that doesn’t particularly have a local angle. Let us know what you think.

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Prior to the regularly scheduled Work Session, the Northfield City Council has a special meeting scheduled Monday at 7pm to deal with, among other things:

1. Al Roder’s separation agreement (Aug. 1 is his last day)

Item #6 (titled ‘Release’) in the separation agreement (Page 7 in the pdf) appears to be a change of the Council’s previous policy of a $7,500 limit to pay Roder’s attorney fees related to the Goodhue investigation (bold italics mine):

Unless the Employee rescinds the release, the City shall continue to reimburse the Employee, or pay on his behalf, costs and reasonable attorney’s fees payable to Fredrikson & Byron, P.A. related to the Goodhue Matter, without dollar limitation but subject to review and approval of all billings for such costs and fees by the City Attorney prior to payment.

This appears to mean that the City will pay the additional $8k billed beyond the $7.5k, with no end in sight. Or am I reading that wrong?

2. Vacant at-large seat (Noah Cashman resigned last week)

The Council is considering two alternatives for filling Cashman’s seat (Page 16 in the pdf).

Alternative A: fill the seat immediately

Alternative B: invite people to apply by X date, interview them, etc.

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In Al Roder’s July 11 Friday memo:

The preconstruction conference was held this week for the Mill Towns Trail Bridge. The main topic discussed was schedule for the project. Due to the current unavailability of steel, the delivery of the steel to manufacture the bridge will not be until mid-November. The bridge delivery is anticipated early spring. The contractor will be submitting a revised schedule based on the discussions this week.

Last news update on the Mill Towns Trail website was January, 2007. Sigh. Most recent Nfld News article was May, 2008: Mill Towns Trail bridge will move forward.

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Northfield Historical Society (NHS) Executive Director/blogger Hayes Scriven (left) has been deploying a Boss Godfrey look (center) lately. He then finds walking wounded (e.g., right photo, yours truly with Gloria Powell) and forces them to staff the NHS membership booth in hopes that sympathetic passersby will be more likely to become NHS members.

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Josh and I puttered into Northfield, Minn. in my Subaru Legacy from the east on Route 19 on a clement Thursday afternoon. I had traveled to the city from the Berkshire Mountains of Western Mass., with side trips to a sailboat in the Caribbean Sea, Chesuncook Lake in northern Maine and my new employer’s summer retreat in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Northfield’s emerald sign sprang into view like a leggy stalk of corn. We drove several feet beyond it before we halted short, came about and wedged our futon-laden station wagon beside the curb. We scampered in front of the sign for a photograph, and Josh held my reporter’s notebook high alongside the part that said, “POP 17,147.” On the notepad I had written, “+ 2.” We smiled, and my knees trembled in a way they had not done even when a squall had chased our boat past the Turks and Caicos islands at 3 a.m., or when my boss Leonard Witt had sent me down a backwoods trail on a mountain bike. This was Minnesota, it was unfamiliar ground and it was home.

We scoured the city for an apartment, or at least a place to dry out the ill-fated futon, which had weathered two Midwest downpours. We first met local technical whiz Nathan White who, among other tasks, helps direct Northfield.org, an “electronic commons” designed to strengthen the “fabric of the community,” according to the site’s mission statement. Nathan showcased the sunny two-bedroom apartment in the top half of his duplex a few blocks away from downtown. Still, the siren of Division Street seduced us closer to the city’s hub.

We dialed the first phone number we found pasted to an apartment door. Norman Butler answered and, in minutes, he swung his Volkswagen into the lot behind the Contented Cow pub and wine bar where we were staving off dehydration, low blood sugar and general exhaustion with slugs of Wisconsin’s Sprecher Brewing Company’s root beer. The icy tonic refreshed us but Norman clearly drew his energy from a more potent source. The U.K. native, who appeared to be in his 50’s, leaped up staircases and sped across sidewalks as he showed us several of his apartments across town. He even pointed out a few of his competitor’s flats. We were only stopped short once when we attempted to pop into an apartment complex a few blocks southwest of Division Street.

“This is a secure building!” a tenant said, holding fast to the entrance door handle, unmoved by Norman’s charm.

In addition to Norman, a few other local professionals joined our housing expedition including Katharine Kuyper of the Re/Max Results office, a dairy farmer named Janet who manages an apartment complex off Union Street, and Aaron of the Goodbye Blue Monday Coffee House, who doled out solid advice and use of the phone book. My new employers and the administrators at LocallyGrownNorthfield.org offered similar support. Tracy Davis, for one, sent us to Froggy Bottoms River Pub and Suites to ask the owner for a room. The proprietor was out of town but, it was after that final inquiry that Josh and I began to appreciate what it could mean to live so conveniently close to a bar. One of Norman’s apartments sat directly above his restaurant, “The Cow.” So, we found Norman immediately and took the place.

That night, Josh and I reclined on the pub’s patio and savored liquid indulgence and three cartons of hot buttered popcorn. Upstairs, a 20-inch fan purchased at Econofoods diligently aired our soggy bed. I also bought a flowering plant there, a hot-pink kalanchoe, which a young supermarket employee brought to my car after I forgot it at the checkout. I named the plant Helga and put her on the windowsill so she can people watch. I think she likes her new home.

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The roller hockey rink at Riverside Park has a new element of controversy: a soon-to-be-installed outhouse that will face the Village on the Cannon (VOC) condos. (See my original spoof-with-truth blog post for background.)

I gave the facility a test-run on Thursday morning. Reading material was absent but cell phone reception was quite good.

It seems to me that the three-walled shell could be be turned around so that the portable toilet, when it arrives, would face the rink.

In a related development, the lights surrounding the rink have been turned on recently for late-night roller hockey and soccer activity. That evidently violates the agreement between residents of VOC and the Park & Rec Advisory Board (PRAB).  A resident informed me yesterday that acting on a police request, city workers have bolted shut the lighting switch box.

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Residents who got the rocks on their plates instead of the cookies saw through the scheme, however. “I’m used to eating cookies that taste like crap,” said Lynn Seebeck. “My children and grandchildren bring me their month-old cast-off cookies all the time. But these were over-the-top bad. Who do they take us for?”

See the album of a baker’s dozen photos or this slideshow:

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Six guys + a linoleum mat on a concrete divider + a boombox = summertime entertainment on downtown Northfield’s west side tonight at about 9 pm.

See the photo album or this slideshow, then watch the video below:

Click play to watch. 1 min, 25 sec.

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The event will take place in the Art Store and Anna’s Closet. Community Resource Bank is putting a great big tent in the parking lot between the bank and Oolala.  The usual suspects are participating along with some fresh new faces from Faribault and New Prague and Webster.

With the western theme we will all be dressing up in our giddy-up and we have some special guest stars: Coon Hollar Girls, Wild Bill Hickock, Dirty Sally and a special appearance by Annie Oakley.  In addition there will be some wild can-can girls dancing in the streets.

Lucy Sweitzer of Anna’s Closet, Nancy Moe of Northfield Hospital and Heather Lawrenz of Lawrenz Jewelry dressed up on Saturday and we had a professional photographer take pictures of the three of these women in business and they will be the face of our event… And it’s neat because the three women are different ages, represent different businesses, and serve in different capacities for the event and all are key to the success of AGYG.  The costumes these women dressed up in are courtesy of the NAG and the photographer’s name is Natalie Schultz, a young woman just starting in the photography business (Premier Focus Photography).

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Click play to listen. 30 minutes. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes. Our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, usually airs Wednesdays at 5:30 PM on KYMN 1080 AM.

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Left: the use of car stickers with engaging signs
Center: urinal target practice. Hit that Early Literacy Spot!
Right: bladder control tactics. Red=stop. Green=go. Yellow=wait.

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