Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

Carleton President Rob Oden and St. Olaf President David Anderson will discuss downtown’s important role in the lives of the colleges, each college’s role in the Northfield community, and opportunities for constructive collaboration between the colleges and community at the NDDC’s October Forum. There will be plenty of time for questions from the audience.

Anderson is returning to Northfield, having moved here in July from his position of provost and professor of English at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, as a St. Olaf alum. Oden has been president of Carleton since 2002. He came to Northfield from the presidency of Kenyon College in Ohio, where he and Anderson became friends.

Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to hear these sharp minds and entertaining speakers in a relatively rare joint appearance, Tuesday, October 3rd, 8 am, in the Riverview Conference Room of the Archer House.

Coffee and cookies will be served. Click the poster image for full-size PDF.

According to RENew Northfield,

“Rumor has it that Northfield Critical Masses will begin at noon on the first and third Thursday of each month, proceeding from the intersection of 2nd and Division through downtown to the south, and back.”

The blog entry goes on to say that according to Wikipedia,

“Critical Mass rides are self-organized, noncommercial and non-competitive, and they operate with diffused and informal decison-making, independent of ‘leaders’.”

…hmmm, kind of reminds me of the TAZ…

Griff Wigley, of Locally Grown, asked me if the Northfield Critical Massers are just trying to raise awareness of non-motorized transportation or were they trying to urge the City to take a specific bike friendly action. Geez Griff, I don’t know, it just sounded like a bit of fun to me…

At any rate, it seems like an appropriate celebratory parade for Steve Clark, who is visiting on the first Thursday of October, or the 5th, to talk about making Northfield more bike and pedestrian friendly. So catch the Critical Mass at 12 pm in Downtown Northfield and catch Steve’s presentation at 7 pm at the High School.

Note: The NDDC does not condone bike riding without a helmet.

…Team Digs (or maybe team digs), shown here hard at work at the Friends of the Library’s Spelling Bee last night at the Grand Event Center…

…at least from the NDDC’s scoring system, where it’s all based the the enthusiasm and vigor of the cheering section.

I guess the official winner was a group from some institute of higher learning up on a hill over on the west side of town. They spelled all five words in the final round, four of which I’d never even heard of before, to edge out two teams that managed to spell four out of five of the words. You can read more about it on Locally Grown.

How did the NDDC Team do? Well, my wife subbed for Amy Gage and I subbed for Tristan Cox and our only original team member, Dave Shumway, tried to tell us that we’d left out an “i” but there was a communication problem and…

…I guess it pays to listen to the folks at 1st National Bank.

I’m sure that some of you might challenge my word choice. Harrumph…probably the same people who thought that my “Adults Only Spelling Bee” was a poor phrasing for a Spelling Bee for Adults.

The dictionary says an orgy is “1. A revel involving unrestrained indulgence” and “2. Uncontrolled indulgence in an activity”. If you doubt that teams from Grandpa’s Farm, digs, The Mighty Quacks of Allina, the NDDC, the Northfield City Management Team, Team Faribault, the Cannon Valley Lions Club, Coldwell Banker, Neuger Communications Group, the AAUW, the Healthy Community Initiative, St. Olaf College, the St. Olaf Avenue Spellers, the Northfield Rotary, Carleton’s Untraviolet Catastrophe, the Contented Cow, and Countryside Animal Hospital are going to produce anything less than a revel of uncontrolled and unrestrained indulgence in a spelling activity, you clearly underestimate them.

So come on down(town) and check out the Friends of the Northfield Public Library’s Spelling Bee for Booker, 7 to 9 pm, at the Grand Event Center.

I just got this notice from Sean Simonson, in the Engineering Department of the City of Northfield. Folks have been asking about the “dropping of the other shoe” so I’d thought I’d post it right away, including the PDF map.

September 26, 2006
Library Corner Park Improvements

Dear Business Owner,

As you know, the City of Northfield has been completing improvements near the intersection of Division Street and Third Street. This work includes a new brick-paver crosswalk across Division Street. The contractor has indicated that they will be returning to complete this crosswalk on Monday, October 2, 2006.

Therefore Division Street will be closed immediately north of Third Street. During the street closure, Division Street will be switched to one-way southbound traffic between Third Street and Fourth Street, with access from Third Street. Diagonal parking on the west side of Division Street will not be affected, and parking on the east side of Division Street will be allowed southbound, instead of the current northbound configuration.

Between Second and Third Street traffic and parking will remain both north and southbound on Division Street with a few parking stalls blocked off near the Third Street and Division Street intersection to allow for cars to make a u-turn. (See attached map)

The contractor has 10 working days to complete the crosswalk and have Division Street back open to traffic. Barring any weather delays, Division Street will re-open on Friday, October 13, 2006.

Please feel free to contact me at 507-645-3049 if you have any questions regarding the crosswalk construction.

Sincerely,

Sean M. Simonson
Engineering Technician II

Cc: Heidi Hamilton; Project Files

September 28th update from Heidi Hamilton:

Construction of the crosswalk across Division Street that was planned to begin next week will be delayed to spring 2007 in order to avoid the traffic congestion that would be caused by closing Division Street in conjunction with Highway 3 construction.

Please contact me with any questions.