Citizens (miscellaneous)
What is Drentlaw Plaza about?
As you enter Dundas via County Rd 1 at Hwy 3, you’ll see this landscaped area on the north side announcing Drentlaw Plaza area… but no plaza.
Anyone know what’s happening here? And what is that old machine?
Reading Journal: Deep Economy
McKibben's book offers a wealth of anecdotal evidence—from Burlington, Vermont, to Cuba to Bangladesh—that local economies can offer a viable and sustainable alternative to globalization and growth. One of the most interesting examples is that of Cuba, where the fall of the Soviet Union cut the island off from its supply of oil: Cuba was the first place on Earth to experience "peak oil." Without a steady supply of petrochemicals—specifically, fuel and fertilizer—Cuba was forced to redesign its agriculture or starve. What emerged was smaller scale organic farming, often in small urban gardens (organopónicos). A careful fostering of small-scale local agriculture has been able to feed a post-oil Cuba.
Outside of Burlington, two hundred acres of reclaimed landfill now produce about 8 percent of all the fresh food consumed in the city. According to a member of the states House Agriculture Committee: "If Vermont were cut off from the rest of the world tomorrow, I think we could be feeding ourselves by the end of a single growing season." The growth of the global economy is predicated on the supply of oil; if oil runs out, where will we be? McKibben argues that we need to start looking around us, at our local communities, for the answers. As Northfield considers annexing good agricultural land for industrial and residential development, it should think hard about its food security in a post-peak oil world.
Throughout Deep Economy, McKibben is careful to show that thinking, growing, and shopping locally (and generating power locally through solar and wind) is not just a yuppie, co-op member thing. His examples show that it works in Bangladesh, in Cuba, in India, in Afghanistan, in China—as well as in hippie Burlington.
Finally, McKibben points out again and again that increasing wealth only delivers increased happiness up to a point. A Chinese worker living in dire poverty will be happier if she has more stuff. But Americans continue to accumulate unnecessary stuff—much of it made in China. As Americans work harder and longer, and become wealthier, and acquire more stuff, they are not becoming happier. Instead, they are becoming more cut off from the things—primarily, the sense of belonging to a community—that provide real satisfaction.
In Other Excrement News
I was waiting on the Beast to do his thing this morning when I turned to the Onion for an exclusive report on a related topic.
Queeny
Wednesday is the "queen stage" of the Tour de France: a 210.5km (131 mile) race through the Alps that will include three horrific beyond-category climbs - including, at the end, the ascent of the greatest climb of them all, the 21 switchbacks of l'Alpe d'Huez.
With stage 16 pushing American Christian Vande Velde and Russian Denis Menchov out beyond the magical (and meaningless) mark of one minute behind the leader, the group contesting the yellow jersey on the Alpe will probably number just four. Ominously, two of that group - Frank Schleck (in the yellow jersey) and Carlos Sastre (in fourth, 49 seconds behind) - race for the same team, CSC, whose relentless pace damaged Menchov and Vande Velde. The other two racers, Cadel Evans and Bernhard Kohl, are just 8 and 7 seconds behind Schleck, respectively, and will be eager to stay close to him or even to attack him. Can CSC continue to defend Schleck's yellow jersey so successfully and brutally? It will be fun to watch the 15,000 feet of climbing on the queen stage answer that question.
Too Little, Too Late
I just blew the evening working on my online class - grading papers, wrestling with the unfriendly online-course application, answering emails (like the one from the student who begged his way into the course, has earned 0 points through the first two-thirds of the semester, and now wants to know how he can still earn a C - answer: you can't), and generally doing stuff I'd rather not have spent that much time doing. Oh well. It (literally) pays the bills.
Reading Journal: "Green Dolphin Street"
Goudge is a Christian writer, and Green Dolphin Street is an historical romance heavily doused with theology. Goudge is interested in how grace can enter lives both accidentally and through a lifetime of effort. She admires perseverance: sea captains who go down with their ships, missionaries who go off to martyrdom among the heathen, good men who remain faithful to their impossible wives. And Marianne is certainly impossible. It becomes clear that even Goudge finds her intolerable. She needs to be humbled, because for Goudge, the Christian writer, humility is where the human and divine come together. In her life of Jesus Christ, God So Loved the World (1951), Goudge focuses on the "unbelievable humbling" of Christ. In Green Dolphin Street, Marianne thinks of herself as a kind of god, and only becomes human, as God did in Christ, through her humiliation.
Elizabeth Goudge is a wonderful descriptive writer. The scenes set on the island of Guernsey are wonderfully evocative. When the scene shifts to New Zealand—which Goudge never visited—the descriptions unfortunately become less convincing and entrancing. I'm looking forward to reading some of her other books—her first novel, Island Magic (1934), for example—set in the Channel Islands, because she's at her best when she's grounded in that closely-observed and beautifully-evoked—and obviously beloved—landscape.
A Hollywood adaptation of Green Dolphin Street in 1947 starred Lana Turner as Marianne, with support from Van Heflin and Donna Reed, and won an Oscar for best special effects (an earthquake). It also yielded a theme song that became a jazz standard. Here's Carmen McRae performing On Green Dolphin Street in 1980.
The cover pictured above is from the currently available reprint edition. I read a 1944 American edition published by Coward-McCann, printed under wartime restrictions: thin paper, narrow margins, and small print.
Musical Crush of the Week: Mishka Adams
Jinxing, but...
I'm sure this will jinx it all, but I have to go on record to praise Apple for my recent MacBook repair.
First of all, the whole process was quick as hell. I called to report the damage last Friday, received the free overnight DHL box on Saturday, shipped the computer on Monday, and had it back on Wednesday.
Second, the repair was excellent. The contractor (Apple doesn't do its own repairs, I found out) replaced half of the laptop's case, not only fixing the tiny - but growing - crack next to the touchpad, but endowing the computer with a new keyboard that is poppier and easier to use, and - mysteriously - scaring away certain odd, irresolvable wi-fi problems with which I've been wrestling with since getting the machine in the winter.
Well done, Apple.
Brendon Etter Wonders Why the Other Mayoral Candidates Seem to Love Terrorism
Au Revoir, Kookiejar
Rodger and me (Bordeaux and ribeye)
Rodger introduced me to my wife and we were in other's wedding. We met several decades ago and have enjoyed eating and drinking wine the whole time. We shared a house until it burned down, and he visited me in Thailand when I was a Peace Corps volunteer.
I'm visiting our cottage in Ontario now, and yesterday Rodger drove up from Buffalo, bringing his two daughters, a 2000 Haut Bailly from the Pessac-Leognan appellation of Bordeaux, and the best looking ribeyes I've ever seen -- Buffalo, for all its economic woes, has beautiful meat markets. We swam in the beautiful water of Bay Beach and my parents-in-law drove down from Toronto to stay the night with us, too. When we visit our cottage, siblings, friends, and in-laws come and we visit, swim, eat and drink. Mẹ (my mother-in-law) brought a case of mangoes, too.
The 2000 Haut Bailly had a beautiful pencil-lead nose, and was a dark, broody wine with leather and some dark black fruit. The full tannins were soft and there were hints, along with that pencil lead, of other wood underneath. An elegant, earthbound wine. Cooked over very hot charcoal, the beef, simply grilled with salt and pepper, was dazzling with the wine. Tender tender red meat with little chars of fat and browned surfaces. A salad, caramel custard for dessert, an old friend, my in-laws, a long walk on the beach talking with Mẹ about family, tiny shells (not zebra mussels, which seem to have decreased significantly in the past two years) in the sand right at the water’s edge, wispy clouds in blue sky as the sun set, all the memories of summers on this beach and the Milton Avery-like simplicity of water, sky, earth. Along the lake bottom the waves make ridges in the sand, a beautiful symmetrical pattern, and Henry and I looked at them as we waded through ankle deep water. Reading at night while the kids sleep on the porch, a whole novel in two days!
Sex Scandal Rocks Brendon Etter's Mayoral Campaign, Internet Servers
Bloom Tuesday, No. 11
Last night, while walking the dog about 9 p.m., my husband commented that it seemed darker than usual. We have crossed over to the backside of summer, and as if they know it cannot last forever, the summer flowers are blooming in desperation.
A daylily I was given during a Garden Writers of America tour last year is now in bloom. This showy, mid-season daylily (Hemerocallis) came from American Daylily & Perennials, a Kansas City company run by hybridizer Jack Roberson and his wife, Jo. I’m a real daylily dunce, but I think this one is either ‘Addie Branch Smith’ or a new daylily called ‘Lady Jackie’. There are thousands of daylilies that have been hybridized over the years and a several hybridizers work in Minnesota.
Out in the meadow behind my house, new plants are blooming. I moved this black-eyed Susan from my front yard bed last year, and it’s brightening up the back. There’s also an Indian blanket flower (Gaillardia pulchella) in bloom.
Finally, while not a bloom, a very welcome summer event is the arrival of the July raspberries. I’ve been picking a few for the last week or so and am hopeful for larger harvests this week. This yellow variety is called ‘Anne’.
Why the fuss about the City Charter, and why should we care?
In Minnesota, cities take one of two basic forms: statutory cities, which operate as enabled in a section of Minnesota state law, and charter cities, which operate under a local charter. Northfield is one of the latter, primarily because Northfield was established as a city before Minnesota was established as a state. The City Charter is the “constitution” of Northfield’s city government.
Charter cities, sometimes referred to as “home-rule” cities, are allowed to establish any form of governance they choose. Typically this is either a council-manager or mayor-council system. Under the mayor-council system, government may be further defined as a “weak mayor” ceremonial form, or a “strong mayor” executive form. Our current charter states that Northfield has a mayor-council form of government; Northfield is one of only four Minnesota cities (the others are Duluth, St. Cloud, and St. Paul) which is technically considered to have a “strong mayor” system. See the League of Minnesota Cities for more definition of forms of city government organization in Minnesota.
The Charter Commission
Northfield’s Charter Commission is, as stated on its page of the City website, “responsible for reviewing and revising the City Charter to ensure that it meets all applicable State and Federal laws and meets the needs of the citizens of Northfield.” The Charter Commission is fundamentally different from other City boards and commissions. It is not an advisory board; it’s an independent political subdivision. Members are appointed by a district court judge, not by anyone elected, appointed, or employed by the City. Serving on the current Charter Commission are Bill Beck, Betsey Buckheit, Peter Dahlen, David Emery, Jayne Hager Dee, Victor Summa, and Elaine Thurston.
Recent History
In November 2001, Northfield’s ballot contained a referendum to change from a mayor-council system to a council-manager system, largely because the function and job description of the “city administrator” was moving closer and closer to what is usually considered to be that of a “city manager”. Voters rejected that referendum, choosing to maintain the current form of government. Okay. Except that the issue that prompted the referendum—that City Hall was functioning in a structurally different manner than what is described in the City Charter—still existed.
Over the next couple of years, the Charter Commission worked to research and recommend changes to the charter that would better reflect both the will of the citizens and the realities of how City Hall was run. In 2004, the city council unanimously approved a charter change which officially moved many administrative responsibilities from the mayor to the city administrator, since these were functions the city administrator had been doing for years, and the mayor typically had not. As a result, we now have a sort of a hybrid, which looks (and functions) more like the council-manager form than it does the strong mayor form.
David Koenig, a former City Councillor and professional advising on governance and risk management, is in the midst of a series of guest columns for the Northfield News relating to City government and the charter. His first article, Someone Should Be the Leader, sheds some light on the governance issue, and why it is currently a problem; the second article, Who Will Be the Leader?, illustrates the pros and cons of the different forms of government. There will be another guest article published on July 26; I’ll put an addendum linking to that and any others later.
Last fall, in an effort to try to educated the citizens about the City Charter, the Charter Commission drafted a letter which they asked to have enclosed with the monthly water bill. For various reasons, permission to do so was not given. But the letter is helpful, so I posted a PDF of the draft here.
In our LoGroNo history, we’ve had several posts and comments on the City Charter:
- 5/30/08: Chartering Northfield, in which commentor David Koenig suggested the idea of a “charter wiki” we could all work on.
- 3/26/08: Podcast with guest Peter Dahlen, 2008 Charter Commission chair.
- 11/28/07: Podcast guest Alex Beeby, 2007 Charter Commission chair
- 11/4/07: Is the City’s Charter Partly to Blame for the City’s Woes?, a post by Griff which generated several significant comments, some from Charter Commission members.
- In 2001, Griff moderated a community forum on this issue, with participation by Charter Commission members, the City Administrator, current and former mayors, and a few others.
Anyone who wants to know about the recent and remote history of the City Charter MUST read the entire 2001 forum. There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9, but I can’t link to it).
Issues, Challenges, and Possible Solutions
As an example of why our current hybrid may not be adequately serving the citizens of Northfield, consider the following. The charter states that “the mayor shall be the executive officer of the city government, accountable to the council for oversight of the administration of the city.” The charter also states that the city administrator “… shall be the chief administrative officer of the city. The administrator shall be appointed by the council. . . and shall be responsible to and serve under the control and direction of the council.” Furthermore, the job description and contractual employment terms of our city administrator position are in line with those of a city manager in the council-manager system. So already we have a built-in tension between the mayor and the city administrator. Who’s in charge? Is it the mayor, being accountable to the council for oversight of the administration? Or is it the city administrator, under the control and direction of the council?
This isn’t just semantics. The citizens of Northfield will be choosing a new mayor this fall. How many of us think that we’re just electing a figurehead who will give speeches on Memorial Day and run meetings? How many of the candidates think that’s what they’re running for? The charter says that “The mayor. . . shall exercise leadership of the council in the formulation of policy.” However, apparently that leadership does not include setting the agenda for meetings; under the current charter, council meeting agenda is prepared by the city administrator “in consultation with the mayor”.
The City Council needs to either bring City policies into conformance with the Charter, or revise the Charter to reflect the actual practice of the City. (I’m trying to ignore the philosophical implication which feels to me like saying that either we crack down on underage drinking, or we simply lower the drinking age to 13 to better reflect what’s going on in the real world.)
It seems to me that Northfield has two options, both of which involve revising the charter in some way.
1. Retain the mayor-council system of governance, clarify the responsibilities, and vote for a salary for a full-time mayor in order to do the job properly.
2. Change to a council-manager form of government, clarify the responsibilities, and make it clear to citizens, mayors, and staff where the accountability lies.
Note the common theme: Clarify the responsibilities. Some of the current problems at City Hall may be largely due to personalities, but I’ve lived here long enough to see that at least part of the problem is structural - and frankly, fixing that is fairly straightforward.
In Griff’s post last November, Charter Commission member David Emery said,
…a few years ago, Northfielders rejected a referendum brought by the Charter Commission that would have moved Northfield to a “city manager” form of government. As a result of the failure of the referendum, the Charter Commission and the City Council patched together language in the charter and city ordinances that transferred most responsibilities to a city administrator, but left some powers to the mayor. We thought we were fulfilling the wishes of the voters. If the present distribution of power between the administrator and the mayor is not workable, I (as a member of the Charter Commission) need some guidance from the voters. Which way do you want us to move–to a city manager, or back to a stronger role for the mayor?
I couldn’t ask the question better. What do you say?
Northfielders think Target=good; Wal-mart & Kmart=bad and/or ugly. Why?
The Strib’s Katherine Kersten’s column last week, Wal-Mart means low-priced goods and good jobs, generated a rebuttal commentary by senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), Stacy Mitchell, titled Low prices, but at what cost? Mitchell is also the author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses. ILSR also runs the Big Box Took Kit website.
I didn’t vote in favor of the rezoning to allow Target to come to Northfield but now that they’re here, I like having them close by, especially now with much higher gas prices.
I find it curious, though, that many Northfielders seem to have positive feelings about Target, while expressing disdain for Wal-Mart and sometimes Kmart. What’s that about?
Something’s happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear
I took these two photos yesterday morning of some unusual activity adjacent to the Ames Mill on the Cannon River.
Can you guess what’s going on?
Garden Club installing monster garden on Bridge Square over the objections of residents/PRAB
With the American in Bloom judges come to town next week, the Northfield Garden Club has decided to quadruple the size of its flower garden on Bridge Square, adjacent to the Ames Mill dam.
Yesterday morning, they brought in the heavy equipment.
“We decided we needed an edge,” said club president Trudy Coade. “A monster flower garden, installed at the last minute, should be impressive to the judges.”
When informed of this development, Spence Jonas, a member of the City of Northfield Park & Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB), was not pleased. “Bridge Square is a city park, so this should have gone through the PRAB for approval. Downtown residents, especially those living on Bridge Square, should also have been consulted.”
Bardwell deMalicenon, downtown resident and building owner, agreed. “More flower gardens tend to attract more citizens who just loiter more in what is essentially my front yard. The city should be enforcing its loitering ordinance, not allowing fringe groups like the Garden Club to undermine it.”
Coade also wanted to convert the Council chambers to a flower garden hothouse but “the CIP Nazis wouldn’t let us get on their list at this late date.”
Sweet photo albums: July gallery redux. Some of my best yet.
I haven't had time to post a lot this month so far because I've been so busy shooting everything. I've had one after another great set of photo opportunities. Have a look for yourself. I encourage you to post your comments on any photo for everyone to see.
By Brothers Fish Fry in St Louis Park
Taking My Girls to the Rice County Fair
Laps for Logan
Books and Stars
Vivi's Faces
No, not her excellent facial expressions (which I hope to photoblog soon - wait'll you see the "sly face"), but her first attempt at drawing some faces. Click through to Flickr for the usual mouse-over notes. Not bad, eh? I like the palette, myself: brown & black is where it's at.
Itasca Park goes wireless!
Bizarre, but true! Something that makes camping a lot easier — internet access! Week before last, we took a couple of days off and went up to Lake Itasca so Alan could see more of Minnesota, and given we’ve both got “virtual offices,” it’s really a problem to be off-line. So hearing that Douglas Lodge at Itasca had wireless, yes, Douglas Lodage:
I figured it wouldn’t be that tough to go over there once in a while. Guess again, there was too much to do and then, after we finally got to the desk near the fireplace, and when telling management how much I appreciated having access there, I learned it was all over the park, and even IN THE PINE RIDGE CAMPGROUND! PERFECT. Yup, here’s the proof, above!
And we had a wonderful visit with Rollie and Shar Jacobsen, who are living now up near Park Rapids, home of a real old fashioned ice cream parlor (Rollie knows what I like!). I so miss having them as neighbors and extended family right downstairs… as we left, Rollie handed me a genuine Jacobsen’s bag, and delight of delights, it was filled with Jerry Garcia Band CD’s, 10-15 (haven’t counted), I’m still on the second one and savoring every bit.
And yes, we did get out in a boat on Lake Itasca, and saw new baby loons, and one huge, HUGE snapping turtle swimming along. The world’s biggest red pine is a little worse for wear…
No… this wasn’t the one swimming across the lake…
