County and City Bite into Joint Work Session

"We want to work with the cities -- not against them." said County Commission Chair Jim Brown at a worksession this afternoon. The Rice County Board of Commissioners joined the Northfield City Council to discuss issues that affect both groups.After sharing a box meal and brief introductions, they began discussion on economic development which migrated to transportation issues. Topics covered included the controversial I35 corridor rezoning, widening of highway 19, and the Cedar Avenue curve coming into town.

The members of the two elected groups explained their divergent opinions of development within versus outside city boundaries. According to Brown, he and other county commissioners proceeded with the rezoning of the I35 corridor to ballance the distribution between residential and commercial tax bases.

City Councl Member Dixon Bond responded that the city was also working on economic development, and that the tax base within Northfield still goes to the county as long as it is within Rice County. He further suggested that the county assist the cities in their economic development rather than push for economic development in rural areas.

Jim Pokorney, city council member, suggested that the "county could actually do a lot of economic development through the cities." Pokorney also pointed out that economic development for Northfield is just as easy to do in Dakota County as Rice County. He mentioned that Northfield provides many services, such as library, medical and recreation, to rural residents in the county. He went on to thank the county for their support of the library.

Brown responded that they wanted to keep the door open to working with the cities on economic development. As part of collaboration between the county and city, the two groups agreed to have their engineers look at the possibility of a stop sign on Cedar Avenue at North Avenue to slow traffic coming into town on Cedar Avenue. Bond summed up discussion of Cedar Avenue, "we've got to do something with that Cedar Avenue curve."

Council Member Scott Davis mentioned that people move to a city, not to a county. He explained that he didn't pay attention to which county he was moving into when coming to Northfield. Davis said, "I'm glad I'm in Rice."