Northfield Council Roundup: Replacing State Inspectors, Street Reform Discussions, Flood Wall, Ash Borer Defense

Anticipating a public safety risk, Northfield city councilors on Tuesday voted to temporarily replace state construction inspectors with contract staff while the employees are laid off by Minnesota's government shutdown.

To prevent residents from going about construction or moving into buildings without inspections, councilors created a new chapter in city code to allow the city to temporarily administer and regulate electrical inspections.

The five councilors present—Erica Zweifel and Mayor Mary Rossing were absent—voted in favor of the measure in a special session before a regular work session.

Kicking off street reform discussions

After hearing complaints over its failure to save trees from road construction projects, councilors considered getting involved in city projects before their engineering. 

"I think our issue is less about the engineering ... than what kind of roads we want," said Councilor Patrick Ganey of the recent trend toward widening Northfield's streets when reconstructing them. 

In addition to width, contract engineer Mark Kasma identified tree location and right-of-way issues in his review of street policies for councilors.

The discussion previewed what will likely be a much larger discussion over the comprehensive planning for Northfield's streets, which involves the city's comprehensive plan, transportation plan, engineering specifications and the Land Development Code, the last of which was recommended for passage by councilors from the Northfield Planning Commission.

Outlining a series of points for discussion toward comprehensive planning, Councilor Betsey Buckheit presented a philosophy of "Complete Streets," a policy focusing on walking, cycling and public transit in addition to car traffic, which she said harmed the pace of traffic and quiet of residential streets.

Councilor Rhonda Pownell cautioned against focusing too much on residential traffic in the upcoming discussions.

"We do need to take into account our business community," she said.

Businesses petition for higher flood wall

Led by attorney and Froggy Bottoms River Pub owner Dave Hvistendahl, several downtown business owners petitioned councilors to fortify the limestone walls banking the Cannon River to help block flood waters.

Doug Bratland of Holmes Design, Kurt Larson of Larson's Printing, and Gary Van Erp joined Hvistendahl in requesting a feasibility study for the addition of a concrete cap to the east bank wall to protect the limestone wall from deteriorating, as well as to raise the inside wall of the west bank to a level even with the east. City administrator Tim Madigan said he will determine the project's scope ahead of a future meeting.

Shielding against Ash borers

Only Maine has more Ash trees than Minnesota, Ganey said, citing a study to support decisive action by the board to prevent uptake of the Emerald Ash Borer in Northfield.

Should the invasive insect, first found in the United States a decade ago, spread into Rice County, city staff said options to prevent potential "devastiation of Ash trees in Northfield" could take clear cutting or application of chemical treatments, which range from $70 to more than $550 per dose.

To help make such work easier should the insects spread, councilors will consider at a future work session whether to commission the inventory of ash trees in the city.

The invasive species, native to Asia, has been located in only Houston and Hennepin counties since 2009.