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This organization, Northfield Citizens Online, which maintains Northfield.org, will hold its annual meeting this Wednesday at the Northfield Public Library at 7pm. This is your opportunity to come see this organization at work and possibly become a part of it. Northfield.org is a growing and increasingly interesting Northfield organization. There may be one of you *out there* who would enjoy participating as an actor instead of as the audience. If that's the case let me tell you about what's going on and how you could participate.

A list:

Northfield.org
The Northfield Blogosphere
The ISSUES List
Northfield Citizens Online
Special Features

NCO Annual meeting this Wednesday at the Northfield Public Library at 7pm.

On Saturday the Northfield Union of Youth held a Hurricane relief benefit event on Bridge Square. The event consisted of six musical acts, portrait drawings, face painting and henna tattoos, a dunking booth, cotton candy and a raffle for a skateboard.

The proceeds, about $700, will go to the Northfield High School Hurricane Relief fund. The event began at one in the afternoon and lasted until after seven in the evening. Chelsea Mukina was the lucky winner of the skateboard. Josh Hinnenkamp, the Key's Program Coordinator stated that the event was well attended by Northfield's population of middle and high school students. This benefit was one of a handful of ways in which Northfield's student populace has organized to help with hurricane relief since the disaster in New Orleans. Two weeks earler Carleton College hosted a relief concert, while the Northfield High School Hurricane Relief Fund "Students to Students" will go to a Louisana high school of around 400 displaced students.

This Saturday October 1st, the Northfield Union of Youth will host a hurricane relief benefit concert and fair on Bridge Square from 1-8pm. Performing at the benefit will be The Dank, and local acts The Exiles, Dylan McKinstry, Mike Anderson, Jon Larsen, and others. Activities at the fair will include henna tattoos, face painting, cotton candy, a dunk tank, and more. At 7pm will be a raffle for a brand new skateboard. All activities will be a dollar or less. Food at the event will be provided by Tiny's, and pop
and water will be available. All proceeds from the event will go to the Northfield High School Hurricane Relief fund. If weather does not cooperate, the event will take place at the Key. Contact Josh at the Key 663-0715 with any questions.

NORLUG, the Northfield Linux Users Group, had its mid-month meeting on Wednesday at Jesse James Lanes. This outing was one of the ways in which our members get together and talk about computers, open-source software and other geeky topics outside of our formal meetings. At a formal meeting there is typically some technical presentation, usually suitable for neophytes, but still interesting to seasoned linux users. Many of the documents from a presentation are archived on the NORLUG site.

NORLUG will host the 1st Annual Minnesota IntraLUG Picnic right here in Northfield on October 8. Details can be found at http://picnic.norlug.org/.

Formal NORLUG meetings are held at badbrain computers at 400 Washington Street every first Tuesday of the month.

About a hundred or so people have gathered outside of River City Books in downtown Northfield awaiting the sale of the newest Harry Potter novel. Many are in costume and more are expected to arrive to get in line.

Joint News Release City of Northfield and Northfield Public Schools Community Education & Recreation

For Immediate Release

TO: Northfield News and KYMN Radio
FROM: Hannah Puczko, Northfield Public Schools Community Education Director
Joel Walinski, City of Northfield Operations Manager

The City of Northfield

The Northfield City Council met in a work session this Monday. Betsy Buckheit, the chair of the Northfield Planning Commission met with the council to present the Planning Commissions recommendations for some changes in city residential building code. The proposed modifications are to "Residential (R-2) zone setbacks."

Jim Pokorney questioned the logic of setting zone policy for future projects based on older housing. Community Development Director, Brian O'Connell, responded that zoning in a historical manner establishes consistent patterns. The setbacks will be reduced by a few feet.

"The Northfield zoning code contains the minimum distances (setbacks) that houses, garages, and porches must be from the front, side, and rear property lines. There are also minimum lot sizes, lot widths, height, and a variety of additional dimensional requirements. These zoning standards apply to new construction on vacant lots as well as remodeling and expansion projects on existing inner city lots. This can be a problem for owners of older properties. Often, old properties are built closer to lot lines than the modern requirements allow."

From "Analysis of Zoning Variances from 1994 to October 2004".

NORLUG (Northfield Linux Users Group) held its monthly meeting tonight. The meeting began with a presentation on RPM (Red Hat Package Manager), a method of building, installing and managing software on Red Hat based computer systems. NORLUG member Jima gave the presentation, explaining the basics to experienced and novice attendees alike.

The meeting ended with a friendly discussion of various things Linux. Lastly, President Steve Usdansky announced that the organization will hold officer elections at its May meeting. NORLUG meets every first Tuesday of the month, and consists of members from Northfield, Dundas and Faribault. Click here for details.

The NDDC held its monthly Downtown Forum this morning at the Archer House, featuring the Northfield Union of Youth. The Union, according to its literature, is "the longest standing youth-run center in the nation." The Union was started in 1993 in order to address a growing need to provide local youths with activities, and as their mission puts it "to bring power and voice to area youth and create a caring community."

As Kevin Brown put it "the youth needed a place to call their own." The Union, a non-profit organization, launched its youth center "The Key" in 1995. It is named after a member who committed suicide, and serves as both a memorial and a reminder for the Union.

Griff created this set of photos http://www.nfld.us/gallery/unionofyouthnddc0405. Enjoy!

The Northfield City Council met at City Hall Tuesday evening. Among the more mundane subjects, City Council decided to allow the new BP Express on Highway 3 to sell 3.2 beer. While there is a stricter license which regulates the sale of so-called intoxicating alcohol, non-intoxicating alcohol sales permits are given out on a routine basis, typically to grocery stores and gas stations. Only 12 of the stricter licenses exist and only 9 or so have been given out.

Northfield.org consists of two important things. The first is the technology platform employed to get local news and discussion to our audience. Among other things this platform includes a website http://northfield.org, running weblog software and an email listserv, http://lists.nfld.us. The second is the organization, Northfield Citizens Online (NCO), which is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, and which runs Northfield.org. Currently NCO consists of the General member base, the NCO Board, the Content Committee and the Tech Committee, all volunteers, and then, of course, you, our valued audience.

The downtown bagel and bread shop Bagel Bros. has a closed sign in its window this morning. The sign on the door reads, "We're sorry, all Bagel Bros. locations have been closed as of 1.25.05... Thanks to our loyal customers."

The Shepherd's way fire, first reported around 3 this morning, initially killed around 150 of the sheep and 255 lambs. This was around 1/3 of the total sheep and all the lambs according to owner Jodi Read. Part of the roof of one of the barns has collapsed from the fire. Of the remaining sheep some will likely perish due to their burns, while others will be rescued. A team of veternary students were already there administering aid this morning.

Jodie and Steve thank the community for being so supportive. In addition to the media outlets, many neighbors had been by to support the Reads and their employees. Shepherd's Way employs anywhere from 4 to 17 workers throughout the year.

The Rice County Planning Commission met on Thursday evening in Faribault at the Government Services Building. A handful of topics were on the agenda. Most prominent was the debate over the recent proposal by Rice County Commissioner Jim Brown to rezone part of the I-35 corridor to commercial from agricultural.

Roughly 150 people attended this meeting as well as members of the Planning Commission, Ross Nelson, Chair, Fred Brogh, Vice Chair and Secretary, Keith Sannon, Gordon Kelly, Kim Halvorson, Willard Estrem and Commissioner Brown. There was little discussion by the Commission itself. Citizens were allocated 2 minutes per person to voice their opinion on this subject.

All in all there were roughly 25 people who spoke against the proposed change and 5 people and 2 write-ins for it. Much of the criticism was leveled at Jim Brown specifically. During the recent election campaign Brown ran on a platform of caution regarding this topic and some feel betrayed by the sudden reentry of it into the agenda of the last month of this County Board. One citizen who has already been adversely affected by the development around the Big Steer, questions, "Why is Mr. Brown pushing this agenda so vigorously."

ArtOrg will host its third Jazz concert this week at the Rueb 'n Stein. Jazz vocalist Dennis Spears will appear on Dec. 14 from 7-9:30. With Spears will apear Sanford Moore of Moore By Four on keyboard, Steve Jennings on drums and Tony Axtell on bass.

From ArtOrg's press release:

Spears has won acclaim in the Twin Cities area as well as nationally and internationally, appearing with such jazz greats as Carmen McCrae, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, DeeDee Bridgewater and Sarah Vaughn. He lists the music of Nat King Cole, Marlena Shaw, Lou Rawls and Al Jarreau among his influences.

Members of the Northfield Youth Choirs will also sing with the group. The event is free for ArtOrg members. Non-members pay a $5 cover charge.