(6 Dec 2004) The Bridgewater Township Council met tonight (from 7-10PM).
All council members were present. Topics included the joint
Dundas-Bridgewater Planning Commission,
streets, township and county roads,
the new grader, and
annexation issues.

Northfield Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kathy Feldbrugge (pictured above on the left with The Art Store's Ann Marie Boyle during last week's Winter Walk), asked us to post this announcement (PDF) about the Chamber's new leadership program.

Kari Sobeck, Director of Sales at Village on the Cannon and a member of the Chamber's planning team, (pictured above on the right at the Chamber's holiday social at the Rueb last week), wrote a guest column on this program in the Nov. 13 Northfield News, titled: New Leadership Program in Northfield.

A random selection of posts in the past week from some of Northfield's civic leadership weblogs:

Chief Smith blogs about Tim Isom, the Emergency Management Director in Northfield.

Kathleen Doran-Norton has two more posts about the I-35/Hwy 19 controversy, as does the League of Women Voters.

The Northfield Downtown Development Corporation has two posts related to the City of Northfield: citizens needed for boards/commissions; and the upcoming meetings on the Riverfront Redevelopment project.

Rep. Ray Cox has posts about a possible special session at the legislature and "independent political mailings."

These are the featured news items in today's Northfield News, as summarized on their news web page.

These are the featured community items in today's Northfield News, as summarized on their community/people web page

These are the featured letters to the editor in today's Northfield News, as summarized on their Letters to the Editor web page

The Red Hat Ladies in front of Quality Bakery duruing tonight's Winter Walk.

Roasting marshmallows in front of Lansing's Hardware.

Northfield resident and Midwest of Cannon Falls president Jeff Wilson with one of several staffers (other staff photos are here, here, here, and here) from Country Living magazine who were in town to chronicle Winter Walk for next year's holiday issue. Wilson was instrumental in the magazine's visit.

See the 100+ photos in the Winter Walk 04 photo album.

More information on the photos in the Northield.org photo gallery:

Driving home down Hwy 3 the new
Community National Bank building
shines.

Even if we don't get snow like this for Winter Walk tomorrow (see the 2003 winter storm downtown album for more), downtown will still be all aglow like this.

If you're wandering about downtown during Winter Walk and see something worthy of a photo, call 507-319-5541 and we'll try to dispatch a NCO volunteer photographer to your location. And if you take photos that you'd like to have displayed in our forthcoming Winter Walk 04 photo album, use the file upload form to send them to me.

For more on the Winter Walk schedule of events see the weblog post from earlier this week.

The Northfield Chamber of Commerce held its holiday wingding at J. Grundy's Rueb 'n' Stein tonight.

See four dozen photos of all the schmoozing in the Rueb's photo album or in the N.org Chamber holiday social photo album.

Staff from Country Living magazine were in town this afternoon, helping to decorate at the NAG for tomorrow's Festival of Trees during Winter Walk. The feature will evidently appear in the magazine next fall.

Tiny's Dogs All Day owner Tim Sellars posed with sign designer Gwen Phillips this afternoon after the shop's new sign was put in place above the window on his Division St. shop.

See the small photo album of the event.

L to r: Gwen Phillips, Ross Currier, John Tripp, Bernie Street, and Tim Sellars.

Mary Rossing's Present Perfect shop on Division got a new sign today, too.

12/08 update: I found out today that Tiny's is no longer "Tiny's Smokeshop" but rather "Tiny's Dogs All Day" so I've edited the text of this post.

River City Builders & Millworks donated the labor to construct Santa's Cottage on Bridge Square for tomorrow's Winter Walk.

Complete event details in this previous post.

Last year's Winter Walk sleigh ride

These are the featured news items in today's Northfield News, as summarized on their news web page.

Governing magazine, December, 2004
The Artful Blogger
Scott Neal, the city manager of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, [Northfield resident and former city administrator] keeps a blog that offers readers an insider's view of what it's like to manage a local government... Griff Wigley, a consultant who coaches Scott Neal on his blogging technique...

Star Tribune
Northfield schools review budget, uncover deficit
The Northfield School District faces a $653,000 deficit as it begins to prepare its 2005-06 budget. That's a surprise to school leaders who had expected the district to have about $60,000 left over from 2003-04.

Web site is fast becoming new college meet market
The free Web site, called thefacebook.com, is for college students only, and it's spreading faster than a computer virus. To date, it has nearly a million users at more than 250 colleges nationwide. Three Minnesota schools are among the latest: Carleton College in Northfield, Macalester College in St. Paul and the University of Minnesota.