The graffiti that I blogged last week and reported to Chief Gary Smith has been removed from the footbridge pediment, evidently by city workers.

Dan Bergeson and John Thomas attached comments.

Graffiti on a privately owned building on W. 4th across from the old train depot.

Local band Sonicate performed at The Key last night... part of ArtSwirl.

See the high-res versions of these photos and a dozen more in the Sonicate photo album.

NAG's opening of HMS Pinafore was performed last night in Central Park... part of ArtSwirl.

See high-res versions of these photos and 3 dozen more in the HMS Pinafore live photo album.

The Contented Cow is hosting a series of forums for local candidates starting next Thursday, Aug. 19, 6pm to 8pm.

See Norman Butler's weblog post for details.

Carleton's wind turbine was featured in the Star Tribune's South section on Wed. in an article titled Carleton welcomes wind.

The foundation was completed yesterday.

This sign is at the Wall St. Road entrance.

When completed, it will look something like this.

For project background, schedule, and construction photos, see the wind turbine page on Carleton's web site. Most of the equipment arrives on site next Friday, Aug. 20. Four days later, it'll all be in place. Dedication ceremony is set for Sep. 25.

Aug. 17 update from Sarah Maxwell, Director of Media Relations at Carleton: A change in the schedule for construction on our wind turbine: everything is moved back a week - turbine and tower are now supposed to arrive August 27, with construction scheduled for August 30, 31, and Sept. 1.

More buildings around town got facelifts of various kinds this week.

Forget-me-not Florist got a paint job and a new sign.

Jim Bohnhoff, Bohnhoff Designs, revamped the Goodbye Blue Monday coffeehouse sign.

The Le Nails building got a working over.

Based on the feedback to the first Knecht's Nurseries ad earlier this week (see the blog post), we've redesigned the ad to make it more identifiably an ad... and to use a layout that can easily be replicated by subsequent advertisers. See the new ad in the weblog post below this one.

9pm update: As another step towards making the ad discernably different from a regular blog post, I've removed the subject line from the Knecht's ad. And I've use the username "Advertising Department" as the author of the post.

We'd like your feedback! Let us know what you think by: 1) Attaching a comment to this blog post; 2) Using our Contact Us form; 3) Joining the conversation on the ISSUES email discussion list. And again, thanks for your patience and ideas while we learn our way.

I've gotten questions from a few people about whether or not the people keeping weblogs as part of our civic blogosphere project are N.org/NCO reporters.

While these bloggers may do reporting, they are not OUR reporters. They're not Nothfield.org writers. They're self-publishers.

Our goal with our civic blogosphere project is simply to put the power of web publishing in hands of local citizens who want to write at least occasionally about civic matters. If they post to their blogs at least once per week, we grant them some space (via RSS aggregation) right here on the N.org home page.

Whatever they do with their blogs within the bounds of common decency is fine. If they want to write sarcastically like some of the opinion page commentaries in the newspapers, that's fine, as is a mix of opinion and reporting.

We have several local political candidates with blogs hosted by us and we may soon have more. Their blogs are a mix of fact and opinion, just like the citizen blogs.

As I watch the weblog phenomenon unfold around the country, the pattern that's apparent is that lousy bloggers and boring bloggers get ignored; good bloggers get linked to and develop an audience. I expect that will happen here.

I intend for this weblog, at the center of N.org, to be a news and information weblog... and so I do try to wear a reporter/editor hat here.

I don't opinionate here. (I do that on my own civic blog, Citizen Wig.) And I try to avoid adjectives that put a qualitative spin on events, e.g. "Be sure to attend the wonderful..." or "This group put on a fabulous..."

Just the facts, m'am.

But of course, I'm always making choices about what to feature in this blog and in that sense, it does reflect my biases. It's not much different than a newspaper editor making choices about what appears on the front page.

To summarize:

- Some journalists/reporters are bloggers.

- Some bloggers are journalists/reporters.

- Civic blogosphere bloggers featured on/hosted by N.org are not our journalists/reporters. They're self-publishers.

- As the author of this weblog, I'm a reporter/editor.

Of course, I'm learning as I go, so all of this is subject to revision. Let me know if you've got some thoughts about it by attaching a comment here or contacting me.

The Star Tribune's web site has a story online tonight (to appear in Wed's paper) titled:
Twin Cities likely to lose second classical radio station.
With two classical music stations, the Twin Cities area has long worn a cultural badge of honor that few metro areas can claim. That is likely to change with the news Tuesday that WCAL (89.3 FM), St. Olaf College's 82-year-old classical station, will be sold for an estimated $10.5 million to Minnesota Public Radio, which owns rival station KSJN (99.5 FM). WCAL will continue with its same format until the sale is finalized in December, but a change appears likely after that.

St. Olaf news: St. Olaf College reaches agreement to sell WCAL to Minnesota Public Radio

Wed. 5:30 am: Nfld News: St. Olaf selling WCAL to Minnesota Public Radio

NAG performances of the light opera, HMS Pinafore, begin Friday, Aug. 13. in Central Park.

See high-res versions of these photos and 3 dozen more in the HMS Pinafore preview photo album.

ArtOrg held their informational party at the Rueb tonight.

Dave Machacek and Leanne Stremcha hosted.

See high-res versions of these and over 3 dozen other photos in the ArtOrg photo album.

We're tentatively set to host a ten-day online community forum starting next week.

TOPIC: Burning brush at the compost site
DATE: Tuesday, Aug. 17 thru Friday, Aug. 27
WHERE: The Northfield.org ISSUES email discussion list
MODERATOR: yours truly
PANELISTS:

- Kris Vohs, Northfield City Council
- Heidi Hamilton, Director of Public Works/Northfield City Engineer
- Bob Johnston, EQC chair
- George Kinney, former EQC chair, Dakota County Environmental Supervisor
- Beth Croteau-Kallestad, former EQC member, MN Dept of Health
- possible others yet to be confirmed

See the Online community forum archives for other forums we've done over the years.

To join the discussion, subscribe to the ISSUES list.

Registration requires a working email address along with a first and last name.

The email discussion list has a web-based archive, so anyone can browse the conversation without subscribing. I'll blog occasional excerpts here during the course of the forum and put up a transcript of the conversation when it's over.

For more information, contact me.

From the ArtOrg classes web page:

"Introducing ArtOrg! Learn about ArtOrg's series of August classes. Meet instructors, fellow students, and other ArtOrg people. Enjoy an evening of jazz standards and other familiar gems as we swing to the music of Sanford Moore (piano), Steve Jennings (drums), and Jeff Bailey (bass)."

age: all ages
cost: no cover, donation only
who: Sanford Moore, Steve Jennings, and Jeff Bailey
where: Upstairs at Grundy's Rueb n' Stein
when: 7 to 9 pm, Tuesday August 10

I took a photo of this graffiti under the Riverwalk foot bridge on Friday and reported it via Police Chief Gary Smith's contact form today at 4:30 pm.

Chief Smith forwards these reports to Officer Monte Nelson, who works
with the property owners and/or the city to get it removed.