Not much information on this in the packet, but I’m looking forward to the discussion between the EDA and Council. I listened to Locally Grown‘s podcast with Rick Estenson, EDA President and one of the leaders on the business plan project.
After the podcast, I have new questions. I’ve always had land use questions about the NW annexation site, and transportation questions, and environmental questions. Now I have money questions. Mr Estenson along with 2/3’s of the Locally Grown triumvirate talked about bonding for business park development and where on the city priority list this project would fall. Given that $10+ million price tag for the Safety Center and the Library expansion which is in the works, where SHOULD this one be? Yes, it has the possibility of generating tax dollars and other dollars for the City while the other projects do not. What weight does that give? Does everything I write have to end in a question mark?
And of course, the usual policy problem of how do we prioritize our decisions in Northfield at all? Do we prioritize or do we keep using the simming pool model – wait for facilities to absolutely fail before we act to replace what just broke? How should we compare spending on facilities vs economic development initiatives?
Keep asking questions, Betsey. I was surprised at how little concrete information the Task Force report contained. Keep asking questions about how this fits with the other capital projects the city has under consideration. A few other questions:
How much will it cost to buy and prepare for building each of the two proposed sites? How will the egress and entrance from and to each of the two sites be created? How can we predict the cost of operating the new facility? History instructs that new facilities always end up costing more. Will the future be consistent?