Nathan Hansen
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Nathan Hansen has been a reporter and editor with the Farmington Independent and the Rosemount Town Pages since 1997. He is very tall.
Contact Email
NHansen@farmingtonindependent.com
History
- Member for
- 4 years 4 months
Author Content
Dakota County is developing a reputation as a smart place to live and work. For the third year in a row the county has been named a Smart21 Community by the Intelligent Community Forum. The county was recognized along with 21 other communities worldwide including Arlington County, Va.; Curitaba, Parana, Brazil; and Oulu, Finland. But the people behind Dakota County's efforts at getting smarter have higher goals.
Farmington residents looking for more than just trick-or-treating Monday night had their pick of spooky options around town, with at least three homemade haunted houses up and running and collecting for charity. A haunted garage, pictured, and a haunted maze collected food for the Farmington Food Shelf. The haunted fire station collected for the food shelf and for the Farmington Fire Department's Explorer program.
Nearly two years after the accident happened, a Farmington man has been convicted in connection with a Christmas Eve crash that killed an 88-year-old Prior Lake man on his way to a holiday gathering. A jury deliberated for roughly three hours before convicting Jeffrey Martin of criminal vehicular homicide, criminal vehicular injury, driving under the influence and three counts of child endangerment for his role in the 2009 accident that killed Everett Letterly. According to the complaint filed in the Dakota County Attorney's office, Martin, 39, was driving a Dodge Durango north on Gerdine Pa
What with all the cleaning, painting and moving on her schedule this week, Nicki Ashton hasn't had time for herself. That's the way things go when you're trying to go from empty building to new business in the span of about 10 days. It's a tight schedule, but for Ashton, everything that led to this point has gone quickly. Ashton has been selling most of the clothing, accessories and other items the new store will offer for just over a year at special events and from a boutique she runs from her home. The entire project started with a chance meeting.
If Farmington police are right, Daniel Meyer had an eventful night in late August. According to a complaint filed last week in the Dakota County Attorney's office, the 32-year-old Faribault man broke into an Xcel Energy substation in Farmington and stole a spool of copper wire, then sped away when police stopped to question him, crashing through a residential fence in the process. Farmington police first came into contact with Meyer early on the morning of Aug. 22.
Several softball fields in Farmington are in line for a facelift thanks to the city's youth softball organization. The Farmington Girls Fastpitch Association is using a $6,700 grant from the Minnesota Twins as well as its own money to make improvements at four fields, all located on property owned by the Farmington School District. The biggest of the projects, on what is known as field D at Boeckman Middle School, will create a usable softball field out of an area that was otherwise of little use. "Baseball didn't use that space.
Farmington's higher-than-expected student enrollment brings additional state funding, but it also means more expenses. The district had an official Oct. 1 enrollment of 6,651. That's 117 students more than last Oct. 1, and the increase means $435,000 in additional revenue from the state. State funding to school districts is based on student enrollment. The state uses Oct. 1 numbers to determine funding levels. "That's a very good position to be in this school year," superintendent Jay Haugen said at Monday night's regular school board meeting.
There's something spooky in Darrin and Mara Ceason's garage, and it's not the lingering spirits of long-dead lawn mowers and leaf blowers. On Halloween weekend the Farmington couple, with the help of friends and neighbors, will unveil the fourth edition of their haunted garage, a full-fledged haunted house squeezed into a three-car space and held each year as a fundraiser for the Farmington Food Shelf. The Ceasons have always had a special affection for Halloween. Mara's birthday is in late October, and her parties tended to turn into Halloween parties.
Everyone has goals. No matter how big or how small, every person has at least one goal in their life. What people do with them is what separates people from each other; some people choose to fulfill their goals, others choose to work towards the goal but don't achieve it and some other people choose to let them go without even trying. Whatever the person does about their goal is their choice, but it's still a goal. The people who fulfill their goals are the most successful. They are the people who thrive in life. They're also usually the happiest.
It was Roxanne Meyer's job to make payments for a Farmington woman who was suffering from dementia, but police say Meyer instead used the money to pay for her own needs and those of her children. Meyer, 52, of Farmington, was charged earlier this week with six felony counts of financially exploiting a vulnerable adult. A complaint filed in the Dakota County Attorney's office alleges she misused the woman's funds to pay taxes, pay off loans for herself and her children and college tuition for her children, among other things.
