Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Minn., On Balance Column.

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, January, 1999 by Gage, Amy

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jan. 24 -- LINDA ZAWACK and her family returned to Minnesota a year ago from Tulsa looking for the serenity and access to the outdoors they had found lacking in the Oklahoma city.

Though Zawack's husband, Dan, works in the Twin Cities, the couple deliberately chose to live in Northfield, a quaint college town of 16,000 people that sits about a 45-minute drive south of St. Paul, depending on the weather and the route chosen.

Dana Graham and his family have lived in Northfield for six years. Like Zawack, he likes the safety and the schools, the chance meetings with friends and neighbors when he shops downtown. But he and Zawack have different visions for the future of their town, in a debate that is ripping...