The Crookston City Council had a public forum scheduled for Tuesday night’s meeting to discuss the proposed Gateway Overlay District. Councilmembers were the only ones to speak during the forum before voting to send the district back to the Crookston Planning Commission.
Councilmen Jake Fee, Tom Vedbraaten, Bobby Baird and Steve Erickson all expressed concern regarding the district with Fee stating he thought if the city was going to make these rules then all city property, regardless of the whether it’s in the gateway, should meet this standard. Fee added he thinks its an overreach that would either have the city sitting with empty buildings or passing a variance on everything. “Just my little quick drive to work I’m writing down all these businesses and looking at there parking lots and thinking, geez if they ever switch they’re going to have a heck of a time, and we’re just going to be sitting with empty buildings,” said Fee. “Yeah, we can always do a variance, but why are we passing ordinances that were probably going to pass every variance related to a building anyways. I think it’s a little bit of an overreach. I still have concerns there.”
Councilman Dale Stainbrook asked if it should be sent back to the Planning Commission but noted that councilmembers rarely attend those meetings. Fee said if it could be any other time but the third Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. he would definitely be there but would do what he could to make arrangements for the next meeting if need be. City Administrator Shannon Stassen said if the commission members were great about moving a meeting for the credit union so he thought they could be flexible to adjust the meeting time.
A resolution to approve the hiring of Greg Hefta as the Building Official for the City of Crookston was removed from the consent agenda by Baird. Baird said he had some concerns over the hiring process. “Some of my concerns are you want the council to approve this, but I don’t have any background or anything on this guy,” said Baird. “None of us council members do. But who was all involved in the discussion on hiring? Who all on the committee?”
Stassen explained that there were two good panels made up of staff from City Hall and the Fire Department, Councilmembers Clayton Briggs and Don Cavalier and members from the community including Bob Blazek and Wayne Schenk. Baird asked why there weren’t current plumbers, electricians, people from the lumberyard involved. Stassen reiterated that they had good panels and that it’s the City Administrator’s job to make recommendations to the council.
A couple of council members said they were unaware the interviews were going on and asked why they weren’t given information about the candidates. Stassen said they couldn’t publicly share that information at a meeting and what info did share was public information type information about the hire and added that there needs to be some trust put into committees. “No, we can’t share information about the other candidate,” said Stassen. “What we share about Greg would be public knowledge type of stuff. There are very limited things we can share that way too, especially in writing. But there is some trust that needs to be put in the committees, hiring committees, or boards, commissions. Mr. Briggs has a background in construction as well. We thought that made a lot of sense from his perspective.”
The Council voted 7 to 1 to hire Hefta with Baird voting against the hiring. The rest of the consent agenda was passed following a question regarding a check for $5,000 paid to the Regents of the University of Minnesota for the Red Lake River Corridor Salary. The payment will be reimbursed to Crookston, the fiscal agent for the Corridor, through a Northwest Foundation grant and payments from all the cities involved in the corridor explains City Finance Director Angel Weasner. “There was a check for $5,000 cut to University Extension because they supplied us with an intern I believe in 2017-18,” said Weasner. “They did some work for our Red Lake River Corridor. Part of the agreement was that we’d pay them a $5,000 lump sump and then get that money back through the Northwest Foundation Grant we received and the funds from each city that participates in the Red Lake River Corridor.”
The bills and disbursements totaling $427,386.37 were passed in the consent agenda along with a bid for a dump truck for the Public Works Department, the declaration of surplus items and obsolete items and the approval of a business license to sell fireworks at the Crookston Walmart.
During the open forum, Mike Enright spoke with the board about concerns that had come up since the April Park Board meeting about the possibility of an outdoor rink for Alexander Park next winter. Enright said he was a little concerned over comments made at the May Park Board meeting. “As a group, we tried to get together, and we did approach Scott Riopelle, and he told us we essentially couldn’t do it on City Property,” said Enright. “We informed him of what we found when we were scouting these locations. But shortly after that, there were some comments made after the next Park Board meeting, and we’re not really quite sure where they came from. We’re just kind of not sure if he was talking about us finding this in a negative light or what. We’re certainly happy that the city is willing to pitch it. We’re just more or less looking to make sure they maintain it as well. That it isn’t just the status quo for what’s happened in the last couple of years anyway.”
Enright was ensured that the plan was to put an outdoor rink next winter, but liability meant the city would have to use their equipment on their property. He was also encouraged to attend the June Park Board meeting to get more answers.
During the open reports at the end of the meeting, Vedbraaten asked Mayor Guy Martin to help him answer a question he didn’t know how to answer about last Tuesday’s child care meeting. He said he’d been asked why they had the Tuesday night meeting. Martin said he was going to give the citizens their voice and hopes CHEDA has a lot more money for child care. “I was going to let the citizens have their voice,” said Martin. “But you guys decided to extend $50,000, and I hope that you have a lot more money to give to child care.”
Vedbraaten followed up asking if there was anything new the mayor was going to bring up at that meeting, and Martin responded, “we’ll never know.”
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