The Crookston Park Board met Monday evening and review the proposed 2020 budget. They also heard from former Parks and Recreation Director Ray Ecklund in his response to a recent letter to the editor in the Crookston Times.
Ecklund began by talking about the work that went into creating Highland Park. “I came to Crookston in 1969,” said Ecklund. “I was hired to start the Park and Recreation program, and my first responsibility when I took office was to build Highland Park. It took quite a while to get a grant and got several grants as a matter of fact. Spent a great deal of time putting that facility together and it’s one of the finest facilities in northwest Minnesota for regional athletics. I’m am concerned when I see the picture on the Crookston Times of building houses on it. It frustrated me because of the amount of time I spent on that getting grants and working with people that needed to be worked with it was kind of devasting for me.”
Ecklund said that working with the League of Minnesota Cities, he has seen a lot of northern Minnesota sports facilities and Crookston’s is the best. “I work for the League of Minnesota Cities, and I travel around northwest Minnesota to visit cities to help them with problems,” said Ecklund. “I can tell you that other than Grand Forks this isn’t another facility that is nice as the one we have. Certainly, that facility helps us with our quality of life in Crookston as does our really fine park system which is constantly being upgraded. It is a very good system, and I think we should be very proud of it.
Ecklund went on to encourage the Park Board to defend parks against development or relocation. “I’m encouraging the Park Board to defend all of our parks when you think about putting houses on parks,” said Ecklund. “It doesn’t make sense to me personally to build houses on parks when you’ve already got land that you can build on. Only under the most dire circumstances should you ever build houses on parks. You’ve got the land out by the new arena that’s platted out there and [Bob] Herkenhoff has got land for houses. There is no urgency to build houses on Highland Park, so I’m hoping the Park Board will defend Highland Park and keep it a park, so it continues to be an asset to the community.”
Ecklund also said the park shouldn’t be abandoned because softball is trending downward and that if that trend continues, other sports options could be explored over redeveloping Highland Park.“One of the reasons for talking about putting houses was that the softball fields in the evening aren’t used as much as they used too,” said Ecklund. “That’s not to say that some other activity down the line won’t use it and if we have houses, we can’t do it. We’ve got to have some vision of where we are going and the possibilities. There are so many other things that could happen that would make that such an asset again. And who’s to say that softball won’t come back again. Then all the 1,000s of youngsters who have played on those diamonds over that long period of time. It’s an important facility and Crookston should be proud of it.”
Parks and Recreation Supervisor Scott Butt agreed with Ecklund saying he frequently hears people visiting for games, how great the park is. “I’m up there four days a week,” said Butt. “We have people from Fosston, East [Grand Forks], Stephen-Argyle all the time come in all the time. They come in and are amazed. Every time we have one of those teams come, I always hear what a great thing this park is. A lot of that can go back to Ray’s vision, and I think he’s right that we’re extremely lucky to have that complex the way it is.”
Councilman Dale Stainbrook also said he was against the notion of changing Highland Park into anything other than a sports complex. And it should be noted the Park Board hasn’t been asked to consider any alternative uses for the park.
The Park Board also reviewed the proposed 2020 budget from Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle. With the City of Crookston taking ownership and management of the Crookston Community Pool on July 1 the proposed budget for all facilities, maintenance, activities, and staff are $1,972,844. The largest budget is attached to the Crookston Sports Center with a proposed $622,864 budget while the pool budget is proposed at $257,915. Riopelle said they used the Crookston Public Schools history on pool expenses, along with the city’s past expenses from other facilities to project the budget. “We had our complete Park and Rec budget, and part of it is the pool,” said Riopelle. “We’re going on history from the pool and looking at some of our other similar facilities for certain line items to get a dollar figure in there. It’s hit and miss for the first year, but after we can get our history, we’ll come up a little closer we hope. We don’t want to leave money on the table, and we don’t want to come up short.”
There were also several upgrades for different parks around the community. One of those was new bleachers for Jim Karn Field. “The current bleachers on Jim Karn Field are becoming obsolete,” said Riopelle. “They are still okay, but they are becoming rickety. We’re just afraid someone is going to fall because you have to walk up the seats. There isn’t an isle or a stairway so you have to walk up the seats and we’re just afraid we might lose somebody. Somebody might fall and get hurt. Those particular bleachers have paid their dues. We pulled those out of the old arena years ago. We have some smaller bleachers [in mind] for 50 to 100 people, which is sufficient for most games. People like to spread out down the lines, but some people like to sit behind home plate and visualize the whole field.”
Two other city parks will get new equipment. Wildwood Park will get a new shelter to replace one that was lost a few years ago in a storm. “It was a smaller shelter,” said Riopelle. “We are looking at putting one in that’s about the size of Lions Shelter over at Highland Park so its 50 feet by 30 feet. We have gotten some estimates on some pricing for that and are looking at a cooperative agreement with one of the local service groups to put that in the park. That has been one of our big picnic parks over the years was Wildwood with the two shelters and the bathhouse down there. So, we thought lets put in another nice one down there and see what we can do to add to the community.”
Alexander Park will get new playground equipment, the last of the city’s playgrounds to be upgraded. “The playground equipment at Alexander is the last park where we have not done the upgrades,” said Riopelle. “So, we have money in for 2020 to put in brand new equipment at that park and help the people in that neighborhood. Then we will be up to date with all of our parks. All the equipment should be fairly new within the last five to ten years.”
A car charging station was recently added to the Wayne Hotel parking lot thanks to Otter Tail Power Company and Reese Electric. The area also includes 20- and 50-amp plug-ins which will likely be utilized for Thursday’s live band during Crazy Days. “Otter Tail donated the car charging station,” said Riopelle. “So, in the Wayne Hotel parking lot, we’ve put in an electric panel along with the car charging station. We have quite a few 50-amp plugs and a couple of regular 20-amp ones so if we have activities down there we’ll have power for those users now. That will be a nice addition to downtown.”
Butt also told the board he’d like to thank the Crookston Baseball Association and Brost Chevrolet, saying without them the baseball program wouldn’t be what it is at Highland. “The Crookston Baseball Association donated $10,000 to youth baseball and to helping with upgrading fields,” said Butt. “We want to thank them again. They do a phenomenal job helping us with that. And then Brost Chevrolet for the Chevy Youth Baseball donation they do with equipment and money. If it wasn’t for those two organizations, baseball would suffer a little bit. We appreciate all that Brost and the baseball association do because they do a wonderful job. It’s been many years in a row now that they come up with these generous donations and we appreciate everything that they do.”
The Crookston Baseball Association also purchased new turf for the batting cages at Jim Karn Field. The work continues to be delayed; however, waiting for the right weather conditions to adhere the turf to the cement base properly.
The Park Board also discussed having a possible community bike ride and program later in 2019 similar to what they co-hosted in 2017 with Bike Minnesota. The ride would serve to further educate residents on what the sharrows around town, and cover the different bike routes and trails in the community.
