The Crookston Ways & Means Committee Monday night voted Monday night to light the corridor from Old Highway 75 to the Highway 75 bypass bridge. The project will install 12 LED lights along the stretch from the corner to the bridge.
The committee was presented with four options, option 1 was a 50 percent cost share for the initial project with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) with the City of Crookston’s share of the initial project would cost $63,445.60 with an annual energy cost of $753.23. Option 2 was a 50 percent cost share with Otter Tail Power Company. Otter Tail would own the lights and Crookston would make annual payments to cover it’s half of the cost over 15 years of $4,975.20 and then pay the annual energy cost after that. Options three and four were the same cost-sharing options with only six lights from Old Highway 75 to 3rd Ave. SW.
Proposals were brought presented from both entities, MnDOT and Otter Tail because of the different ownership options offered by each. The MnDOT partnership would have the City of Crookston owning and maintaining the lights, while the Otter Tail would take ownership and maintenance responsibility in their proposal. City Administrator Shannon Stassen said Ottertail has been a good partner for the City and having a proposal that didn’t increase the city’s infrastructure responsibilities was positive. “After the 15 years we’d just be paying for the energy, the price of the electricity,” said Stassen. “We’d have that no matter what as it would be built into the cost forever more. It’s a good partnership with Otter Tail. It gives us what we’re looking for and at the same time doesn’t increase the infrastructure we need to maintain.
Councilman Bobby Baird said he added to first two options up and the city would save a minimal amount ($116.05) over 15 years by partnering with Otter Tail in addition to not needing to worry about maintenance costs. Councilman Jake Fee made a motion to go with Option 2, followed by a unanimous vote of the committee.
Lighting the corridor had been a goal the council and staff had been working on for a little more than a year said, Stassen. “It came up at a strategy session about a year ago that the council thought to light that corridor would be important as the bypass is pretty busy especially during harvest. We initially reached out to MnDOT, but Otter Tail is going to do the installation and own those while we’ll pay them so much per year. Long term that’s a simpler and better way. It will be really nice have that lit up there from Ampride along American Crystal there and the safety with all that traffic out there. I think it’s a really good thing.”
The committee also received a flood “preparation” update from Crookston Fire Chief and Emergency Manager Tim Froeber. Froeber said when they scheduled his presentation, they didn’t think they’d be in the high-water event yet but said the staff has been working hard in preparation throughout the month of March. He said he believes the city is prepared to handle the predicted crest of 26 feet. Froeber also said the City worked closely in preparation with Polk County including the county taking some shots with their drone of ice jams further up the river.
The committee also had a presentation from Christine Anderson of the Small Business Development Center who provided the committee with some statistics and has been making the rounds to city and county meetings.
[embeddoc url=”https://kroxam.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Small-Business-Development-Center.pdf” download=”all”]
Tags:
