The Crookston Ways and Means Committee met after the Crookston City Council meeting on Monday evening and approved moving both agenda items to a City Council vote.
2027-2029 CROOKSTON FIREFIGHTER ASSOCIATION CONTRACT –
The Ways and Means Committee discussed a three-year contract (2027, 2028, and 2029) with the Crookston Firefighter Association, with a 6% increase each year.
2027 – $67,840
2028 – $71,910
2029 – $76,225
The six percent increase is lower than the 13.2 percent increase over the last three years. Crookston Firefighter Eli Sullivan said costs keep rising, and firetrucks have more than doubled in cost over the past few years. “That is correct, everything about it, equipment that goes inside the trucks, from the personnel that we have, everything keeps going up in price. So it is what has to be done to try to catch up,” said Sulivan. “It seems like we’re asking a lot, but in the big picture, it’s nothing compared to how much everything’s moving away from where we’re at right now. We have gaming income also, which might bridge the gap a little bit.”
Interim City Administrator Darin Selzler said they appreciate the firefighters meeting early to get the contract completed. “We’ve had some really positive and productive meetings, really good conversations with the Crookston Firefighters Association,” said Selzler. “After several discussions, a tentative agreement was reached to increase the annual stipend that the City of Crookston pays the Firefighters Association for their services in conjunction with the Crookston Fire Department. It’s a fair number that both the Fire Department and the City of Crookston were comfortable with, ready to help bridge their gap in some of the expenses that they accrue each year.”
Sullivan said they are looking to replace one truck soon because it is expected to be perfect when people need it most. “We have one truck that’s newer, but then the second unit that we have up at the North Station at Walmart is getting close to 30 years old. I mean, it’s a good running truck, but at some point, it’s going to be unrealistic to work on it, to find parts for it, for anything along those lines,” said Sullivan. “We train with the full-time staff. We work together. We all set a standard as high as we can just because everybody in the community is relying on what we do on their worst day. So we need to be as close to perfect as we can be.”
The contract with the Crookston Firefighters Association will be voted on at the next Crookston City Council meeting on Monday, April 20.
CROOKSTON POOL ENGINEERING STUDY
The final agenda item was the Crookston Community Pool engineering study by AE2S that would cost $30,000. Selzler informed the committee that Fin and Fit said they would donate $15,000 towards the cost, and the City was able to find the other $15,000 to pay for the study.
Fin and Fits Carol Gregg said they want to help pay for the study for several reasons. “Fin and Fit has been working hard to try to fundraise just to meet some of the ongoing, especially equipment needs. And we have been limited in our fundraising efforts because we don’t know from one week to the next whether the pool will stay open, given the council’s concerns about its condition,” said Gregg. “By conducting this study, we hope to have evidence and concrete means to move forward with either maintaining the pool we have or exploring other options.”
Gregg thanks everyone who has donated to Fit and Fin. “It’s the fruit of much labor, and certainly I want to thank everybody who has continued to contribute to the Fin and Fit fundraisers,” said Gregg. “We have tried to be very prudent with our expenditures and avoid waste. Money for things that are seen as superfluous. But we believe, as I said, this is a way for us to really move forward.”
The study will give the City Council concrete information to inform better decisions about the future of the pool. “It’s been a long-lasting discussion about the pool for the last few years. Do we close it? Do we repair it, or replace what we have in the same location? We’ve had other studies, but they didn’t really address the pool’s structural integrity. So this study would really take a deep dive into the structural integrity and narrow down what it would take to either repair the current pool or replace it,” said Selzler. “Without the generous donation that the Fit and Fin are willing to provide to the city of Crookston for $15,000 or half of that study, honestly, I don’t know if we’d be able to do that. We’re excited about what the findings would reveal and to work with the Fit and Fin and some other members of the public on it once we have that data.”
AE2S is doing several other pool studies, and the council would love to have the results before budget season begins in August. The City Council will vote on funding the study at its next meeting on Monday, April 20.
