The Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority (CHEDA) board met Thursday morning at Valley Technology Park.
The meeting only had one item on the agenda today: the approval to apply for a C2C grant. Specifically, the Department of Energy’s Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) Initiative. The initiative provides multi-year assistance worth up to $3 million to selected teams to help them achieve their energy goals. Selected teams will also receive up to $500,000 for hiring staff and community engagement efforts. “This is a technical assistance grant, so basically, we will be working and paying for some staffing. Up to $500,000 will be for staffing, consultants, and community engagement efforts. Then, up to $3 million will be used through the next five years to help with technical assistance because of all the mandates coming from federal and state governments,” said City of Crookston’s Community Development Director, Karie Kirschbaum. “We are trying to make sure that Crookston is in line with it, and we are trying to make sure the former tax dollars that we paid come back into our city and pay for what’s happening with this.”
The types of projects funded through this grant include-
- Electricity generation
- Mobility, ex: shared electric bikes, on-demand transit, eVTOL
- Buildings, ex: integration of solar power and EV charging
The board went on to unanimously approve the submission of the application for this grant.
“My board approved the application for the Department of Energy’s clean energy to communities grant. We are going to put in that request here,” said Kirschbaum. “We’ll put that in tomorrow. We’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks, and we are excited to say this is our opportunity to get some of our federal tax dollars back into Crookston.”
