The Crookston Housing and Economic Develpment Authority CHEDA) board and city council members met on Thursday night at Valley Technology Park with Senior Municipal Advisor Ehlers Financial Todd Hagen. Hagen gave a slide show presentation to everyone in attendance.
Earlier this year, the City of Crookston agreed to terms with Ehlers Financial to make them the City’s Municipal Advisor. Ehlers is also the Municipal Advisor for the Crookston School District. “We advise in economic development, financial planning, bond issuance, those kinds of things on a needed basis.”
Hagen presented a PowerPoint slide show to the board and others, which contained the basics of a bond issue so the council and EDA could understand how the bond process develops. “We not only talked about bonds, but also pay-as-you-go using cash, inter-fund loans again using cash, and financial management planning just to ensure the road map is paved.”
CHEDA has been discussing proposing a future bid to purchase Washington School. It is reported that CHEDA would like to make the space into a childcare center or a heritage center on the property’s grounds. Accepting a future bond from Ehlers Financial was in discussion after the meeting. However, this idea is still in the preliminary stages. “We are just looking at how we could get into it. There has been no planning,” said CHEDA executive director Karie Kirschbaum, “We’re just initiating the conversation; today was just a talk about what we can do and some of the options for the council and also the EDA board to get familiar with.”
Getting the council and CHEDA members on the same page proved crucial during this meeting, so the EDA can now look forward to making the next step in the bidding process. “Introduce them and show the options so that we can all start talking.,” said Kirschbaum, “You can’t decide without everybody understanding what’s going on.”
Kirschbaum stated that getting an assessment of where the city stands is essential to make the best decisions for the town and ensure everyone is comfortable with advancements.
