The Crookston City Council and staff held their annual strategic planning meeting on Saturday at the Crookston Inn. The staff spent much of the morning reviewing the items they identified at the 2019 strategy meeting. Of those things like amended franchise agreements, energy efficiency, and a tobacco-free policy were completed during the last year explained Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner. “Last year when we had our strategic planning meeting almost a year ago, we had a list of items we wanted work on,” said Weasner. “We have actually completed seven of those items, so that is nice. We also have some in progress and some that didn’t get touched yet or needed more information. We went through that list, and then the council members submitted some things they wanted. Some of the things we did get finish was our code of conduct, a tobacco-free policy for the city, Natures View Estates, custodial services hiring a janitor for all the city buildings, and LED lights reducing our carbon footprint.”
One discussion was on the campground in Central Park for which the Red Lake River Corridor group and City of Crookston were awarded grant funds to complete. The council discussed making some spots seasonal, despite as CHEDA Executive Director Craig Hoiseth pointed out, the original discussion had been for a maximum stay of two weeks per campsite. There are 41 full campsites, including water, waste, and electrical hookups, in the proposed campground expansion.
Last year’s strategy meeting also was the beginning of discussions about having a private garbage and recycling collector in the city. While that option was recently rejected by the council, Weasner said they still want to look at possibly making rolling bins available through the city. “That was still brought up because the discussion’s not completely over,” said Weasner. “There are some that want carts still and some that don’t, so we will look at possibly doing it internally. We need to do the analysis, but we do know there will be an increase at some point in time regarding the fees the residents pay.”
Child care also remains a priority for the council. Craig Hoiseth said that right now the hold up with the Regal Academy center is the funding to pay for rent as some of the businesses have had to lower their commitments based on financial forecasts after a tough year for the area, particularly in agriculture. The ability to afford the rent for the proposed Marywood location has held up the center, even prompting the Regal Academy Board to again search for locations inside city limits according to Hoiseth. Hoiseth also noted the City of Warren is a smaller city taking more progressive steps than the City of Crookston in dealing with child care. Warren has a proposal in the state legislature to add a half-percent sales tax increase to raise $80,000 a year, to go with a bonding request for a $1.6 million child care center with 100-plus slots. The building would be owned by the city with the child care operator paying a nominal rental fee.
Councilman Dylane Klatt said Crookston has to do something, and that the council needs to take the child care shortage shortly. Crookston’s need for a child care center has arguably increased since a year ago with the Sunrise Center closing its doors. Councilman Tom Vedbraaten echoed previous statements of not being a fan of providing continuous support of a child care center but that he’d be more in favor of a sales tax to support child care than a subsidy from the city to get the center operation, and Councilman Joe Kresl said he thought a child care center should be able to support itself and pay rent. Hoiseth said he thought the faster way to get the center open would be for Crookston to pay rent for the first year, and use that time to consider a sales tax or other funding source. He added that the city can’t forget about support for other providers though and that if Crookston gets 100 slots from a center but loses 40 because three home providers close that still isn’t meeting the needs of the community.
Weasner said she believes child care will always be an issue and added the state government even acknowledges the challenges. “Child care is always going to be an issue I believe,” said Weasner. “Even the state government recognizes that there is an issue, it’s been labeled as funding and, also, as regulation. It depends which you see as the more important one. In any event, it is an issue that needs to be dealt with in this area so that parents can go to work as they would like too.”
Among new topics was the food shelf opening at the Care and Share and that the space may be a temporary solution due to the volume of need in Crookston. Suzie Novak, North Country Food Bank, has said in the past the food shelf they managed until moving the food bank to East Grand Forks last fall served more than 250 families a month in Crookston. The council discussed working with the Care and Share to find adequate space if they needed something larger and a possible subsidy to help the food shelf get started in a large enough space.
Affordable housing was also discussed, as was a mixed-use commercial and residential building, and the city cleaning of downtown sidewalks explained Weasner. “The sidewalk option is a continuation, we’re waiting to see if the was a report that was done,” said Weasner. “Work force housing is another one, talking about additional homes, more affordable homes, and those situations. We talked about the food shelf that is starting, now the food bank that left the area, and what the city could possibly do to aid in that if anything. We also talked about mixed-use buildings and a possible bridge over the river between the north side and south side of town.”
The City Council and CHEDA Board will be going on a tour of a mixed-use building in Grand Forks on Monday and hearing a proposal about building such a facility in Crookston said Weasner. “There is a plan that the CHEDA board has discussed in the past,” said Weasner. “It will be coming more to the forefront for public consumption now. There is a tour on Monday night where everybody is invited to see a facility somebody is looking to bring into Crookston. If it is something the CHEDA Board would like to move forward on, it will come to the Ways & Means Committee at a future meeting and then everybody will have more information available.”
The tour and meeting are open to the public and a bus will leave from Valley Technology Park at 4:30 p.m. Dylane Klatt also asked if there were any plans for Crookston dealing with the coronavirus. Weasner said there is an action plan and she will be meeting with emergency manager Tim Froeber on Monday morning. “The city administrator, which is me, and the emergency manager, which is Chief Froeber, will be meeting first thing Monday morning and discussing the city’s action plan,” said Weasner. “We will be coordinating with Polk County Public Health and RiverView, if needed, on items that need to be taken care of and what to can do to assist or mitigate any situation.”
Joe Kresl also talked about the possible need create a plan to coordinate efforts between the city, school district, service groups, and other organizations like the food shelf to find ways to feed or supply kids and other community members if there are long closures to the schools or other quarantine or social contact measures put into effect. Kresl said he’d had some discussions with Jess Bengston about a plan with service groups and Crookston Superintendent Jeremy Olson also said the district was having conversations about finding centrally located location or locations for a food program similar to the summer program if a long-term closure was put into effect.
