The final item on the regular agenda for Monday’s City Council meeting was a resolution regarding the authorization to make repairs to the Crookston Community Swimming Pool. The city received a quote from Lunseth Plumbing and Heating in the amount of $17,852.18 to make repairs to the heat exchanger at the pool. With the budget for pool maintenance for 2025 being set at $25,000 and there having been some maintenance required earlier this year, coming into Monday’s meeting, it was a real possibility that these repairs were not going to be able to happen.
With the cost of the heat exchanger, the city would be over budget by $6,660 for 2025. Carol Gregg of Fin & Fit, however, spoke at Monday’s meeting announcing that the group will be donating $10,000 to help cover the cost of the Heat Exchanger. “That heat exchanger is almost $18,000. Fin and Fit is really stepping up and putting $10,000 towards it which is an amazing amount,” says Scott Butt of Parks & Rec. “In talking to Carol Gregg, she’s got some ideas about what we can do, maybe down the road, for the tile and everything.”
Yes, as explained the heat exchanger isn’t the only item needing fixing at the pool but, it is the only one needed right now to get the pool back up and running.“The council made the decision to fix the heat exchanger. We also brought forward that there are some issues with tile and with lighting,” says Butt. “To spend everything now, really puts us in a bad situation if we were to have anything else break. So, I think the council really took the idea. Let’s get the heat exchanger up and running, and let’s really put together a comprehensive plan of what we need to do next budget year.”
Butt spoke to the council about the other projects that need to be completed at the pool. There have been some tiles coming off the pool below the water line, as well as some underwater lights that have gone out. Both of these items would need the pool water levels to be lowered to fix them. That in and of itself costs money, as the pool would need to be refilled, and the chemicals would need to be balanced. “I’m not a big fan of deferred maintenance but, in some cases you have to and then make sure we take care of it as soon as we have the funds to do it again,” says Butt. “We’ve only had the pool for five years, and it’s one of those deals where everybody who has a pool has nightmare stories. We are where we’re at, and nobody knew the heat exchanger was going to go out because it’s wrapped in a big heat blanket and you can’t see it every day.”
In a perfect world, this is not how the city wishes things would be, of course. “Is the way we are doing it a perfect scenario, no,” says Butt. “Is it the best for the City of Crookston right now? I think the council believes it’s the best for the City of Crookston right now, and my job is to take what they tell me to do and go do it, and that’s what we are going to do.”
Although it was decided to defer some maintenance items till the next budget year Butt says he knows the pool holds importance to the community and as soon as they can get to those items they will. “Yes, six to seven months can be a long time, but it can also go pretty quickly. We will defer it for a little bit, but the plan is to keep it on the stove and make sure we get the stuff fixed.”
With Fin & Fit’s generous donation to the city for the heat exchanger, the city will have around $3400 left in this year’s budget for pool maintenance.
