The Crookston City Council met for a working session in the City Hall Council Chambers on Monday night to discuss potential actions for housing and childcare.
REGULAR AGENDA
The council began the meeting with a discussion about housing. Community Development Director Kari Kirschbaum explained she had started working on housing projects in the 60 acres north of Drafts Sports Bar and Grill and saw it as a great area for economic development and housing. Before anything was done in the area Widseth needed to complete a water study to see what could be done about the flooding in the area during heavy storms. She invited Matthew Marshall of MinnKota Power to give a presentation about some of the projects they could apply in that area. Marshall explained he had worked in Economic Development for a decade and had worked with many communities to achieve their goals. Marshall explained their team always looked for new sites and reached out to Kari to help set up member cooperatives to identify and enhance local efforts that work toward sustainable development. “MinnKota has financing available in certain situations that they come through with, such as Red Lake Co-op or Red River Co-op,” Community Development Director Kari Kirschbaum explained. “So, we’ll have to meet with our local developers who are interested in working with us on the project and work with other developers with whom we’d have to fill in the gaps.”
Marshall said the benefits of the areas having higher intensity uses, which included higher taxable value per acre, a point of interest for visitors, a new workforce, that the new area can open current housing stock to a new workforce, and set a development tone for the area. Kirshbaum then opened the discussion to the council if she should work with them to go forward with them on the development. Councilmember Steve Erickson recommended that they look at many local developers before they decide on when they’d start a housing study to begin work there, which many other council members agreed with and gave the order for Kirschbaum and City Administrator Charles “Corky” Reynolds to begin working on plans with MinnKota and making a layout for the project.
Childcare
The council then began a discussion about childcare, where they met with Missy Okeson with the Northwest Minnesota Foundation on a Zoom call to discuss new ideas on how the city could support childcare through its governmental entity. Kirschbaum revealed in a survey that asked how often employers mention childcare as a barrier to attracting or retaining talent in Northwest Minnesota and found that 41% of employers said that it was mentioned at least weekly, 27% mentioned it once a month, 18% was less than once a month, and 14% never mentioned it. Councilmember Klatt asked if the city could fully support the childcare centers like they have for other businesses in the city. City Administrator Reynolds explained that it was a possibility, but it would be included in taxes for the city, but the city had the resources to make it a reality. “If we can do that, legally and permissibly, how do we finance that? How does it become part of the city system? We finance arenas, libraries, and places like the Golden Link. We do a number of things with City dollars, all very admirable, so what can we do with City dollars for childcare,” Reynolds explained. “Is it underwriting childcare centers in-home or centers? Is it employing childcare providers once they’re certified or to help them get certified? Scholarships for childcare providers because the State of Minnesota has some pretty strict and stringent requirements for someone to be a childcare provider.” Councilmember Klatt continued to push for a different idea of how they could make Childcare work for the city so the employees could have better wages and working times, as that was what made childcare a business many didn’t wish to be a part of. Sunrise Center Director Sue Murphy approached the council and explained the struggles their center had before it closed at the end of 2019, like that she had lost staff members due to school and when they were unable to find any suitable sponsors they fit their mission, or that didn’t require them to relocate. With the lack of quality workers making them unable to operate at their full potential, the Center is at the point where it won’t be sustainable without a sponsor or some form of financial assistance. After more discussion, the council charged Reynolds and Kirschbaum to begin searching for options they could implement to help finance Childcare Centers to be in better conditions for the children and workers.
The City Council will next meet on Monday, November 14, in the City Hall Council Chambers at 7:00 p.m.
