The Crookston Ways & Means Committee voted Monday night to complete a permit application to light the Robert St. Bridge. The request for the City to complete the application was made by the Downtown Crookston Development Committee (DCDP).
The State of Minnesota requires such a permit application to be submitted by the local government entity. The DCDP’s Jess Bengston says the lighting used to highlight different holidays and other events. “Bridge lighting is something that we have been interested in,” said Bengston. “We have been working with three different electric companies in Crookston and have been working closely with Valley Electric. We are interested in doing some spotlights on the bridge; we can customize with different colors for holidays, seasonal events, and things like that.”
City of Crookston Finance Director/Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner said she’ll work with the DCDP and their electrician to complete the application. “The DCDP has done some preliminary work on the Robert St Bridge,” said Weasner. “They are looking into doing a lighting project. The City has to be the entity to apply for a permit from the State of Minnesota to have those lights to the bridge. The Council agreed that we would do that, and I’ll work with the electrician and the DCDP to do that.”
The DCDP also requested funding from the City of Crookston. Jeff Evers talked about what the group has accomplished and said they had approximately $75,000 in projects they were planning. “We approached the Council with a general idea of what’s going on, and they seemed very receptive and positive of the things we are doing, so we’re very excited for next year,” said Evers.
Evers said the request was whether the City of Crookston would financially support those projects as the DCDP brought them forward. Each of the council members said they’d prefer to see the projects brought forward as individual requests when the DCDP had one to move forward with to see if the City of Crookston had any funding available. Evers said there are several projects the DCDP is looking at, such as adding lights to the other bridges in the community. Another proposed project is purchasing and using the green space on the corner of Robert St and Main St across from the Main Street Courtyard, commonly known as the Mayor’s Courtyard for community events. “Like that bridge lighting, that’s one thing we’re looking for next year and possibly do more of that,” said Evers. “There is a lot of project lists. There is a lot of places that could have murals that could be brought back to life, or some grain bins have murals or whatever. There is a lot of exciting things being worked on; we’re very excited that the Council seems pretty excited too.”
The committee also approved the decertification of tax-increment financing District 3-7. Weasner said the property built on the district, which she believed to be the Johnson Place townhomes, had reached the maximum amount of financing it could from the district. “There were some townhomes on the north end, not the Agassiz Townhomes,” said Weasner. “It was a different set of townhomes I believe called Johnson Place. They were built approximately 15-17 years ago. There was a TIF district implemented similar to what we’ve done for Agassiz Townhomes. They have met the maximum amount of tax increment that could be received, so we get to decertify the district earlier than the 25-year plan. That (tax) money will be distributed through all governing entities.”
