The Crookston City Council met on Tuesday night and opened their meeting with the Crookston Forum for individuals to address the council on items not on the agenda. Steve Krueger, the former board chair of Agassiz Federal Credit Union for 12 years, spoke to the council about their history and how the merger with First Community Credit Union came to be.
Krueger went on to say he was disappointed that none of the elected officials nor anyone from city hall attended First Community Credit Union’s groundbreaking last week. “I’m here tonight as a member of this community and a member of the credit union to express my disappointment in the failure of any of our city council, mayor or staff to be present for the groundbreaking ceremony,” said Krueger. “I know we all have jobs. We’re busy with schedules, and I’m no different than any of you. Now personally I had no obligation to be at the groundbreaking, but yet, I did feel obligated to be there. There was representation from our chamber, including some of the board members as well as Craig Hoiseth from CHEDA. But no one sitting before me could take the time to be present for a business that has plans to be in our community for the long haul. Now, this may not be as big of a project as some of the others that are going on in our community, but I feel it is just as important.”
Krueger then addressed his disappointment in the results and antics at city meetings saying we all need to work together for the common goal of improving Crookston. “I read weekly on the air some of the antics that occur in particular meetings held by our city officials and am very disappointed in some of the results and antics,” said Krueger. “It was once stated very diplomatically in one of the stories that I read, something to the effect that we’re both passionate about our ideas. Now I believe we’re all passionate about our community and need to all work together for the common goal of improving our city. And that includes the City, CHEDA and the Chamber. We all want the same thing for Crookston.”
Krueger concluded, “If we want to see our city move forward, we need to stop all the game playing and learn to play nice. Everyone has a seat in this sandbox.”
Councilman Bobby Baird asked if there were invitations sent out saying he knew the answer and Mayor Guy Martin said there were no invites sent out. Krueger responded, “there were no invites sent out, but it was publicized quite well. And I know when someone complains to the city council about something not being publicized the response is I know it was in the paper, it was in the bulletin board for KROX online and read a number of days, so it was in public. And I guess as a city I feel if our public is asked to check the bulletin board or check how stuff is put out there for notification that it works both ways.”
Councilman Dale Stainbrook was the first councilman to apologize for not attending. “As a councilmember, all I can do is apologize for not being there,” said Stainbrook. “I know it was publicized, and I had intentions of going. It skipped my mind, and I apologize.”
Fee apologized as well saying if he’d know nobody else was attending, he would have made other arrangements with work. “Knowing if nobody was going to attending on the city’s behalf, I would’ve made additional arrangements,” said Fee. “We dropped the ball on that, and I do apologize. First Credit Union has done a great job being a part of the community. And I don’t know if it was Ox Cart Days or the Marketplace where they had the bags and all the goodies they were giving out. It’s just fantastic what they are doing with the community and the nice little new building they’ll have too. So I do apologize on behalf of myself for dropping that ball.”
Councilman Bobby Baird, Don Cavalier, and Tom Vedbraaten also apologized for not attending while several councilmembers and City Administrator Shannon Stassen approached Krueger after the meeting as well.
Councilman Steve Erickson added during the Ways & Means Committee that it was unacceptable as a council and that he was embarrassed. “I’m just going to go off what Steve Krueger did,” said Erickson. “I know it wasn’t a city event; it wasn’t whatever. But that was unacceptable as a council. I mean I’m embarrassed for it. From now on I don’t care how we design, but for something that goes on this big in Crookston we better have an email chain, we better have something, so somebody is there. I don’t care who it is. If she gets an email back and says nobody is going to be there send something else out and somebody has got to change some plans. Because if you have that kind of money coming to this community and we don’t come out and support that. I was flabbergasted when I heard that, and it’s unacceptable as a council. I’m just as much to blame as anybody. That was very disappointing to me, and I think we need to work with the Chamber and anything that comes into this town. I don’t know if we have to do every single thing but things like that big we definitely needed to do. I think we need to figure out some form of communication whether its an email from Tina [Trostad] or something but this can never happen again.”
