The Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority (CHEDA) Board held a special meeting on Tuesday morning during which Craig Buness was sworn in as a board member. Buness is filling the unexpired term through 2021 of Craig Morgan, who resigned in October.
Buness, a former board member, City Councilman, and County Commissioner, said he’s anxious to get to work. “I was on it back when we merged the HRA and EDA back in 2006 or 2007, whenever it was,” said Buness. “I’ve got some experience from here, being on the City Council and a County Commissioner. I feel I bring some things to the table and anxious to get to work here and get going on some of this. One of the big issues facing us is obviously the Epitome (Energy) thing. I hope we can see that through to fruition. A lot of things change when you’ve been gone for about 12 years. There’s a lot of new faces, some of them I haven’t worked with, some I have. I’m sure everything will work out fine.”
ANNUAL REVIEW OF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CRAIG HOISETH
The board also held the annual review of Executive Director Craig Hoiseth in a closed session. CHEDA Board Chair Kurt Heldstab said that Hoiseth’s review was positive, and the board will develop their 2021 objectives by the January meeting. “Last year at his review, we said let’s have a mid-year review,” said Heldstab. “Well, that should’ve been in June. With everything going on with COVID and everything we had in September. I brought the notes from that meeting, reviewed them, everything’s fine with that. He’s doing good on all of them. Plus, we went back and looked at the objectives for 2020 from his year-end review last year, and everybody was in agreement with what he’s doing on that. In closing, I also mentioned let’s look at some objectives for him. Let’s plan sometime in January to group together and come up with some objectives for him. He’ll also have a couple that he’ll bring forward to us so that we can lay some groundwork by the end of January. Everybody says he’s doing a good job, and we’re busy out here. That’s good to see.”
Heldstab said the 2020 objectives included weekly meetings with first Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner, then new City Administrator Amy Finch. “Weekly meetings and updates,” said Heldstab. “At this point, Shannon (Stassen, former city administrator) had left, so Angel Weasner became the interim city administrator. He was meeting with her weekly. We didn’t want to do it every other week in case somebody had to miss a meeting. We coordinated a strategy session with the City Council. We did that in the spring. We asked him to see how many City Council meetings he had to attend. Only go to the ones where it’s necessary. Most of the time, he was at the meetings because it always seemed to come up that – hmm – there was a question, and Hoiseth’s name came up to answer it. So, he did the best he could to attend the meetings he figured he needed to be at. Continue with the KROX monthly radio program. Then, we did say we had to do a mid-year review of him. And continue to work on progress with Epitome and the Ag Innovation (Campus).”
Heldstab said finding new land for the city to potentially purchase was also an objective for the past year. “Looking for some potential land the city needs to buy once Epitome comes in,” said Heldstab. “Then, in our board meetings, now and then, somebody would ask – what’s the standing on this – doesn’t happen to be on the agenda. So, I’ve been working with Craig to see if we should go back to see if we should bring up some old business items that we haven’t talked about and get an update. So, we’ve added that to the agenda. All of those he was moving along on and did fine.”
Heldstab said there wasn’t anything specific brought up for Hoiseth to improve on yet. “There always can be an improvement and all that stuff,” said Heldstab. “Nothing brought up that I can think of. Being available, I know that seemed to be a comment that sometimes he wasn’t approachable. But we figured out that wasn’t right because he’s out here all the time. Phone numbers are available. A lot of times, he gets phone calls. One thing about CHEDA, a lot of it is maybe some investors. So, a lot of the information Craig does get involved with; if the business or stakeholders decide not to come here, we don’t know about it. There is always people that want to see what the city can do for them and try to have a business plan. If it works out, it does, we get news. If not, they don’t come to town, and there is quite a bit of that. We’re busy out here. I know the community is not sure, but there is a lot of activity that we do.”
Heldstab said he also believes the relationship between CHEDA and the city is improving. “I know, myself and Craig have been down working in some meetings with the Mayor (Dale Stainbrook) and Angel,” said Heldstab. “Sorry to hear that she’s leaving. And now with Amy. We’re trying to open up that communication so that they understand where CHEDA’s process is and what the city process is. There are two different paths there. So, we’re opening the communication, so everybody seems to know what everybody’s kind of doing. Again, some of this stuff can have out in public; some of the stuff, like I said earlier, can’t be. It’s gotten better. In November, I was down at a couple of meetings with the Mayor, Hoiseth, Amy, and myself. A lot of stuff going on, a lot of moving parts, and making sure the right people are working with that moving part. It’s gotten a lot better.”
The committee also discussed was in closed session Tuesday morning to discuss the purchase or sale of property. The parcels being discussed were 82.00162.09, 82.00162.02, and 82.00163.17 located around Nature View Estates.
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