The Crookston City Council met on Monday night inside the City Hall Council Chambers. The meeting began with a presentation from Crookston Area Chamber Executive Director Mark Landa. The presentation from Landa was to inform the council more about himself and what the Crookston Area Chamber is currently working on.
REGULAR AGENDA
The regular agenda began with a resolution to approve a State of Minnesota Joint Powers Agreement with the City of Crookston on behalf of its City Attorney and Police Department. The council passed the resolution unanimously after hearing Darin Selzler of the Crookston Police Department give a brief description of what the agreement does. “Basically, how this works is that all the data that is transferred between the state and local law enforcement runs across this network that we can’t have access to without this agreement,” said Selzler. “It’s a separate and secure network, and we do a lot of our citations and warrants on this platform. This allows us access to use that system. It’s an agreement that we sign with them, and that’s what the council had before them.”
The next item on the agenda was the approval of a donation to the Crookston Fire Department. The department has received a donation from Pearl Radi in their Smoke Detector and Carbon Monoxide Alarm program in the amount of $250. The board approved the request unanimously.
Another item on the agenda was approval for the Parks & Recreation Department to purchase an Active Network Software. While the software cost is $1,500 more a year than the current one, Parks & Recreation Director Jake Solberg discussed what the software would do to benefit the department. “The new software is called Active Network, and it has a lot of features,” said Solberg. “You can do your facility scheduling on there, it has great and easy to use registration for events, and it also can promote and communicate to the public whatever it is you want to promote. It’s an upgrade, and it will allow us to communicate better with the community.”
The board approved the request unanimously after some discussion.
There was also a resolution for accepting the redistribution of unrequested Coronavirus local fiscal recovery funds established under the ARP act. City Administrator Amy Finch discussed the resolution more. “Several meetings back, the council passed a resolution accepting just over $800,000 in ARP funds,” said Finch. “There were some communities that decided not to accept their ARP funds. For whatever reason that may be, what they’ve done now, is redistributed that extra money out to the counties that are participating in the program.”
It was an additional $13,451 that has been allocated to the city, and the resolution was approved unanimously.
The next item was approving the property tax levy for taxes payable in 2022. The board approved the request 7-1. Council member Tom Vedbraaten voted against the approval, as he was hoping to see an increase of only 7% for the tax levy compared to the 8%. You can find the story of how the tax levy will affect taxpayers in 2022 by clicking here.
There was then a resolution to update the five-year capital improvement plan. “The capital improvement plan is really a planning tool for the future,” said Finch. “Going forward, there may be things we want to plan for, and this plan helps us keep it on our radar and know that we can start setting funds aside. This changes every year, and sometimes things come off, sometimes they are pushed back, and sometimes the items make it into the budget.”
Another item on the agenda was approving the 2022 budget. Many hours and long nights were spent on the budget leading up to this point, so the board was comfortable approving the 2022 budget, as they have already discussed it in depth.
The meeting ended with a summary from City Attorney Corky Reynolds regarding the special City Council meeting held on November 29. The meeting was a closed session to perform City Administrator Amy Finch’s performance review. The summary Reynolds gave stated Finch has done a superb job in her role.
The last item on the agenda was approving City Administrator Amy Finch’s annual salary; however, the item was tabled until the next City Council meeting so more discussion can be had, and more information on a potential raise and the dollar amount can be worked out.
CONSENT AGENDA
The consent agenda included approving the November 22 meeting minutes and City of Crookston bills and disbursements in the amount of $467,556.02. There was also a resolution to designate an Election Precinct Polling location for 2022. The Consent Agenda also included approving regular City Council meetings for 2022 and resolutions approving Liquor and Tobacco licenses for 2022. Other resolutions included approving the partial payment estimate for 2021 local funded street improvements and approval of the Crookston Housing & Economic Development Authority (CHEDA) Agenda for their regular meeting on December 21.
The board approved the Consent Agenda unanimously. The next City Council meeting will take place on Monday, December 27, and it will be the last one of 2021.
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