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CROOKSTON CITY COUNCIL DECLARES EMERGENCY FOR COVID-19 PERMITTING TELECONFERENCE MEETINGS

Crookston City Council

The Crookston City Council met on Monday and declared an emergency for the City of Crookston due to COVID-19.  That declaration will suspend in-person meetings for the Crookston City Council, an advisory board, or a commission for 30 days.  The declaration allows for teleconferencing, eliminating the need for all members to be visible, explained Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner.  “The emergency declaration for the next 30 days gives the city the ability to have teleconferencing,” said Weasner.  “In the normal scope of business, you have to have videoconferencing along with it, so you have to be able to hear and see.  Because this is a pandemic, and the ability to contact everybody at the same time would overdraw our abilities, we are allowed to have teleconferencing.  The next council meeting, as long as the pandemic is continuing, and it’s prudent and impractical for us to meet, we will have teleconferencing.  We will make a telephone number available to everyone to call in and participate by phone.”

To enact the declaration, the City Council had to meet in person, although some members were moved from their regular seats to allow for social distancing explained Weasner.  “We needed a quorum of council members tonight,” said Weasner.  “We did some social distancing by moving some council members away from the dais and putting them out closer to the audience by the Ways & Means table.  We had chairs in the audience moved out of the way, so there was more distance for everybody.”

Now that the declaration has been enacted, the City Council can extend the declaration as needed throughout the pandemic by having it on the agenda during a teleconference meeting, said Weasner.  “We wouldn’t have to reconvene to renew the declaration,” said Weasner.  “We would just have to have it on the agenda.  Our city code only allows them to be good for 30 days.”

The declaration covers all meetings of boards and commissions under the council, including Park Board, Planning Commission, and the others until the pandemic is over. “Fortunately, most of our meetings are monthly,” said Weasner.  “So, we won’t be having too many of those meetings occurring until near the end of the (declaration) date, which is longer than April 13.  At that point in time, we will start visiting about which meetings are prudent, and which ones are practical to continue.  Some agenda items are coming up with the Planning Commission. I believe that we will need to continue, so we will do our best to have that one by teleconference.”

Councilman Jake Fee asked if there was anything in the city policy to assist if a city employee was affected by COVID-19.  Weasner said that besides the contract with employees, there are additional state and federal measures that have been implemented, including 80 hours of sick pay for COVID-19. “Councilmember Fee inquired about what the city was doing for staff because of this situation being different,” said Weasner.  “We are following all of the contractual obligations that we have in the past.  The state and the federal government are mandating some new requirements.  So, every full-time employee will be receiving an additional 80 hours of sick pay, specifically geared toward the COVID-19 situation. That is in the federal law, we’ll be following that, so they’ll have that available.  We are doing our best to accommodate everything that they have.  If the governor does additional executive orders, we’ll take those under guidance and continue serving citizens the best that we can.”

Weasner also said she is meeting daily with City of Crookston Emergency Manager and Fire Chief Tim Froeber, who added he talks daily with Polk County Emergency Management and Polk County Public Health.  No one attended the public hearing for the rezoning of all the land encompassed within Nature View Estates to R-2 residential for single and two-family housing.  The council then introduced an ordinance to change the zoning map relating to the rezoning within the Nature View Estates.

The council also passed its consent agenda including minutes from the meetings on March 9 and 12, approving bills and disbursements of $201,291.73, accepting a $100 donation from Gabriel and Jeannine Amon for Kids First, declaring 12,360 pounds of obsolete brass valves and fittings as surplus property, purchasing 3-way shower stations and ADA handle shower heads for the Crookston Community Pool and the 2020 City Council committee assignments.

[embeddoc url=”https://kroxam.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020-Council-Committees.pdf” download=”all”]

[embeddoc url=”https://kroxam.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/City-of-Crookston-COVID-19-Emergency-Declaration.pdf” download=”all”]

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