The Crookston City Council met Monday evening at the City Hall Council Chambers and gave glowing reviews of Interim City Administrator Darin Selzer, and learned that the Central Park Campground will open on May 15.
INTERIM CITY ADMINISTRATOR GETS GREAT REVIEWS
Crookston Mayor Dale Stainbrook gave a summary of the closed Ways and Means committee meeting’s closed session from April 20. The session was closed for a review of Interim City Administrator Darin Selzler. The council agreed that Selzler has been great. “The consensus of the council. He is doing above and beyond his expectations, and department heads love him, and the staff loves him,” said Mayor Dale Stainbrook. “Hopefully, we can work something out where maybe he would be the city administrator for a while, depending on how it works out, being police chief, or his retirement falls in. It’s a decision he’ll have to make, and I know he is working on… Crunching numbers to see if it’s doable for him. But I know everybody on the council would love to see him have this permanent job for a while and see how that works out.”
Mayor Stainbrook said Selzler impressed the council through the budget process. “It started with last year’s budget. I mean, he started from scratch with it. I don’t know how he got through it. And he was a rock star through the whole works. He You know, put it in simple language for us,” said Stainbrook. “Credit to him for finding John, our finance director. I mean, that guy’s a rock star, too. And if it wasn’t for Darren, he probably would have slipped through the cracks.”
CANNABIS LOWER-POTENCY HEMP EDIBLE RETAILER VOTED DOWN
The council voted down a cannabis lower-potency hemp edible retailer license for MPT Enterprises, doing business as Best Buy Liquors in Crookston. Councilmembers Dylane Klatt, Derek Brekken, and Henry Fischer were absent, so there were only five councilmembers voting. The council voted 3-2 to deny the approval. Joseph Shostell, Clayton Briggs, and Don Cavalier voted no and Wendy Ault and Morgan Hibma voted yes.
The application satisfied all required state conditions for licensure, including payment of applicable fees and compliance with zoning, safety, and operation standards. City Administrator Selzler reminded that the state has already approved a license for Best Buy Liquors. “I don’t think we can hold it up. It’s actually a state license,” said Selzler. ” What we’re actually approving is affirming that the zoning, the safety, and local retailer licenses are in compliance, which this is. So we’ll get legal advice and move forward. But yeah, we’ll just have to see what the next steps are.”
Selzler said the vote shouldn’t hinder Best Buy Liquors sales of the product. “So I don’t think it’s going to hinder their operation. We’ll just have to come back and see what it looks like for the zoning piece to make sure that gets approved also.”
CROOKSTON CAMP GROUND TO OPEN MAY 15
Crookston Park and Rec Director Scott Butt said the Central Park campground is being prepped for an opening on May 15th. “We’ll open on the 15th, and then we’ll be open all summer. We are looking to make a couple of changes. We’re going to take reservations for the first time in the history of the campground, so we’re going to start doing that,” said Butt. “We are looking at being open until late September. I think it’s the 20th that we will close to the public. And then we will be open to the Express Personnel people on the 20th through the end of the sugar beet harvest.”
Butt said the park made it through the winter and spring high water levels. “One of the things we’ve combined with the street department in working on, they’ve been building snow walls for us over by the riverbanks to keep the ice chunks and all that from falling getting too far in, and that’s helped,” said Butt. “I really believe that’s helped a lot. All in all, the campground came out very well. We took a lot of parts out that could have frozen during the winter, so we reinstalled them in the bathhouse, just trying to eliminate any issues.”
Butt added that UMC students helped plant 100 trees in the park this spring.
CONSENT AGENDA
The council approved the consent agenda, including the approval of the meeting minutes from the April 20th meeting, the bills and disbursements totaling $471,248.84, a conditional use permit and a variance permit for Elliot Steinbrink for the construction of townhouses, and the appointment of John Thorp to the Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority Board.
The Warren Volunteer Fire Department sent a letter of gratitude to the Crookston Fire Department for its help with the CHS Elevator fire in Warren earlier this spring, and Mayor Stainbrook read the letter to the council.
The next scheduled City Council meeting will be Monday, May 18th at 5:30 p.m. in the Crookston City Hall council chambers.
