The Crookston Park Board met on Monday afternoon and discussed the campground and pool.
POOL DISCUSSION
The pool was the last topic of the meeting, and an update on the fire alarm repair was given. The repairs started on Monday and hope to be done by Wednesday. “They are working on the motherboard for the fire alarms and everything else, and they are hoping to be done by Wednesday,” said Butt. “We won’t have to have the fire walkers (volunteers that walk the pool to ensure there isn’t a fire), which hopefully would free up more open hours.”
Swimming lessons are going well. The City of Crookston will offer another round of lessons beginning on December 2. The classes will allow 18 kids per class.
The last topic was how the Park Board wants the Crookston City Council to vote regarding keeping the pool open. The board will advise the City Council to keep the pool open as long as possible. “I think the community and the people that love the pool have made their voices known, and the board made the recommendation to keep the pool open,” said Butt. “We have had a lot of people call, the council people have had a lot of people call them, and the Park Board wants to have a plan on what we are doing, and they wanted to let the council know how they feel. Everybody feels it is an asset for the community, and it isn’t going to be an easy decision one way or the other.”
The board received a look at the budget for the pool (pictured at the bottom of the page).
CAMPGROUND
The Crookston campground, which is officially closed for the season after a successful end of the summer and fall. The campground, which has 19 sites, was full in late September and in October during the beet harvest. “We are officially closed and were done the last day the beet campaign was done,” said Scott Butt, Park and Rec Supervisor. “We had outstanding usage there, and really, from the time we opened in mid-June to July, we were very happy with how it went and looking forward to next year.”
The bathhouse at Central Park/the Campground was discussed, and the question was asked if they should leave it open all day for the public and park users to use. Campers get a key, but the bathhouse wasn’t open to the public. The board decided that keeping the bathhouse open all day would be beneficial to the users of the park. “The board set lets keep it open during the day so people that are down there for frolfing (frisbee golf), fishing, or using the boat landing and stuff like that have access to it,” said Butt. “It is a full community asset, so let’s allow everybody to use it while you are down there.”
The last top was offering seasonal campsites next year. Right now, a camper can only use a site for seven days and ask for an extension of seven more days. The board will get more information at the next meeting, but they gave directions to check with area campsites on how many they offer. “I think we will add a few, and they gave us direction to talk to East Grand Forks and other towns on how they do their seasonals and how many they set aside,” said Butt. “We get a lot of construction people that stay in town working on highways and other projects, so we would like to accommodate those people and be a full-service campground.”
