The Crookston Parks and Recreation board met Monday in the City Hall conference room.
CROOKSTON HOSTS/HOSTING HOCKEY TOURNAMENTS
The meeting began with the board discussing recent hockey tournaments that have been hosted at the Crookston Sports Center this year and future tournament dates heading into 2024. This past weekend, the Crookston Parks and Recreation hosted 12UB and Bantam B tournaments. The 12U tournament had six teams, and the Bantam B tournament had four teams. “I capped the tournaments at eight (teams), and compared to other years where we haven’t had any,” said Parks and Rec Director Jake Solberg. “I felt pretty good about getting teams here to see our rink and play and be in our community.”
The CSC will host more hockey tournaments heading into 2024, including a Squirt B tournament January 5-7, with seven teams currently signed up. A Peewee tournament from January 19-21 with eight teams registered. The CSC will also be the home for the district tournament for 10U A and 10U B girls and Squirt B.
POOL ISSUES UPDATE
The Crookston Community Pool has more boiler issues. “The main control of the boiler and some of the parts stopped working,” said Solberg, “It wasn’t pushing heat out to the pool. This happened on a Sunday, and that water was pretty chilly by Tuesday. So we were closed down that Tuesday and opened back up on Wednesday of that week.”
The pool has gone through several issues over the past few months. Solberg explained that the facility has been shut down twice over the past month. In November, their was a power outage that shut down the pumps and created a chemical imbalance in the pool. “You can’t swim in water that has a certain PH level or drops to a level,” said Solberg. “Our numbers got messed up, and it wasn’t safe to swim,” Solberg said the pool is open for business, and there are currently no issues at this time.
CENTRAL PARK CAMPGROUND CONSTRUCTION
There are 21 campground sites in Central Park under construction to be converted to full-hook-up sites, meaning water, sewer, and electrical services will be available. The construction is roughly 90% completed, barring the paving of the roads, which is estimated to be completed by the middle of June 2024.
Solberg said they found a bathhouse and will look to install it by mid-May 2024. “We found the modular from a company called HuffCutts out of Chippewa Falls,” said Solberg. “We will get the plumbing and electrical ready; they will just come in and set the modular building on top of the concrete that we put in.”
OUTDOOR ICE RINK UPDATES
The Park and Recs department has been actively watering the outdoor ice rinks around Crookston. The weather hasn’t been cold enough to create ice. “We’ve been working on the one at Carmen for the last month,” said Solberg, “We’ve seen it where it’s been 10 degrees for a few days, and the next week it’s 30 degrees or 50 degrees. We’ve been watering them, but we can only pray for better weather.”
The consent agenda from the meeting included the approval of minutes from the November 20 meeting. The Crookston Parks and Recreation board will meet on January 15, 2024.
