The Crookston Board of Parks and Recreations Board met on Monday afternoon inside the City Hall Conference Room. After the Call to Order, the Board began the meeting by approving the minutes from their last meeting on April 25.
The Board then began the Regular Agenda with a discussion about the Summer Parks and Recs Activities Programs. Park & Recs Supervisor Scott Butt reported that they are now in their third week of them, with Park and Rec Administrative Assistant Andrea Prudhomme reporting that they had 540 registrations for the programs this year with Club Kid and baseball programs. Butt reported that he was pleased with what he had seen with the programs so far, notably with the 12U & 14U baseball programs and Club Kid when he had seen the Club Kid leaders had been able to successfully lead the children into a hut when the Severe Weather Warning was issued. He reported for Director Jake Solberg that they were planning to add more games for the Junior Legion team since they had 19 kids on the team, which was too much for one team but not enough for two in case players get sick or leave for vacation. “For the Junior Legion, if you have 19 kids, it’s a hard number. It’s a lot of kids on one team, but it’s not enough for two, so you do the best you can, and you try to find as many games as you can so that you can get everybody in as many games as you can,” Park & Recs Supervisor Scott Butt explained. “Like I said, if you split them into two teams, you have one with ten kids and one with nine, that gives you one sub between two teams, and it’s just too hard to split the two teams, so your answer is to try and find extra games and try to get everybody as much playing time as you can,” he added.
The Board then began a discussion about the newly opened Blue Rink in the Crookston Sports Center. Supervisor Butt reported that the Blue Line Club had donated and brought in a layer of artificial ice with a shooting net and backstop on the south end of the blue end for winter sports players to practice their skills. “The Blue Line Club purchased synthetic ice, and they have it down with a shooting net and shooting backstop. So, we have that on the south end of the Blue Rink, and then on the north end of the Blue Rink, we have one of the two basketball courts set up,” Supervisor Scott Butt explained. “Those are open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., so the kids are able to go in and shoot, whether it’s on the ice or basketball court, so both of those two winter sports, there’s a chance for kids to still do stuff with it during the summer,” he added.
The final item on the Regular Agenda was the discussion of the Campground in Central Park. Supervisor Butt explained that they had Minnesota Valley Electric put in new electrical boxes and hope to have it open before the 4th of July. He reported that they still needed to flush and reclean the bath houses after they were flooded during the floods in the spring and are waiting for many areas to dry before they mow the grass. The Street Department has cleaned the boat landing and removed a tree that had fallen on the driveway. Supervisor Butt then mentioned that they didn’t feel comfortable adding the kayak launch and piers on the Red Lake River due to the river’s current level and rapids. “With the height of the river still being up, it’s really hard to get the piers in because we can’t tell how far out you can go with them, and with the current of the river, we’re very wary of putting them, in case somebody falls into the river or something like that,” Supervisor Butt explained. “We want to put them in. We’re hoping that the river and the current go down, then we can get them in, but we want to be safe before we put anything in,” he added. Vice-Chair Bridget DeLeon mentioned that the porta-potties at the Camp and the parks have not been serviced and that they have not heard from the current service they have contracted with for a long time. Supervisor Butt reported that Director Jake Solberg is currently searching for new companies to contract with in Grand Forks to try and have them cleaned out and replaced but has yet to find anyone.
The Parks & Recs Board’s next meeting will take place on Monday, July 18, inside the City Hall Council Chambers.
