The Crookston Parks & Recreation board held their first meeting of 2019 at Crookston City Hall. The board welcomed three new members in Mike LaFrance, Nathan Lubarski, and Derek Martin. The board opened the meeting by electing Garrett Borowicz chairman of the board. Mike LaFrance was voted as vice-chair. Following the election of the chair and vice-chair, Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle provided an orientation power points covering all the department does for the city of Crookston. “We have three new park board members that just came on with the city,” said Riopelle. “We have 26 different parks that we have within the community and we talked about our river access and our trails that we have for people. It isn’t just programing any more and parks. There’s a million different things happening and we have great staff that handles that for us. It’s exciting to have new people and we hope to keep expanding in those capacities.”
The presentation highlighted not only what Crookston’s Parks and Recreation department is currently doing, but some of the other responsibilities the department will be undertaking in the future including the city’s pool. Cody Brekken, Crookston Community Pool manager, will become a city employee when the pool shifts ownership from the Crookston School district, with his responsibilities remaining similar to when he was a School district employee. “(Cody Brekken) will still do the same stuff,” noted Riopelle. “We have a poll transition team that’s been meeting. We’ve met once, we plan on meeting a few more times. We’re going to be meeting in early March, I believe. The idea is that the city will take control of the pool in July because that’s their fiscal year with the school. We just want to make it as seamless and painless for people as possible.”
In addition to the pool, the department continues to focus on expanding activity paths throughout the city with a focus not just on walking paths, but those designed for bikes year-round. “We have many paths in the community,” added Riopelle. “We’re looking at putting in some, some of them may be paved or concrete, but we also want to do some gravel ones that make it actually easier and see how they’re being used. If we see they aren’t being used, we don’t have to go the next step, but if we see they’re getting quite a bit of activity then it’s time we can probably put some black top or some paving, or concrete for the users to utilize them.”
While the Parks and Recreation department has managed to upgrade the equipment at all but one park in the city, upgrades to accommodate the Americans with Disabilities Act still need to be made. “The playground equipment itself are ADA compliant,” noted Riopelle. “It’s the access on to that particular area, so you’ll see that we’ve gone to wood chips. Wood chips are actually still fine for a wheelchair or a person that has trouble to get access there. It’s our perimeter of those, to get in from the grass area into them. Some of them, we have a concrete landing and other ones we’ve gone with this new plastic molding perimeter stuff. What we need to do is just have an area where they can get a wheelchair onto that stuff and make easy access so its not a big drop, so they can get in and not get out, we need to have that for our users to be complaint and to help them out.”
The Board concluded its meeting by focusing on how it can attract more people to enjoy the outdoor activities the city of Crookston has at its disposal highlighted by the river that runs through the city. “Everybody says there is nothing to do in Crookston, there’s a lot to do in Crookston,” concluded Riopelle. The board will reconvene on Monday, March 11 at 4:45 p.m.
