The general election is over for Crookston, and the canvassing of the votes at the City Council meeting on Monday, November 14. The city revealed that the winner of the City Council Ward 2 seat is Henry Fischer after he received the most write-in nominations out of the ward.
After the ward received no filing affidavits of candidacy for the seat during the primary election, City Clerk Ashley Rystad revealed that the city would accept write-in nominations for the ward and elect the candidate that received the most nominations for the ward. “It was kind of new to us,” Rystad explained. “We had 48 different write-in names, but he had the highest votes with eight, so he was the clear individual with the highest number of votes in that Ward.”
KROX asked Fischer what inspired him to run for the seat after no one had come forward during the primary election. 
“A bunch of my neighbors and I ended up talking about it, we were looking at KROX when all of the people had been putting their names in at the primary election, and no names came in for Ward 2,” Henry Fischer explained. “We were discussing it and said we should know who this person is and know that they want to take the job, so we talked about it amongst ourselves, and they basically nominated me, and we had a bunch of people on our street write me in, so we knew who was going in.”
Fischer looks to use his new position to try and get younger citizens into City Council meetings. “I hope I can bring a bit of a different perspective. I believe I’m the youngest person on the council at the moment, and we need people in our age group to have a little more of a voice,” said Fischer. “We have people bringing up families and everything, and I want to make Crookston as family-friendly as possible so we can get a new generation of people coming in here. We’re kind of aging out right now, so I would like to maybe even get a few more people in their 20s or 30s interested in City Office or making contributions to the community.” Fischer said he was surprised to hear that he won the election but is excited to begin and hopes that his studies in Political Science will help him make the right decisions when he is on the council. Fischer explained that he has been meeting with City Administrator Corky Reynolds to learn how the council works and preparing for joining the council at the end of the year.
City Clerk Rystad reported that the city would take its canvasses and tabulations they approved at the City Council meeting on Monday, November 14, and submit their results to the county, who will then submit the tabulations along with their own to the state. Once the results are submitted, each of the candidates who ran in the election last week will have to swear the oath to the city and sign more information to be certified to the city before joining the City Council meetings on January 1.
