The Crookston Park Board met on Monday night at City Hall. The agenda included one item and a bus tour of the city’s parks.
An item that was not on the agenda was an update from Parks and Recreation Scott Riopelle on the outdoor rink plans for Alexander Park that the board approved in April. Riopelle said that after looking through the League of Minnesota Cities and liability information he believes it would be in the best interest of the City for them to supply the infrastructure for an outdoor rink. Riopelle told the board he hasn’t had a positive response to the City providing that infrastructure thus far. “There is not a whole lot that I have that I can speak of at this point,” said Riopelle. “It was approved at the last Park Board meeting that we would put in ice. And we have some rink boards, a warming house and some lighting that would go in that park so we would have a skating rink for this coming season.”
The Park Board also approved two 50/50 grants through their park upgrade program. The first was for some added paving stones and concrete on the path the Veterans Memorial along the Military Walkway with the grant paying for $1,215.00 of the project total. The second was for the addition of benches to Schuster and Carman Park, an enterprise led by the Early Childhood Initiative where the City pays for one bench and Early Childhood for a second bench each year. “The Veterans do some work out there on that property,” said Riopelle. “There is a walkway with some inlaid tiles that have names on them in honor of them. They are going to put a perimeter concrete around it too. The other was for two benches for Schuster and Carman Park. That one was done by the Early Childhood Initiative Group. They have been putting those in for a number of years so that parents have a place to sit with their children while the other kids are playing.”
The two grants totaled less than half of the available $5,000 available in the Park Board’s grant program. Parks and Recreation also received a donation from the Rotary Club for $250.00 for the youth scholarship fund to help kids in need be able to participate in programs. “The Rotary wants to make sure that youth in the community have the ability to signup for programs and participate in them,” said Riopelle. “They put some money towards it, and it sounds like that could be ongoing. We will add that to our scholarship program to continue to help the youth participate in our various activities.”
The meeting concluded with a bus tour of the City of Crookston parks with Riopelle explaining some of the history behind some parks and the recent upgrades. Bathhouses were mentioned as possible future additions for a couple of parks, most notably Carman Park which has become popular for group picnics and is also where youth soccer is held. “We took them to about 26 different parks throughout the community,” said Riopelle. “We talked about what we could do at some of the parks, more of a dream session looking a could we add bathhouses to a couple of them. And yes, that could be a possibility. How can we dress them up? They did see that most of the playground equipment has been updated now. We only have one left, Alexander, that has to be done. Other than that we’re in pretty good shape. They looked at some other little odds and ends we could do to dress things up and make them look better and maybe more user-friendly for the community.”
