The Crookston Park Board met on Monday night and passed a recommendation to the Crookston City Council to accept the Natural Ponds and trails Bob Herkenhoff has proposed donating in exchange for the development of Nature View Estate Plat 5. Herkenhoff told the Park Board that he would donate the northern pond initially followed by the southern pond sometime over the next 20 years creating a final natural park of approximately 30 acres for the city.
Herkenhoff told the board he is bringing this project forward sooner than he would’ve as a result of the county reconstructing County Road 11/Fisher Ave next year. Herkenhoff said he believes the development is looking positive and that the park could be a nice asset for Crookston. “We had to have the Park Board approve this park project,” said Herkenhoff. “It sounds like they were all on board with it, had a unanimous vote for it. Tomorrow night the planning commission is going to meet about how we’re going to put the road going to the country road. With luck, this will go through too. We’ve been talking about this for six months or a year. It takes a lot of planning for these projects. I think on January 13th we’re going to have a full council vote for everything that should be figured out by then. It’s looking pretty positive and I think it’s going to be a nice asset for Crookston. We’ll have the ponds out there, nice walking trails. When we vacate Eickhof Blvd, we’re going to run it straight to the county road and use that gravel to make walking trails out there. I told the Park Board if we’re short gravel I’ll pull in gravel from one of our pits and we’re going to grave the rest of [the trails]. We’re going to have the trails up and running next summer.”
Garrett Borowicz asked about putting signs on the trails about not allowing motorized vehicles. Herkenhoff said he sees a number of older citizens using their golf carts out there currently and Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner said it could be possible to limit trail usage to specialized vehicle permits, which are primarily given for golf carts. Herkenhoff thanked the Park Board for completing the first step in approving the development. “I would like to thank the Park Board members,” said Herkenhoff. “They volunteer a lot of time on these projects and they are on board with trying to help the community improve. So, thank you to them and we’ll go forward with the next meetings tomorrow night.”
The Final Plat will go before the Crookston Planning Commission for their approval and recommendation to City Council on Tuesday. The Park Board also passed a motion to keep the park a natural area which will require a landscape management plan to be developed by Parks and Recreation explained Director Scott Riopelle. “We need to have a landscape management plan in order to make sure that we are in compliance with our city ordinance,” said Riopelle. “That way we could keep the natural grasses and the higher grasses in that area. Of course, we did talk at the meeting that we would probably do at least a mower width on each side of the walking paths but there is a lot of other areas that get quite high. We just want to make sure we’re in compliance as well as anything else. We’d put together a plan about how we’d care for that. Hopefully, we can get that okayed and we’ll be alright to have a natural area. These ponds are a great asset to the community out there.”
The Park Board also had a blind draw for the six reserved parking spots at the Crookston Sports Center (CSC) for 2020. Numbers were drawn and Riopelle said the names associated with those numbers will be notified in the morning when the Park Department puts them together. “We have six spots at the CSC and there were 12 people that came forth looking for spots,” said Riopelle. “We had numbers attached to each name and the Park Board drew those numbers. In the morning we’ll get those put together and notify those individuals that on the first of the year those parking stalls become theirs.”
Garrett Borowicz and Becky Kofoed also have expiring terms on the Park Board at the end of the year and both will be replaced according to Riopelle. The Park Board also named Mike LaFrance the new chair and Nate Lubarski the new vice-chair for the board said, Riopelle. “Becky Kofoed and Garrett Borowicz are both done December 31st and we thank them for the time they committed to the city and Park and Rec through years,” said Riopelle. “So, we have added a new chair. The new chair is Mike LaFrance and our vice-chair will be Nate Lubarski. We decided to do that ahead of time instead of in our January meeting. These people have been around a while, so they know what’s going on and the new people probably don’t want to step up to the plate that soon. Our Vice-Mayor (Dale Stainbrook), is looking to add a couple more people to the Park Board to replace these individuals. Both Becky and Garrett have stated they will continue to serve until we get someone on but we’re confident we hope we can get two new people on board as early as January.”
LaFrance also asked Riopelle when the next Northwest Regional Event Center Task Force meeting would be. Riopelle said either January or if that’s too busy for the Park Board members, then by early February. “We have the task force for those outdoor fields with the bubble,” said Riopelle. “We will meet again possibly in January, maybe February, depending on how busy January gets for everybody. We will most likely meet again out at UMC. Our next avenue of approach would be to bring in some people at the college who could possibly help with a feasibility study. We will speak with them and invite them to the next meeting. Hopefully, we can start putting the plan together to see what we can do and keep moving forward with and attempt to get some artificial turf and a bubble for it.”
