The Crookston Park Board met on Monday night. The Park Board discussed scheduling brainstorming sessions for long-term planning at the Crookston Sports Center (CSC). The idea is to dream big and use that to determine what the future holds for the facility which could include any number of things explained Crookston Park and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle. “We would like to get all the different user groups or people that use our facility for a brainstorming session for what they would like to see in the future,” said Riopelle. “Whether adding on more locker rooms, more turf, more sports floor usage, room for dance or dry floor events. We’d like to bring everybody to the table, have a couple brainstorming sessions, then sort everything out. Then present a document at the strategic planning session when the [City] Council has that in the spring.”
The first brainstorming session will be held Wednesday, October 23 at 7:00 p.m. at a location to be determined. Riopelle said that after the brainstorming sessions, the Park Board would work on identifying what is feasible for the long-term CSC plan. “The Park Board will have to sort everything out in the long run,” said Riopelle. “And see what is feasible, what isn’t, where we can get funding because all of this will cost money. We’re not saying we have a bunch of money available for that. We’d like to look at ideas at this point, and then we’ll have to figure out where we can get the funding at that point.”
The Park Board also voted to adopt SafeSport training for all coaches, officials and volunteers in the City of Crookston’s youth sports programs. SafeSport was created by Congress in response to the recent unveiling of improper conduct such as that of Larry Nassar while a doctor for USA Gymnastics. All Olympic sports at the youth level are required to implement the training, and the Park Board voted to adopt it for all programs said, Riopelle. “Safesport has become a big thing now nationwide after some issues,” said Riopelle. “What we’re looking to do is make sure all of our users are protected. That we have ways of reporting and making sure things aren’t happening, such as bullying, hazing, profiling, and things like that. As they talk about in the SafeSport stuff, it’s physical, emotional, sexual abuse for users. We want to make that we keep an eye on those things, that nothing happens. We’ve now had it passed by the Park Board so that we will cover all of the sports that we handle.”
The training can be completed online and will take between 90 minutes and two hours, and each person who completes the training will get a certificate upon passing the training course. For some sports such as youth hockey, the change will be minimal as coaches and officials have already been completing the SafeSport program for the past year or two. The change will be other volunteers such as locker room monitors at tournaments will also complete it. “Coaches already have to do, for hockey, for instance, the coaches already have to go through it,” said Riopelle. “I believe the officials already have to go through. We do background checks as well, that is done statewide for these people. Also, the volunteers that are monitoring the locker rooms would have that. It’s not adding a whole lot to it, but it’s just making sure we give people an outlet if something does happen that they know where to report it. It’s educating people.”
