The Crookston City Council met on Monday night in the Council Chambers at City Hall. It was the final meeting for Councilmen Jake Fee and Bobby Baird who both lost in their reelection bids in November.
Councilman Jake Fee thanked several people and alluded to Crookston being in a better place now than it was. “Would like to thank everybody,” said Fee. “Amy (Finch, City Administrator), it’s been a short but pleasurable experience. I think Crookston is in very good hands with you leading it. Angel (Weasner, City of Crookston Finance Director), thanks for everything you’ve done in your 8 1/2 years for the City of Crookston, especially the last year of doing just about everything. All the department heads and Crookston should feel pretty good about where they’re going. The new Council will do great. I think things are much better now. Just appreciate everything that everybody does for the city and we’re in good hands.”
An emotional Bobby Baird also thanked many of the people in the room Monday night including among others Superintendent Jeremy Olson, Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle, City Attorney Corky Reynolds, and the local media. “Tim (Froeber, Fire Chief), thanks for everything you guys do at the fire department,” said Baird. “Thanks for Toys for Tots which you guys do. What a good thing for a lot of kids that can’t have a good Christmas. It’s been great…I learned a lot. A lot of great people in this town. I can’t thank Dale (Stainbrook, Mayor), Angel, Amy – I know its been short, good Council people – we had our ups and downs but this is Crookston, we all stand behind it. Sometimes we’ve got to pull our teeth but Ashley you’ve done good. Chief (Police Chief Paul) Biermaier, don’t worry, I’ll watch you. Learned a lot with Pat (Kelly, Public Works Director). And Craig Hoiseth (Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority Executive Director), CHEDA, the B3 (Building Better Business program) stuff I have to say I know the money is there but I hope we can continue to get businesses so we can use that.”
The B3 program was given an additional $50,000 of funding through a resolution on the consent agenda. All the meeting items were passed as a part of the consent agenda, which was approved unanimously. The City Council also heard from Shirley Iverson and Jess Bengtson representing the Downtown Crookston Development Partnership. Shirley Iverson said they had a successful 2020. “We did a great 2019 employee survey of the people who work downtown – what you’d like to have,” said Iverson. “We used that as a roadmap to build our 2020 goals. Now we’ve done a 2020 survey with Don Cavalier and his Ward. That’s really crafting the direction we want to go into 2021. We had a couple of food trucks every week, some excitement downtown, Chalk It Up.”
Bengtson continued with a few of the new events and some ideas for 2021. “We had Food Truck Fest besides the weekly food trucks in spring, summer, and fall,” said Bengtson. “We had a Halloween event which was new this year, a new Small Business Saturday event where we partnered with different artists, home vendors and things like that. We purchased a generator for food trucks, some “Downtown” benches, and then, in 2021 we want to build upon that. Get some bridges lighted. Do some fun artistic things and keep building partnerships, community events, and things like that.”
Froeber reported that the Toys for Tots campaign was able to provide toys for 250 kids in Crookston this year, which were delivered on Christmas Eve. He also said first responders in Crookston would begin receiving the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine later this week. Hoiseth also reported CHEDA will be working with Polk County again for the distribution of the latest COVID-19 relief.
A handout on the DCDP update is below –
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab
