Means Committee meeting Monday focused primarily on the possible sale of parcel between the Fournet and Mason buildings, to developer Jeff Evers and on a preview of the new city website that will be released in the coming the months. Additionally, the committee voted to accept the 2017 audit report and heard from the Small Business Development Center’s director, Christine Anderson.
There was considerable discussion regarding the way to approach the parcel located between the Fournet and Mason buildings that Evers, requested for purchase for use during construction and the building of an egress stairway. There were three proposed options laid before the committee, to negotiate terms of sale, to negotiate terms of lease or to deny the request and the city maintain ownership. “Jeff Evers came forward and asked about a parcel that was adjacent to the Fournet building that he’d definitely need during construction,” commented City Administrator Shannon Stassen. “Rather than have dumpsters and trucks out on the street, he could keep it out in back of the building.” During about 20 minutes of discussion on whether this parcel should be bid on, like other city parcels put for sale. They also discussed the legality of not offering it for bid if the city decided that route was best. Councilmen Jake Fee and Steve Erickson had questions. Erickson asked if they should have to go to a bid process like they do with other properties. He added that if they do it for one property, they should do it for all of them. Fee said it would be fair in all cases and they would not be viewed as picking and choosing what property they sell and what property they put on bids. In the end the committee amended the proposed options to allow the city to enter into a development agreement for the sale or lease of the parcel to be determined later in the negotiation.
The committee also heard from Stassen and Christopher Lang, a city intern from the University of Minnesota Crookston, on the development of new, more user-friendly website. “The goal was to make the website more user friendly and make some things more prominent,” said Stassen. “The way that Christopher went about that was by using google analytics and it became apparent that Parks and Recreation was by far the number one reason people visited our website and we wanted to make sure that was as user friendly as possible.” Some of the positive data included 51,017 unique page view of the city website over the last year, and 1,470 unique page views of the Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority page over the past five months. The new website will also bolster the other parts of the website and make other aspects easier to use with a launch date to be determined sometime in the coming the months as the final kinks are worked out.
Christine Anderson also updated the committee on the Small Business Development Center. She has 11 clients and has spoken and begun application processes with seven additional potential clients. The clients cover a range of industries including manufacturing, recreation, health and wellness, retail and even a client interested in getting into housing development. Anderson also attended a national small business development conference in Washington, D.C. recently and believes she learned many things that can be applied to small businesses in Crookston and the surrounding northwest region. The Small Business Development Center is in the Valley Technology Park just north of the University of Minnesota Crookston campus.
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