The Crookston Ways & Means Committee met on Monday night, approving the city staff to further explore upgrades to the city’s garbage service using a possible fee increase of $5 a month to explore purchasing a new truck that would allow for rolling bins. The increase to a $10 fee would be about half the initial cost proposed by a private service earlier this year without the annual raises for inflation that were proposed.
Councilman Jake Fee said he’s in favor of moving this way but knows some of his residents are concerned about being able to move bins, so he’ll want that addressed before it moves forward. “Overall, I’ve been a big fan of moving in this direction,” said Fee. “You see, almost every community go with this with the bigger bins for recycling and garbage. The first time when we had a private company come in and put a bid in, there were a few concerns, including the rising inflation costs up to eight percent. That raised a concern that we wouldn’t be able to keep our prices under control for some who couldn’t afford it. And there was a concern raised by some of our older residents that the bins might not be ideal for them to be able to continue to live in their house having to push them down their driveway. On the contingency that we will continue to look into how we provide services for people that might not have the ability, we’ll continue to move it down the road, keep on looking at it, and possibly have a different type of collection coming up.”
Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner told the Council that a $2 fee increase is needed for the city to currently break even on the garbage service while a $5 increase could lead to the purchase of a truck and bins within five years. That timeline could be shortened if the Council were to approve financing for the purchase. Weasner said she’ll work on the budget using the $5 increase the committee approved her to work with to continue discussions in the next year. “I’m going to put into the budget process the amounts that they recommended tonight,” said Weasner. “I will work with the Public Works Director (Pat Kelly) on the particulars of that. We will look into leasing or borrowing the funds to purchase the truck and the carts. There is going to be a fine line of the payback versus borrowing and what we have on hand. In the next year, there will be some discussions regarding all of that. Some of the Council would like to see it purchased next year, and it may not be feasible. It may be another year after that. The research will be done and will do all kinds of scenarios to ensure the process. But when the utility rate does go up, there will be a public hearing for all citizens to make comments.”
The committee also approved staff to work to create a grant program for businesses using the CARES ACT funds through the Development and Policy Review Committee, which works with the IRP funds. Weasner said she’d use the committee to help create the guidelines, applications, and make recommendations on grant applications to the Council. “The potential guidelines will be finalized and submitted to the Development and Policy Review Committee, commonly called the IRP committee,” said Weasner. “They will review those guidelines and assist in the application process to ensure we are fair and equitable for all businesses. We will present that to the Council, and then applications can be submitted by businesses. And the IRP committee will review applications and make recommendations to the Council.”
Also approved was $4,048 over two years for a grant that would enable the Red Lake River Corridor group project to hold twelve events during the next two years. Councilman Tom Vedbraaten asked if any of the other communities involved had approved the expense and was told all of them had. Fee said he still believes it’s a little heavy on marketing but that at the end of the day, it seems worth the investment from the city. “At the end of the day, it came down to I believe each event was going to get $5,100,” said Fee. “About $5,100 to put toward each event to go toward equipment and other items to put towards each event in town. There were a few items that I thought were a little expensive, like a video library, but at the end of the day, it was more good than bad. So, it’s a low investment to get some more activity on the river hopefully.”
Each of the communities is providing $4,048 in matching funds for the $98,000 grant from the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission. By engaging in the grant, each community will host two events over two years listed below –
Crookston
- Safety, fun and water event at Central Park
- Paddling race from Gentilly Bridge to Central Park
East Grand Forks
- Catfish Tournament
- Triathlon on the Greenway
Fisher
- Safety, fun and water event
- Hiking and paddling event
Red Lake Falls
- Cultural significance themed event at Old Crossing Treaty Park
- Mountain Biking event
St. Hilaire
- Safety, fun and water event
- Hiking and paddling event
Thief River Falls
- Biking/Mountain Biking event
- Water Safety/Intro to paddling
The committee also approved a change to the budget schedule with the first budget meeting on August 10. And It gave city staff permission to make minor changes to the COVID-19 preparedness plan without council approval. Crookston Chamber Executive Director Terri Heggie also presented the schedule for the city administrators being in town, which would begin with a city tour on August 12. The proposed start time was 1 p.m., but that may change to 12:30 p.m. pending candidate flights, followed by a community meet and greet at 5 p.m. The Council will then conduct interviews and possibly make a selection on August 13. The schedule for candidates to be in town is below.
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