Month: June 2020

The Crookston Ways & Means Committee met Monday unanimously approving a request from the new owners of North Acres and Carmen Terrace mobile home parks, Andrew Keel and John Squartino, to have city garbage collection service in the parks.  The parks had previously been contracted out as a commercial property.

Mayor Dale Stainbrook noted that Carmen Terrace had been cleaned up and was looking nice since the change in ownership and Keel said they’d spent around $10,000 for dumpsters and cleanup of the property.  Squartino said he thinks it will be value-added to both the owners and tenants. “I think this is a big step for us getting the council’s approval of such a request,” said Squartino. “The tenants themselves at the onset might not see the value in it but I know from experience it something that will be a huge value add not just for the residents as well as the property owners.”

Public Works Director Pat Kelly said collection could begin in the mobile home parks the week of July 6 with Carmen Terrace being added to the Monday route and North Acres to the city’s Thursday garbage route. Each mobile home lot is charged individually for their water bill by the city and a garbage collection fee of $5 will be added to those bills. There is also a small RV park used primarily for seasonal workers that will be charged separately to the owners.

Next, the committee approved the renewal of a cash farm lease for 111 acres at $90 per acre for three years with the University of Minnesota Northwest Research and Outreach Center (NWROC) with an automatic renewal in 2023 with both party’s consent.

The committee reviewed and made no changes to the budget calendar for the 2021 budget process, although Councilman Jake Fee requested that a meeting be set up with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to discuss cost-sharing a downtown sidewalk project. Weasner said the budget cycle has a long-time line before the preliminary levy can be set. “I always put out the budget calendar, so the council sees it is a very long timeline start to finish,” said Weasner. “We are currently in the process where department heads are putting together their budget. I always ask the council for their input in case they want any projects or anything added to the budget. That way it is upfront, and we know about it ahead of time because once we set our preliminary levy in September, we can’t increase the budget, it can only go down.”

And a working group of Councilmen Jake Fee, Clayton Briggs, and Don Cavalier was created to provide guidance with the final steps before bringing a new liquor ordinance regarding brew pubs, and other establishments before the City Council explained Weasner. “It is just to give us some guidance,” said Weasner. “We only have three council members on there, so it’s not open to the public.  The information will be put out later once we get the final determination ready to go.  Each liquor establishment will get a copy of the proposed changes, so they can make any comments they want along with the council.”

The City of Crookston also received a quote for $36,983 for resurfacing tennis courts at Highland Park with an alternate option to add armor crack repair for an additional $25,677.  Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle was asked how long the basic resurfacing would hold up compared to adding the armor crack repair.  He told the committee cracks would begin to show up again next year if just resurfaced but the information he’d been given on the armor repair had a life expectancy of 10 years.

Councilman Dylane Klatt said he’d like to see a second bid but Riopelle explained he’d attempted contacting several places and this was the only bid the city had received this year and although past bids hadn’t included the armor option, the resurfacing was comparable.  Councilman Jake Fee said he thought the repair needed to be done but he wouldn’t approve a $37,000 expense if it was going to crack again next year.  Councilman Bobby Baird also asked about doing a mill and overlay on the court and Interim City Administrator said past estimates put that at approximately $188,000.

Citing the fact that last year Crookston wasn’t able to get the courts redone because nobody had time later in the year, the committee unanimously approved resurfacing the courts with the armor crack repair for a total of $62,660. Fee said he thought it was a good decision to spend a little extra to do the job right. “Highland Courts have looked pretty tough for a while,” said Fee. “One option was to resurface it and within a year we’d see the cracks back again. For another $25,000, we felt it was the right thing to do fill the cracks have it last where we won’t see the cracks for many years to come.  We’re hearing 10+ years before we’ll see those cracks show up again. This was one of those situations where the council said let’s spend the money, another $25,000, and do it right. It was a good action by the council tonight to get that completed yet this summer.”

Last year the city was unable to get the resurfacing scheduled so they used resurfacing funds to purchase park equipment originally scheduled for this year.  Weasner said that they’ll now use the park equipment funds for this year to complete the resurfacing. “We did reserve some money from last year because we’d originally tried to complete this project last year,” said Weasner. “We utilized $30,000 of it to get some additional park equipment (a year early), so we’ll be utilizing the additional $30,000 we reserved (for park equipment this year) for this project.”

The Committee then voted to place the lot 110 Lincoln Ave, which they’d previously received from the former owner who was unable to demolish and rebuild following a fire, up for public bid.  The city demolished the home for $7,500 and the committee added a $5,000 minimum to bids said Weasner, who explained the bid process. “We will be doing an advertisement with a sealed bid process with the clerk’s office to purchase the land that is 110 Lincoln,” said Weasner. “We will have a minimum bid price of $5,000. It will be open to anyone in or out of the city that wishes to put in an offer.”

The Crookston City Council met on Monday in the council chambers at city hall.  All items for the meeting were on the consent agenda including approving the June 8 meeting minutes, and city bills and disbursements totaling $253,351.89 were approved.

Included was a resolution to pay the final partial payment estimate of $26.840.80 to Davidson Construction for 2018 street improvements, and a resolution to declare property as surplus to be sold and set a bid opening for July 7 for impounded vehicles and surplus equipment. Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner said the several vehicles and other property will be available through a closed bid process due to the clerk’s office by 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 7. “There is some surplus property, especially from the fire department that had done some towing,” said Weasner. “Those vehicles have been stored by us for several years and it is time to do the process to get rid of those vehicles. They are surplus property, so you submit a bid to the clerk’s office by the deadline with how much you’d like to bid for that vehicle.”

The vehicles and equipment will be available for viewing at the Crookston City Shop Lot July 6-7 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. There are also resolutions to purchase a water softener for the Crookston Pool, to terminate an agreement for administrative services for the Crookston Visitor’s Bureau (CVB) with the Crookston Chamber. The termination was effective June 12 and the final termination was made tonight by Council explained Weasner. “It was effective on June 12 due to a different circumstance,” said Weasner. “We did the final termination tonight. The CVB will be operating under the city’s realm until their in a non-profit organization established with by-laws and everything in the future.”

The final items were a change in the Crookston Airport Master Plan grant dates to reflect the entire two-year process and amendments to the City of Crookston’s COVID-19 preparedness plan.  Weasner said the state had required several updates to the plan, most notably about ventilation. “The state had mandated that we have some additional guidelines in our preparedness plan that we had done back in May when we opened city hall again,” said Weasner. “So, I had to incorporate those changes before June 29. One of the biggest ones was ventilation in the building. We have to make sure we have maintenance records on changing filters and everything for the ventilation in the building to ensure the safety of all employees and citizens that come into the building.”

The Crookston School Board met on Monday night with all six board members in the Crookston High School choir/orchestra room for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

ENROLLMENT INCREASE
Superintendent Jeremy Olson shared the district had an increase of 70 ADM (Average Daily membership – equivalent to a student).  “We get paid as a school district based on the number of students enrolled in our district, so being up 70 students from last year is a big deal. I credit the increase with the excellent work our staff is doing and the programming we are seeing,” said Superintendent Olson.  “We saw open enrollment out of the district go down, and open enrollment into the district go up, and that is a healthy sign for our school district.”
The increased Crookston School District enrollment was only the third time in the last 20 years. “If you take the other two times and combine them, it would be a little more than half of the increase this year,” said Olson. “It is a very good sign and a nice first step.”

PROJECTING ENROLLMENT FOR THE 2020-21 SCHOOL YEAR
The district is staying on the conservative end when projecting the enrollment for the 2020-21 school year starting in September.  “What we do is take all of our grades and roll them down one year.  We take the seniors off and go all the way down to Kindergarten and project what it will be,” said Superintendent Olson. “I anticipate we will be a little down from where our enrollment is right now.  We don’t know what affect the pandemic will have on our enrollment.  I have heard a couple of families have moved out of the state, so we will continue to be cautious, but I am cautiously optimistic.”

PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOR 2020-21 SCHOOL YEAR APPROVED
The district’s preliminary budget for the 2020-21 school year was unanimously approved by the school board.  One of the biggest numbers in the budget is the $13 million expenditure to staff, including benefits.  The budget also included $150,000 for technology, money for the sixth-grade field trip to Itasca State Park, building construction of $2.8 million for the bus garage, and one item that continues to decline is the retirement fund (retirement benefits fund) of $194,000. “Our enrollment is going up, which is a good thing.  We have a good fund balance and the bus garage project going on,” said Crookston School District Business Manager Laura Lyczewski. “We are still waiting to find out more on the CARES funding.  We don’t know what we will need for sanitizing the building, so we are waiting to find out more on that.”

Superintendent Olson said they would continue to stay conservative, “We are continuing to stay conservative with our revenue projections, so we aren’t overestimating our revenues.  We are looking at our enrollments and staying conservative with our numbers to make sure we are safe.  The budget will be similar to last year, and we will continue to be conservative in our revenues.”

LOCAL LITERACY PLAN
The school board approved the local literacy plan for the 2020-21 school year. “We want all students reading well by third grade,” said Superintendent Olson. “The plan talks about our strategies and how to identify students that aren’t reading well and what we are going to do about it.  We need to have an intervention program in place for them, and we want to make sure all kids are reading well by third grade.”

SCHOOL LUNCH TO GO UP FIVE CENTS
The board approved a five-cent increase for school lunch prices.  Breakfast prices will stay the same. “We feel for the families and want to keep the price down as low as possible,” said Superintendent Olson. “We aren’t trying to make money.  We are trying to break even, and we thought the five-cent increase would sufficiently cover the increased costs.”

NEW KINDERGARTEN TEACHER HIRED
The school board added an item to the consent agenda at the start of the meeting and later approved the employment of Elizabeth Erickson as a Kindergarten teacher. 

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS
Highland School Principal Chris Trostad thanked Jake Fee and the Eagles Club for the donation of $2,500 towards the Itasca State Park field trip for the sixth-grade students and another $2,500 to the Crookston Pirate Girls Hockey team.

Crookston High School Principal Eric Bubna said they should have a decision on the graduation ceremony and prom that will be held at the end of July in the next week or so.  They are awaiting feedback from the Minnesota Department of Education before making any decisions.

MISC.
The board approved the current bills, an employment agreement with Rick Niemela (Transportation/Building and Grounds Director).  They also approved a letter of assignment with Mike Delorme as bus mechanic and Nancy Nottestad as payroll accountant/fiscal services.
The board approved membership with the Minnesota Rural Education Association and a housing incentive abatement in cooperation with the City of Crookston.  

NEXT MEETING
The next Crookston School Board meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 27, at 5:00 p.m. at the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room.

The Minnesota Department of Health is reporting 308 new cases of COVID-19 from 8,664 tests with 4 new deaths. No new cases were reported in northwest Minnesota. All the numbers are below –

Updated June 22, 2020
Updated daily at 11 a.m., with data current as of 4 p.m. the previous day.

Data is for cases that were tested and returned positive. All data is preliminary and may change as cases are investigated. Many data points are collected during case interviews. Data presented below is for all cases, regardless of interview status. Data for cases pending interview may be listed as “unknown/missing.”

Not all suspected cases of COVID-19 are tested, so this data is not representative of the total number of people in Minnesota who have or had COVID-19. Cumulative numbers are since Jan. 20, 2020.

• Minnesota COVID-19 Public Dashboard
• Minnesota’s COVID-19 Response and Preparation Capacity
• CDC: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Cases in the U.S.
• Minnesota COVID-19 Modeling

Data in the data tables is correct as of 11 a.m. daily. Dynamic images and maps for case demographics, likely exposure, residence, and residence type will update shortly after 11 a.m. daily and will not work if your browser is in compatibility mode.