Month: July 2020

The Ways & Means Committee had one agenda item, a payment of $4,048 to aid in the plan and participate in a grant to receive $98,000 from the Greater Minnesota Parks and Trails Commission. According to the description on the agenda, the plan would specifically address outreach and marketing strategies that target diverse and underserved populations such as new Americans, Native Americans, people of Latino heritage, low-income individuals, the disabled, the elderly, and those that have not experienced activities on and around the river.

Councilman Jake Fee said if the project is primarily about marketing, the Crookston Chamber as well as the Crookston Visitor’s Bureau, do that for Crookston and that could be a better use of the funds. “See if the money is going to go toward marketing or branding for the people that haven’t had the river experience here in town,” said Fee. “We’re just trying to get a little more information on it. I think a lot of the council felt that if it’s going toward providing that experience for people that haven’t had the opportunity then we’re for it. But if we get lost in marketing or branding that we feel is more of a Chamber or Visitor’s Bureau role then we maybe want to see it play out that way. Just to get more information on where the $98,000 would be spent in each community.”

Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle told the committee the information said that each event, Crookston would have two river-based events, would have approximately $5,100 in expenses such as equipment, instructors, or other needs. Councilman Steve Erickson noted that none of the information the committee received had any of that information. The item was tabled with a request for a more complete picture of the project.

Fee also requested that a committee be put together as soon as possible to create a grant program for Crookston businesses to use approximately $500,000 the city received from the CARES Act. “That’s one item I think I will probably sound like a broken record on eventually,” said Fee. “I’ll be bringing it up at every meeting that we try to get this committee formed as soon as possible and start getting in a situation where the city can be for to be accepting grants for business affected by COVID. The state did not issue any additional guidelines so let’s get CHEDA, Angel and a couple of members of the City Council to sit down to say – how do we want this to look, how are we going to do things, how are we going to accept it? I think the faster that we can get money into businesses that have been affected by COVID is all the better. We now know we can’t use it for loss of revenue. We can only use it for expenses. Really, the city hasn’t had a lot of expenses to take on. It’s extra sanitizer, extra cleaning supplies. I think we’re going to be seeing over $500,000 we can issue on grants. The sooner we can get that into some of these struggling businesses that have been affected by COVID would be a very good thing.”

Mayor Dale Stainbrook said a discussion on a committee would be added to a special City Council meeting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21 but that the city had some time to spend the money. “I’ll have to talk to Angel (Weasner, Interim City Administrator) to see if we can do that,” said Stainbrook. “I know Angel has talked about it and working with CARES Act there is an application process. I’m not sure what all the red tape we can and can’t do with federal money. That would be in Angel’s wheelhouse. And I get it, we want to get moving on it, but, also, we have until I think November 20th to spend this out.”

Stainbrook said there were 31 applicants for the position during the second posting, and David Drown Associates (DDA) had narrowed it down to 13 semifinalists, of which, one had since dropped out. Councilman Tom Vedbraaten asked if the communications with DDA about candidates were being shared with Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority Executive Director Craig Hoiseth because the two positions need to work closely together and Vedbraaten felt Hoiseth should be involved. Stainbrook said he’d talk to Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner, who was not present, about involving Hoiseth, but added that they can’t just send the information to everybody in town.

Stainbrook also told the committee members they needed to review the semifinalist videos for City Administrator that they’d be receiving this week prior to the special meeting next week to select the finalists. “Liza from David Drown Associates are putting together a finalist list,” said Stainbrook. “Each candidate or potential administrator had to send a video, kind of a resume, on why they’d be a good fit for our city. So, as a council, we have to review these 12 applicants and narrow it down to how many we want to bring up for an interview.”

The committee also reviewed the process of tree clean-up on sidewalks and nuisance mowing. Public Works Director Pat Kelly noted that by city code, tree trimming is the responsibility of residents, but the city often will help out if its around sidewalks when they can get to it. Tree trimming and nuisance mowing should be directed to City Hall.

The Crookston City Council voted on Monday night to extend the sidewalks along Radisson Road as part of the street project underway there. The vote is contingent on a legal check to ensure a public hearing isn’t required for that particular change.  The sidewalks would extend through the Hoven Lane Park on the south side of the road and to the University Avenue path on the north side of the road.

Kim Goosen, a resident on Radisson Road, said he didn’t think Councilman Steve Erickson did a very good job of canvassing the neighborhood earlier this spring listing several neighbors, including himself, hadn’t been contacted. Goosen said he didn’t want sidewalks earlier this year, but he has changed is mind and is in favor of the sidewalks now. “I hope it does happen,” said Goosen. “For the safety of kids and we’re getting more and more young families in our neighborhood and walking that way. I personally don’t want to see a kid get run over. The simple fact is my kids are all grown up. I see the young families coming up and you have to change your mind, get with the times once in a while I guess. Just safety is the bottom line. We’re not going to fight city hall, but have to put the right foot forward, I guess.”

The council unanimously approved the addition of the sidewalks to the project as long as public notice is not required. City Attorney Corky Reynolds felt the change might be more than a simple change order, while Public Works Director Pat Kelly said the additional sidewalks would not add any additional cost to the residents. Councilman Bobby Baird said the biggest concern is safety, but he thinks this change is a good deal. “One of the biggest things is the concern for safety,” said Baird. “Walking out in the street or the elderly walking in that grass and it’s muddy, the biggest thing is safety. I think it’s a good deal for anybody that walks. It brings you right up to the Dairy Queen, up to University Drive. There is no cost to the homeowners, so I just felt it would be a good deal.”

Michelle Christopherson asked that the city bring back the digital option for watching and interacting with meetings that they’d used during the stay-at-home order. Councilman Jake Fee said he agreed they should be continuing it because people didn’t always have time to come to city hall, but they could watch it at home or wherever they may be. And Councilman Tom Vedbraaten said now that the city had the ability to do it they should be doing so.

The remaining items were on the consent agenda and Baird pulled the bills and disbursements from the consent agenda to questions three bills. First, he asked why the payment ($2,500) to Premier Pyrotechnics was so low. The payment was the 50 percent down payment.  Baird then questioned why the spraying at Ray Ecklund (Highland) Complex was being done by Team Lab Chemical Corporation out of Detroit Lakes for $7,770 instead of being contracted to someone in town. Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle said they have used this company for many years because that’s what the company does. Baird said it needed to be offered to local companies like those recently discussed for other parks, saying it irks him when money leaves town when local companies do the same work. “That’s a concern, $7,700 and I brought up a couple of weeks ago we have some local guys that do $46 an acre,” said Baird. “You look at $7,700 dollars, how many times is this being done and stuff. Doggone it, we need to keep this stuff in this town and support these guys. That’s a big concern to me. I think we need to look at it hard. It irks me…it just irks me that it’s out of town again.”

Baird also asked Riopelle how many hours were on a mower that needed to have some engine repair recently. Riopelle said he wasn’t sure, but Baird invited him to stop by Best Used Trucks to check out some new conditioners and additives they’ve been using to preserve similar engines in their motors to increase its life. The bills then passed unanimously, as did the rest of the consent agenda.

The Tim and Kay Rolf family of McIntosh has been named Polk County’s “2020 Farm Family of the Year” by the University of Minnesota.

Tim’s parents, Truman and Agnes, took over the dairy farm from Truman’s parents in 1950. The couple grew the dairy to 65 cows. Tim and his brother, Dave, purchased the dairy farm from their parents in 1989. Seven years later, the brothers started a 200-sow farrow-to-finish hog operation. Later, they added buildings for a 3,000-sow farrow-to-wean pig business.

In 2016, Tim, along with his son, Derek, launched Golden Sunrise Dairy Incorporated. This year they moved into a new milking facility featuring robotic milking, feeding and manure cleaning. The Rolfs also grow corn and hay for their livestock. 

Tim and Derek take care of the field work and the dairy. Tim’s wife, Kay, handles the bookkeeping. The Rolfs’ daughters, Ashley and Brittany, are employed at Greater Minnesota Management in Mentor, Minn., and help on the farm when needed.

Tim served on the McIntosh Creamery board for 20 years and Derek was a member of the local DHIA board. The Rolfs are members of Trinity Free Lutheran Church near McIntosh where Derek serves as board secretary. Tim is a member of the board of directors of Bethany Bible Camp.

Though COVID-19 has forced cancellation of the annual Minnesota Farmfest, where the awards are presented each August, this year’s honorees will be celebrated in an online video tribute. The recognition, lead by University of Minnesota President Joan Gabel, will be available at 1 p.m., Aug. 6 at mnfarmfamilies.cfans.umn.edu.

Honored families are chosen, one per county, by local University of Minnesota Extension committees based on their demonstrated commitment to their communities and to enhancing and supporting agriculture.

“We’ll miss the face-to-face ceremony for the 2020 Farm Families of the Year, but nothing diminishes pride we take in celebrating their accomplishments,” said Extension Dean Bev Durgan. “These families represent the best in agriculture. They’re innovative and dedicated to their communities; they are stewards of the land.”

A complete list of the 2020 Farm Families of the Year will be available at mnfarmfamilies.CFAMS.umn.edu.       

Along with Farmfest, University units sponsoring the recognition event include University of Minnesota Extension, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, and the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Following the advice of public health experts, Governor Tim Walz today signed Executive Order 20-78, extending the COVID-19 peacetime emergency that gives the state flexibility in responding to rapidly-evolving issues stemming from COVID-19. Including Minnesota, 49 out of 50 states remain in a COVID-19 state of emergency.

“COVID-19 continues to present an unprecedented and rapidly evolving challenge to our state,” said Governor Walz. “The peacetime emergency has provided us tools to save lives and mitigate the devastating impacts of this pandemic. As cases skyrocket in other states, we can’t let our guard down now.”

“The emergency is not over,” said Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan. “Minnesotans are relying on us to respond in real-time to a virus that we are still learning more about. We cannot end necessary protections that are saving lives and keeping people safe.”

Minnesotans’ health and safety are the Governor’s first priority. Since the Governor declared a peacetime emergency, Minnesota has taken strong steps to respond to and provide relief for COVID-19 by enhancing protections for veterans in our veterans’ homes, activating the National Guard to assist in relief efforts, partnering with Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota to launch a statewide testing strategy to test all symptomatic people, and providing economic relief and stability to those impacted by the pandemic.

Below are more examples of how the peacetime emergency has allowed Minnesota to effectively and efficiently respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coordinated Emergency Response
During the peacetime emergency, the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) remains fully activated and staffed either physically or virtually by all state agencies and several volunteer organizations to keep Minnesotans safe and coordinate efforts to provide essential services and information during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The SEOC received more than $1.7 million in supplemental emergency funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The SEOC is redistributing the funding to local emergency managers for their COVID-19 response expenses.
• Logistics staff in the SEOC are working with FEMA to prepare for the movement of supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile.
• The SEOC continues to support Minnesota National Guard efforts to conduct testing at long-term care facilities in the state.
• SEOC staff is working with the State Healthcare Coordination Center to monitor critical care capacities at hospitals across Minnesota.

Testing
The peacetime emergency allowed the State to broker a breakthrough testing deal. In April, Governor Walz, representatives of the state’s health care delivery systems, the Mayo Clinic, and the University of Minnesota launched a statewide testing strategy to test all symptomatic people, isolate confirmed cases, and expand public health surveillance tools. Since then we have built capacity and increased testing and tracing to help improve control of this pandemic and support the safe re-opening of society.

The partnership significantly improved control of COVID-19 in Minnesota through increased public health surveillance and research. The Minnesota Department of Health and its public health partners simultaneously expanded contact tracing efforts for better control of the infection. Additionally, the partnership has helped identify and respond to emerging “hotspots” of infection. We have:

• Established free testing at six National Guard Armory locations across Minnesota throughout the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

• Reached the milestone of developing a daily capacity of 20,000 COVID-19 molecular tests by July.
• Completed over 700,000 tests to date. As part of the state’s testing command center, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota are now able to provide additional testing capacity to more than 265 health care organizations across the state.
• Made testing capacity available through the state initiative’s testing command center, which connects the provider with COVID-10 diagnostic testing through Mayo Clinic Laboratories or U of M labs. This supported health care providers when they needed more testing capacity than they had available at their local laboratories, or when an outbreak emerged.
• Deployed this resource for numerous pop-up testing events, including Duluth, Moorhead, St. James, and Faribault, Mower County, and in Minneapolis and Saint Paul following protests and large gatherings in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

Procurement
Without a peacetime emergency, we cannot do procurement and contract tracing quickly. This is a critical component of our ability to respond nimbly to rapidly changing conditions. More specifically, the peacetime emergency authorities allow us to work with nontraditional vendors and to execute procurement contracts at exceptional speed, without lengthy bidding processes. Without this ability, the normal bidding processes can take 90 days or more. These are the authorities that have allowed us to buy critical supplies, initiate contracts for testing, make emergency hires, and assist farmers with depopulation.

Working without the peacetime emergency authorities would create a significant challenge and slowdown in the state’s response efforts and ability to provide emergency aid across the state quickly – particularly with the current number of deaths and new cases.

The peacetime emergency also allowed the Administration to quickly build out an Alternate Care Site in Roseville. The facility will be used to address hospital capacity issues to provide low-level medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health and Human Services
The State been able to quickly respond to the COVID-19 crisis and largely keep our health and human services systems intact, ensuring access to our most vulnerable populations through the authorities granted by the Governor’s emergency powers. Most importantly, people have not had to choose between risking their health or foregoing the critical services they need. We have:

• Expanded inpatient bed capacity by 2,287 beds across the state while also ensuring that no Minnesotan loses their health care or other benefits during this time.
• Waived program requirements to conform with federal requirements to receive an enhanced federal match for public programs. This resulted in over $50 million a month in federal funding.
• Created flexibilities for critical services such as nursing homes, mental health services, disability services, and child care centers to operate in the new world of COVID-19.
• Allowed critical services to be delivered through telemedicine and have provided flexibility in licensing requirements that would otherwise make these services impossible to access during these times.
• Allowed Minnesotans, through modifications and waivers, to stay home and stay safe, a critical need that is just as important today as it was when we issued the emergency powers four months ago.
• Changed, reduced, and postponed various licensing requirements for health-related and first responder boards, to help those professionals focus on their jobs.

• Allowed out of state mental health providers to continue seeing patients in Minnesota. This is especially important to college students who were sent home from school but wanted to continue treatment.

Education
The shift to distance learning was a necessary precaution to protect students, their families, educators, and the surrounding communities. Closing schools for eight days to allow educators to prepare as much as possible allowed them to pivot in a very big way. Through the peacetime emergency, and by working in partnership with the Legislature, we have given our schools the ability to maneuver big changes by providing more funding flexibility and access to technology and maintaining stable childcare for essential workers. We have:

• Provided flexibility for fund transfers that allow districts and schools to remain as whole as possible.
• Placed a focus on finding creative ways to deploy all staff in school buildings, at congregate sites, on school buses, and through telework. Creating funding flexibilities also facilitated this creativity like allowing special education paras to help with meal prep and distribution.

• Helped schools continue to provide daily meals to students during a time of distance learning when students are not in school buildings.
• Ensured care for children of critical workers – from healthcare providers to first responders to grocery workers – is not a barrier for those workers to continue their important roles on the frontlines.
• Authorized and directed the Commissioner of Education to provide a safe and effective summer learning environment for Minnesota’s students.
• Announced a public-private partnership of philanthropic and business leaders from across Minnesota that aims to meet the technology and connectivity needs of families with school-aged children. ConnectedMN’s goal is to bring technology and internet access to students across the state, especially communities most in need, including Indigenous students and students of color, students from low-income families, and families residing in rural Minnesota.

Jobs & Economic Security
The uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic creates financial instability for many Minnesotans. Due to the peacetime emergency, the state has been able to provide housing support, assistance to small businesses, and worker support. We have:

• Suspended eviction proceedings during the COVID-19 peacetime emergency. Loss of housing is catastrophic at any time, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, this loss endangers the health and well-being of all Minnesotans.
• Moved to ensure that eligible laid-off workers were able to quickly access Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits and that businesses’ “experience ratings” would not be impacted when former workers were provided UI benefits during the pandemic.
• Protected workers from unsafe working conditions and retaliation during the COVID-19 peacetime emergency.