In the spring and summer of the 2021-22 school year, the Crookston Public School district held a series of public informational meetings to help inform the public about a multi-use athletic outdoor facility they wished to build for the school. However, the referendum failed to pass for the district after being short by nine votes in August. Despite the school district failing to pass the referendum, the district is not ready to give up on passing the facility after seeing the strong support for it and is looking to hold another vote on the referendum with updated prices in February and is having another series of informational meetings to inform the public of it again.
The district will hold three meetings over the next three months for the public to come and learn about the facility and ask the school district questions about the facility’s construction and its impact on their taxes. The first meeting will be on Tuesday, December 13, at 6:30 p.m. in the Crookston High School Auditorium and is open for the public to come and participate. The meetings will have Interim Superintendent Dave Kuehn, along with other leading members on the referendum, including Activities Director Greg Garmen, the school’s financial experts, and the referendum’s architects giving a slideshow presentation and answering questions from the audience on how it will impact them and the community. “We’ll present the information via a slideshow on the big screen in the auditorium. Included in that presentation will be information on what’s being proposed, why we’re proposing this, and the benefits of it,” Interim Superintendent Dave Kuehn explained. “Then we’ll spend some time on the financial and tax impact because everyone wants to know how this will affect me in terms of taxes, and we want to make sure we share that important information with our stakeholders. Then, whether it’s during the presentation or after, if people have questions, we want to make sure we allow plenty of time for people to ask questions and try to answer them.” The school will also provide fact sheets to the public to give much of the same information about the referendum in case they cannot attend one of the three meetings.
To help spread the word about these meetings and the referendum and hopefully get enough votes for it this time. Kuehn and other school district members will meet with several local organizations around the community to help get assistance and endorsements for the referendum and spread information about it and its election. Some of these organizations include the Crookston Lions, the Crookston Rotary, the Crookston Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Crookston City Council. “There was strong support for this facility being built, and when you were short nine votes and some people maybe didn’t vote on either side of the yes/no, and we had some people that came up and said that they would’ve voted for it if they knew about it,” Kuehn explained. “So, I think by knowing that we have strong support for this proposed complex project, we want to get back out and get that information to all of our stakeholders so they can make a sound decision on February 14 with their votes. There are some things we’ll do differently, and most of that is working hard to spread the good work and the message about what this project is all about in terms of benefits and needs.” Kuehn said he would use these meetings to help spread information about the referendum outside of the meetings and to the stakeholders in Gentilly, Euclid, and other areas.
While there will be informational meetings again and private meetings for several groups in the community, Superintendent Kuehn and others in the school district are open for people to contact them to answer questions they may have about the referendum about it. The school also has information about it and other voting information on its website at www.crookston.k12.mn.us/district-proposedreferendum. The first meeting will be on Tuesday, December 13, at 6:30 p.m. in the Crookston High School Auditorium and is open for the public to come and participate. The second meeting will take place on Thursday, January 19, and the final meeting will be on Tuesday, February 7, with the vote taking place the following week on February 14 in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The meeting is open to the public, and all are welcome and encouraged to participate. “We hope to we reach a lot more of our district audience and that they are informed and see the need that this is something of benefit for the community and the district and that they will come out on February 14 and cast their vote, and we hope that they cast in favor of this project. Then we can move forward with the actual planning and getting things in place.”
We will have more information about each of the informational meetings when they occur, and about the school’s meeting dates with community organizations when they become available.
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